Ep 295: George Egg

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Speaker 1 Welcome to the off-menu podcast, taking the baked potato of conversation, adding in the baked beans of humor and the pre-grated cheese of friendship. Scumdily upshots.
Yum, yum, yum, yum.

Speaker 1 That's Ed Gamble. My name is James A.
Cars. And together we own a dream restaurant.

Speaker 1 And every single week, we're inviting the guests and asking their favourite ever start and main course dessert, side dish and drink, but not in that order. This week, our guest is...
George Egg.

Speaker 1 George Egg, in many ways, is the perfect guest for this podcast, James. Yes, he's a comedian.
He's a chef. When we we started Stand Up, Ed and I, we mainly knew George as a comedian.

Speaker 1 He was around the clubs tearing the roof off every single night. And then he started doing a food themed show, which I think we'll talk about with George.
And then that has evolved over the years.

Speaker 1 And now he's the snack hacker. He's the snack hacker.
Very successful online videos where George hacks snacks.

Speaker 1 He takes like, you know, things that you can buy just off the supermarket shelves or at a petrol station, that sort of stuff, and just upgrades it, turns it into a delicious gourmet snack.

Speaker 1 Pimps them up. Pimps them up.
And finally, George has a book called The Snack Hacker, which is out on the 5th of June and available to pre-order now. And all of those fun, crazy recipes are in there.

Speaker 1 It says here, this thing's like deep-fried pot noodle, microwave, shakshuka, and twiglet brownies, which initially when I read that, I thought, holy shit. But then you think about it, and yeah.

Speaker 1 Delicious. I'm speaking.

Speaker 1 I've made some of George's snack hacker recipes. They are very easy and straightforward, fun as well to do, and all taste amazing.
Great.

Speaker 1 We're very much looking forward to speaking to lovely George Egg. Yes.

Speaker 1 He's a good egg. He's a good egg.
But listen, even good eggs go bad sometimes.

Speaker 1 If George Egg says a secret ingredient, an ingredient which we deem to be unacceptable, we are going to kick him out of the dream restaurant. And this week, the secret ingredient is snacker jacks.

Speaker 1 Snacker Jacks, because it sounds a bit like snack hacker, isn't it? Snack a hack. Snack a hack, the snack a hack.
Hacker snack. Jack a snack, snack hacker.
Snack a jacker. Hacker jacket.

Speaker 1 Hacker jacket. Obviously, the way to go you would have thought would be to pick egg.
Yes. But that's in everything, really, isn't it? It's such a common ingredient.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We'd be kicking George out so early, and that seems stupid when we've got a comedian who has a cookbook

Speaker 1 on our comedy food podcast to just kick him out because he said egg. We were just going to hope that he doesn't say snacker jacks.
But here's the thing. He might do.
We're not playing it easy. No.

Speaker 1 Because George, as we've said, gets stuff that you can just get on the supermarket shelves, snacks that already exist, pimps them up, and he loves those. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He might have

Speaker 1 a Snacker Jack Snacker hack that he does. Snacker Jacks would add texture to a lot of things.
Yeah. Oh, man.
The thing is, George is going to be so sad if we kick him out. Yeah, he's such a nice man.

Speaker 1 He's really looking forward to being on this podcast because he knows it's perfect for him. If we kick him out, it's going to genuinely hurt his feelings.

Speaker 1 It's not going to be like Jade Adams when she was like really leaning into it. Like, ah.
Yeah, and that was on Zoom. So she was at home.
So she's... Yeah.
She didn't care.

Speaker 1 He doesn't live in London. If he lives in Brighton or Hove or something, he'll have driven here or got the train, which is a nightmare to London.

Speaker 1 That's the worst place in the country you can get the train to London from. If he comes here, sits down, and then we...

Speaker 1 Famously, Benito. That's true.
That's true. Yeah, that's that's Benito.
I know you might think it's just an hour away, but like that. Southern Rail is an absolute nightmare.
They cancel all the time.

Speaker 1 They cancel all the time. People hate it.

