Groaty Pudding

A few weeks ago, when my parents were in town, I was going to cook dinner for the four of us. I checked online to find some possible recipes that included some of the ingredients we already had in our fridge from the veg delivery and found a recipe for kasha with toasted walnuts and onions. Jason loves kasha and I thought it would make a good side to roasted fish and fennel. I got up early and left to check the markets around our flat for kasha. There was not one kernel of barley to be found. Not at Sainsbury's not at Harrods2 not at Holland and Barret, a healthfood store, not at Marks and Spencer. Turns out I was looking in the wrong place.

This afternoon, post call, we were flipping around on the television and settled on Saturday Kitchen a show on BBC 2 about, you guessed it, cooking. One segment showed Keith Floyd in the Black Country learning how to make a dish called groaty pudding. Groaty pudding is a dish made with meat, onions, leeks, beef broth, and groats or kasha, as they're (apparently erroneously) called in America. They've been making this dish for hundreds of years. You put all these things in a pot and bake them, at a very low temperature, for 16 hours. Okay, so you're asking yourself, "Self, why is she telling me this?"

The most important thing I learned from Mr. Floyd...turns out the place to buy groats here in England?

The pet store.