Speaker 1 It's the go-to butt of any train joke. Yes.
It's Southern Rail. That's got many an applause break on Mock of the Week.

Speaker 1 May it rest in peace.

Speaker 1 Who would have thought Southern Rail would last longer than Mock of the Week? Yeah, I mean, it had the last laugh, I guess.

Speaker 1 But, George. Or the laugh replacement service.
Oh, brilliant stuff. You say that in scenes we'd like to see your tether root.

Speaker 1 But George will be very, very sad. If we say, George, bad luck, you said snacker jacks, you're kicked off.
He'll go, no, really?

Speaker 1 You won't be like, ha ha ha. He'll go, really?

Speaker 1 Are you serious? Yes. Yes, bye-bye.
Bye. Goodbye.
I hope you. I've just checked the trends, they're all cancelled.

Speaker 1 Good luck hacking that.

Speaker 1 Good luck hacking the mail replacement service. Which is why we're telling you now his book is called The Snack Hacker.
Yes. And you should all get it.
It's available for pre-order. So look, get it.

Speaker 1 There's the plug because who knows how long George is going to last on this? Let's see. This is the off-menu menu of George Egg.

Speaker 1 Welcome, George, to the Dream Restaurant. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 Welcome, George Egg, to the Dream Restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time.
I think, well, I think I've been

Speaker 1 wanting to come here for some time. And there you are.
There's the genie. There's the Maitre D.
Matri D, yeah. I think we're still sticking with Maitre D, aren't we? I mean,

Speaker 1 suits. I love that you're the Maitre D.
Thank you. Here's a question.
Yes. Off the bat.
What sort of a genie, well, what sort of a waiter are you? That's what I want to know.

Speaker 1 Yes. Well, this is your dream restaurant.
So I am your dream waiter. But what are the different types of waiters that are in your mind? Well, I don't, I get stressed in restaurants, various reasons.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of it kind of harks back to being a student and not having much money and worrying about bill splitting anxieties. Yes, okay, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, you know, I'll go in and I'll go, I'll go, all right, I'm going to have,

Speaker 1 I won't have a starter, I'll have tap water or whatever. And then everyone around me starts getting cocktails.
Yeah, and then I'm thinking, well, what's gonna happen at the end of the

Speaker 1 night? And then a thing that compounds that is when you've got a waiter who's very sort of trigger happy with the topping up. So I've had that with water, worse, I've had that with wine.

Speaker 1 So they'll be like me and someone else, and we've bought a bottle of wine between, or I'm assuming we're going to split the wine. And I'll be drinking mine a little bit slower than they will.

Speaker 1 And then the waiter's kind of nipping in and topping the side. So I despise that.
Yes,

Speaker 1 I will not be top-up up charlie i i those people i i do find it very stressful even if it's like with you know tap water and it's free so but but they're just constantly because i want to have a chat with the person i'm talking to i don't want this person dipping in yeah suddenly they're on my shoulder filling up a water and then they're gone again and i know if i have a sip they're going to be back in to get it to the level that it was at yeah

Speaker 1 i don't want to hate that i had that in a restaurant once but yeah i actually wrote to the restaurant afterwards

Speaker 1 to let them know that this one waiter i said you know he's doing a great job, but it's just, it's too much. And we actually, we were going to order dessert.

Speaker 1 We ended up just kind of going, should we go somewhere else? Yeah. Because he was topping up all the time.
He was just too, too attentive. See, that's what, I mean, what a balance for that guy, right?

Speaker 1 Because he's also like, I've got to do my job here. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, but I guess it is just that is the fine balance of being good at that job is knowing when to stand back and when yeah, I think that's that I've seen what's his name Fred. What's it?

Speaker 1 Fred Fred Syriacs. Yeah.
Yeah. Talking about about waiting, you know, and you've got a you've got a ghost in and out and you know you don't even know they're there that's

Speaker 1 although i don't want to not know you're there well because you're well you're you're you're a genie for a star yeah well i could make myself invisible and still keep you topped up that's true or really i mean i should just like you know be able to cast some sort of spell on your drink that means i would say that it tops up and also does it by itself the the the big concern here is i'm not paying no look no one's paying yeah so

Speaker 1 you don't need to worry about how much wine the other person's having by the way i understand that so much And it is pathetic, isn't it? Going, they're getting more wine than me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We want it to be fair. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Fair. Can you bring us two half bottles?

Speaker 1 Here's another thing. What about this? When a waiter comes up, like, because I'm undeniably into my food.

Speaker 1 I'm a big, you know, I'm a food guy and

Speaker 1 I will finish what's on my plate.

Speaker 1 And if I... think I can get away with it, I'll be, you know, running my finger around the edge of the plate and getting every last morsel.
When a waiter comes up and says, oh, you were hungry?

Speaker 1 Oh, you ate that quick, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's a big,

Speaker 1 that's a

Speaker 1 the worst I've ever had, and this wasn't so, it's a similar thing, but for different reasons, this was bad. I was at a place, and the food was, it was bad food,

Speaker 1 and the uh, the waiter was like the nicest man, and also, I think, owned the place, yeah, really lovely, friendly man.

Speaker 1 And I had something that was not good, and then he came back and he went, Oh, you ate it all, that's cool,

Speaker 1 never happened before, yeah. So, I was like, oh, personally, bad sign.
That's cool. This guy ate all his food.
Ring the bell. Yeah, it was that.

Speaker 1 So that let me know I was definitely in the wrong place. What sort of a place was that? Was it one of those places where they have all pictures on the walls?

Speaker 1 It was, no, it was a place like nothing you've ever seen. It was, it, it was a vegetarian place in Rome.
And it was across the street from our hotel.

Speaker 1 And we just fancied like not having meat that night. So we just, you know, we googled it, best vegetarian.
It's like, oh, it's like right over the the road.

Speaker 1 Really thought we'd landed on our feet and walked in and it was like someone had last minute had to put together something that looked like a restaurant out of the things that were left behind by the builders

Speaker 1 and then pretend that this is, yep, this is always like this and please come on in. Because often the vegetarian option I find is a safe bet because more efforts been made.
Mrs. Egg doesn't eat meat.

Speaker 1 And if we go out for a meal, I will always feel obliged to get the meat dish because it feels like I'm out for a treat. It's got to get some meat.

Speaker 1 and she'll get the vegetarian dish and i inevitably you know nine times out of ten have food envy that's what we were up for that night yeah it did not pan out very bad and like more than one dish involved a liquid which i'm pretty sure was mouthwashed

Speaker 1 wow that they just put into it i was like this is this is bad stuff one vegetarian

Speaker 1 yeah vegetarian

Speaker 1 because some i find saffron sometimes has if it's if people use too much saffron it's got a slightly cadet

Speaker 1 taste yeah i I wonder if they'd

Speaker 1 gone a little heavy-handed on the old expensive stuff. Second bananas on the saffron.
Have you ever hacked a snack with saffron?

Speaker 1 Well, I don't like saffron, but for that very reason, I find it a bit too much. So I've used something called paella powder in a snack hack, which is which I bought in Spain.

Speaker 1 And I think it's mostly yellow food colouring.

Speaker 1 And there are, there is smoked paprika in there, and I think there is a very tiny bit of saffron in there. But you put it in with your paella, and it looks the business.

Speaker 1 We should talk about snack hacker yes to prop properly introduce you to our members of the audience who might not have might not have seen the snack hacker video probably billions of people who don't know about snack hacker no no no this there's two people and we've got to explain it to them okay but it could it couldn't be more up our listeners streak how did it get started what is it

Speaker 1 snack hacker is a series of videos that uh are ongoing that i've put on social media i started doing during lockdown because uh you know theaters were closed. Couldn't go on stage.

Speaker 1 Because my, for the listeners who don't know, my, my kind of on-stage thing is I cook on stage. But that's by the bye.

Speaker 1 So snack hacker, I thought, I've got to start making videos or start doing something.

Speaker 1 So with the help of my son, Jem, we started making these little videos, which I put on where over about sort of a minute and a half, two minutes, I will hack a snack.

Speaker 1 But there's more to them than that. So they started out by kind of taking an existing food item like something from Gregg's or McDonald's or wherever else,

Speaker 1 and then enhancing it in some ways. So the very first episode, I got a got a cheese and onion bake from Greg's, opened it up like a pocket, put in some pickled jalapenos, ate it, talked about it.

Speaker 1 That was it.

Speaker 1 Really simple. But I did seven episodes, put them out, and they just seemed to, it was one of those things where, you know, got traction immediately.
A lot of people were excited by them.

Speaker 1 A lot of the followers started going up. And then we carried on making them.
And at the time of recording, there's about 105, 106 episodes.

Speaker 1 and i started out with interfering with existing snacks and it's kind of it's evolved and because i just say that the snack hacker is a much better name than the snack interferer if you were yeah but it's funny as well

Speaker 1 slightly for not funny when you're in prison isn't it there is there is one little section of outtakes i've got of when i was so much later on about episode 80 i i did something else with a um this sounds really awful as well

Speaker 1 but i uh i i used the greg's cheese and onion pasty again but to make a kind of uh like cauliflower cheese, taking cauliflower cheese, which is so nice.

Speaker 1 So I'll just tell you what you do really quickly. So a lot of them do involve a bit of actual cooking because

Speaker 1 I'm in the cooking. So

Speaker 1 you get a slice of cauliflower, you cook it in brown butter, you toast some hazelnuts, hazelnuts and cauliflower and cheese, really nice combination.

Speaker 1 Go down to Gregg's, get a cheese and onion pasty, open it up, cauliflower in there, crushed hazelnuts, onions, the burger onions, you know, the kind of crispy ones that is on every street food thing at the moment.

Speaker 1 Loads of those, put the lid back on, eat that. Oh my God.
So no, that's absolutely heavenly.

Speaker 1 But at the start, we thought it'd be funny to have a little to camera bit where I'm saying, you know, three years ago, I interfered with a cheese and onion pasty, and we must have done about 30 takes.

Speaker 1 And then we've stitched them all together. We might put out some time of me just corpsing constantly and then trying to make it sound better and it ended up sounding better.

Speaker 1 That does sound like the worst lockdown ever. You got bored and you started interfering with the cheese and onion pasta.
While your son filmed it.

Speaker 1 I absolutely love the snack hacker videos. I've watched so many of them.
I've tried to... Well, I have made some of the stuff on the moment.

Speaker 1 You've texted me. You've told me that

Speaker 1 you're on pizza, I think you've done it. My naan, yeah, naan-based pizza, which I did twice.

Speaker 1 But also, it's the naan-based pizza, which obviously for the listeners, if you need to explain, is that the base is a naan. Yeah.
It's a circular, a circular naan.

Speaker 1 I use a garlic one. Did you find a circular one? No.
You see, because the saddle-shaped ones are kind of...

Speaker 1 I know that you were just a bit... We're sort of further away from pizza at that point, aren't we? Yeah, exactly.
I sent you the photo of it, and you were like, I should not find a circular one.

Speaker 1 And I was like, no, I don't know, George.

Speaker 1 And then I made the pizza sauce from another video of yours where...

Speaker 1 I think another YouTuber

Speaker 1 suggested. Yeah, a guy called Adam Purnell, who

Speaker 1 goes under the handle, the Shropshire lad, or a Shropshire lad. But anyway, and he's a barbecue chef, and he

Speaker 1 was a guest. That's another thing with the series.
I've had various guests, including you. Yes.
Not you yet. Not me.
In time. Not yet.
We did talk about oysters and crisps at one point.

Speaker 1 And yeah, his idea, Adams, was using

Speaker 1 the kind of Bloody Mary mix. Big Tom.
Big Tom. That's the one he used.
Big Tom

Speaker 1 with

Speaker 1 hot sauce. James just shouted, just for the listener, James shouted Big Tom up into the sky, and it sounded like you were giving out a tribute to your friend Big Tom.

Speaker 1 Up there with Big World. Saluting.

Speaker 1 That was great. I made the pizza sauce from the Big Tom and the hot sauce that I had.
I got loads of hot sauce in the fridge. Oh, you put the pepper army on it as well? No, I didn't use pepper army.

Speaker 1 I used

Speaker 1 a different type of sausage. But that's the thing.

Speaker 1 And the topic can be whatever. And that is the ethos about the whole kind of

Speaker 1 idea around Snack Hacker is it is, you know, without wanting to get to ratatouille the film, but that anyone can cook and cooking can be as simple as putting one thing with one other thing, you know, know and then going oh wow that's combination i wasn't expecting and it's so much more satisfying isn't it i got i got into a horrible rhythm of takeaways recently just because you know i'm not at home all of the time and then you're like i can't do a big shop there's no point and then you get into that rhythm of takeaways and then as soon as you pull yourself out that and go i'm just going to cook something even if it's something that you get from the takeaway yeah you'd feel so much better about it well one one for that is my pechwari toastie go on which is just it's it's super simple so the the kind of idea behind that is that people eat microwave curries and there's no shame in eating microwave curries they you know there's some great ones out there there's some rubbish ones out there but maybe they you know give you a nostalgic hit or whatever a vesta curry is like you know revolting but it reminds me of the past but anyway so for those occasions when you're when you've got a microwave curry and you kind of go i want to I want to feel like I've achieved something, you make a pechewari toasty, which is basically either in a brevil kind of one or I've got these, this collection of very nice analog toasty makers that are kind of like a clamshell thing with long arms and they go over the, directly over the gas hole.

Speaker 1 Anyway, you make a toasted sandwich with uh ground almonds desiccated coconut uh chopped up sultanas a little bit of cardamom in there and then you butter the outsides and toast it and it's it's basically a pechewari nam in a white bread sandwich and the edges where the where the brevil or whatever presses it they go like a kind of gary bordy biscuit and it's just heavenly and then oh i know i forgot you butter the outside and you put flaked almonds on the outside so you get that kind of you know it's all the flavors of a pechoiri nam and then a bit of coriander and more butter on the outside and then and then you rip it up and scoop up the microwave curry with that and you don't even have to take the microwave curry out of the packet because you've made the sandwich you've done the cooking so you go this is fine and then you know if you put it on a plate to make yourself feel better no exactly if you were eating it with a spoon straight out of the packet you'd feel terrible yeah but you make the sandwich and then suddenly you're cooking yeah genius um and is that in the snack cacker book the cookbook that you've released it is in the snack it's got so much in it i mean when do you start thinking about that about let's do a book uh i guess we i mean i don't know maybe about a year ago or so I mean, right from the beginning.

Speaker 1 I mean, in fact, from before Snack Hacker, I've always thought I'd like to, I'd love to write a cookbook sometime.

Speaker 1 Anyway, and then once Snackhacker got the traction it got, well, me and Jem, my son, we came up with a pitch sort of explaining what the idea of the book is, which is very much about the snacks, but also about kind of where your food.

Speaker 1 comes from. For me personally, there's quite a lot of memoir in it about, you know, my dad cooking when I was a little boy.

Speaker 1 And through writing the book, I've realized how quite how much of the food I've done on the videos has come from my childhood and food memories.

Speaker 1 But it seems to me like a much more manageable and practical cookbook than most cookbooks. I've seen so many cookbooks.

Speaker 1 I'll sit and read them like a novel, but I'll be like, I'm never fucking cooking anything out of that. I look at the ingredients of like one, I'm not doing that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because often you're like, I fancy cooking something tonight. I'll grab whatever cookbook I've got.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Look at every single recipe. Well, all of these are, I've got none of this in the house.
I don't know where I buy half of it from. With your one, it's like, yeah, yeah.
Great.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. I'll cook all of this tonight.
There's one recipe that all you need is some sauerkraut with caraway seeds in, which sounds a bit obscure, but it's one jar.

Speaker 1 You just need to go down to, you know, some international supermarket, buy a jar of that. Then you can do the recipe.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I ordered a Reuben recently from somewhere and it didn't have sauerkraut in and I was very annoyed. Is it even a Reuben without sauera kraken? That's what I thought.
Yeah. What was in it?

Speaker 1 Two pretty thin slices of beef.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 I was pretty annoyed. Now, you know, disclaimer, it was at a cinema.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 What? Like a posh cinema. Yeah.
Yeah. I think it's at a posh cinema, but I still think if you're going to put Reuben on there, it should be a Reuben.

Speaker 1 Well, I think once you've seen the images of your kind of American massive Reuben, deli Rubens, where it's three fingers thickness of pastrami or salt beef in there, and then you buy one from a supermarket and it's like i think that cinema shouldn't be allowed to show when how he met sally ever again

Speaker 1 first of all you always start with still a sparkling water well as we were discussing earlier about the bill kind of anxiety i would normally go for still water tap water yeah because i just think well you know i don't want to pay the water but because we're in this restaurant i'm not i'm going to go for sparkling and i'm going to go for a very particular sparkling which is uh it's some water that me and mrs egg had we were on holiday in grand canaria Canaria and we're in the capital and we we just had this it was just like the perfect glass of water I'm quite jealous of this straight away because when we've done our menus in the past which is twice now the water course is the only one where I haven't felt like I've always sat down for where I had the best water and I can't think of anywhere so we end up hacking that course and just saying Ed said Guinness once for his water course.

Speaker 1 There's water in it. So like, but

Speaker 1 like, I've always been like, I would like to have like a best glass of water I've ever had.

Speaker 1 and the fact that you've got that well it was it was just one of those kind of like perfect storm of temperature sparkle so it was very I think that different places they they go for you know some it's more effervescent whatever this was very lightly sparkling almost like half and half yeah yeah yeah a very gentle sparkle and a thing that's so important for me the thickness of the glass that is a big issue with beer and everything wine you know what i mean like you want a thin really thin glass and it was it was an incredibly thin glass just perfect.

Speaker 1 And we said to the waitress, we said, look, this is the best glass of water we've ever had. She must have thought you're insane.

Speaker 1 Wow, I really do. Back into the kitchen, just be like, whatever you cook for these guys, it's fine.
They're going to love it. They just told me it's the best glass of water they've ever had.

Speaker 1 You really blow hot and cold with waiting staff, George.

Speaker 1 You're either telling him it's the best glass of water you've ever had. Or you're writing a letter to say they were too attentive.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, so that's the water there. Although,

Speaker 1 the first time you got one of those insulated metal flask bottles,

Speaker 1 and then you put cold water in it, and then about three hours later, you're swinging some of that water. Yeah, that's something, isn't it? That feeling.
Isn't it, though?

Speaker 1 It's like, oh, my God, you want to get everyone round? Say dance. Come and try the water.

Speaker 1 I just thought of this.

Speaker 1 It does feel good to like...

Speaker 1 So I was doing an impression of the person then at the time. I wasn't telling you, I've just thought of something.
Oh, I see it.

Speaker 1 I realised the way you looked back at me. I thought, oh, no, I've gone too fast from my impression into

Speaker 1 my next thought words are your tool james words are my tool

Speaker 1 ironically i couldn't think of what to say next after that words are my tool my point is when you do that thing with the bottle of water with the metal bottle of water you do feel very very pleased with yourself that you thought of it yeah when you drink it later on slightly bigger that feeling is almost better than the feeling of hydration yes no it is it's all about beating the system which is kind of goes back to the whole snack hacking thing it's all about kind of going i'm in control here what else could you keep in that bottle yeah because that wouldn't be snack hacking putting water in that bottle Scrambled egg anymore.

Speaker 1 If you put chocolate custard in there, I'll tell you what, that's snack hacking. I like to get a thermos and I like to cook sausages.
Put them in a thermos and take them to the cinema.

Speaker 1 And then halfway through the film, unscrew. And you know,

Speaker 1 the cinema is peopled by people going,

Speaker 1 someone's got hot sausages. This has got to be a midweek daytime showing.
You are not going on a pack Saturday with a thermos full of sausages. Oh, yeah, no, it's quite, it's kind of end of the run.

Speaker 1 What kind of films are you watching where a hot sausage is appropriate?

Speaker 1 I mean, what film isn't appropriate for our time?

Speaker 1 When? When is a hot sausage from a thermos? Yeah. Are you just picking them out with your fingers, the hot sausages? Well, we've had that before, but we've used too narrow a neck on the thermos.

Speaker 1 And it's been, yeah, yeah, and then you're shaking. And then you're drinking the sausage.

Speaker 1 And sausages sticking out like a deodorant ball.

Speaker 1 You roll that your armpit. Smell like sausages all day.
So, yeah, wide neck, you've got to go, you've got to go considerably wider than that.

Speaker 1 We've done it before we've put too many in, and then it's then you can't ye

Speaker 1 round.

Speaker 1 Well, family, you know. Yeah, yeah.
Well, I love

Speaker 1 that. That's what I love about your family, because, like, you all seem to be on the same page.
Yeah, well, apart from Mrs. Egg, who wouldn't want the meat sausages.
No, she's got corn sausages.

Speaker 1 Vegetarian option. Yeah.
She's kind of, she'd be like, no, you know, you guys have the sausages. I'll go sit up the other end of the cinema.

Speaker 1 Let's somewhere completely different away from the family that smell like hot sausages Pop numbs or bread pop numbs or bread George Egg pop numbs or bread. Do you know?

Speaker 1 I knew it was an announcement before you answer an announcement.

Speaker 1 Yeah, how many episodes of this podcast we've done now Benito 260 something that's the first time I've shouted pop numbs or bread and it's made me fart. Oh wow

Speaker 1 Maybe it's the thought of the sausages.

Speaker 1 As I shouted bread, I did a fart

Speaker 1 and it was forced out by me shouting and doing them the first time you said bread or the second time oh yeah the first time but you still went in just as hard the second time yes because i because i was trying to i i i was so worried that maybe people had heard the fart i mean just keep on just keep on going were you not worried that if you pushed even harder you might squeeze the sausage out your thermos

Speaker 1 maybe

Speaker 1 maybe

Speaker 1 I was hoping the neck could be too small.

Speaker 1 And it wouldn't come out. So there you go.

Speaker 1 It's a first of the pop-up. It's the first of the populists.
For these times of showing pop-dobs or bread, but that was the first time. It's a modest-sized room, this, as well.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 let's hope he doesn't smell the pot sausages by the end.

Speaker 1 We'll see. Pop-lobs or bread, Georgia.
Well, here's the thing. I think you know what I'm going to say.
Well, I guess you're going to say bread or you've got a hack where you got both of them. No,

Speaker 1 I'm going to say bread because... Where was the, in fact, I think the last time...
I saw you on your birthday making bread. Yeah.
Shall I say where? Yeah, E5 Bakehouse.

Speaker 1 E5 Bakehouse having a for your birthday, somebody got it for you for your birthday. My daughter, who works at E5,

Speaker 1 at the time of recording. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You never know what she might have done between now and then. Yeah, she's a baker.
And I said I would love to, because I love baking bread anyway.

Speaker 1 Obviously, I love bacon bread because I do.

Speaker 1 And she said,

Speaker 1 I'll organise you to do a stage, which is, you know, when you go and basically chef for free free in a food establishment.

Speaker 1 So I went and got there early in the morning and we spent the day baking bread. And James came in and came backstage.
I did. They let me in backstage.
We could say happy birthday to George.

Speaker 1 And I could see all that. And also, you could meet all the bread.
Met all the bread.

Speaker 1 We tried to get you to have a go with the bread, but you were bread shy. You were dough shy.
I wouldn't do it. Why not, man?

Speaker 1 It is a very high position. My history of bacon is not good.

Speaker 1 I don't touch it. Do you know what? it is quite uh intimidating the dough yeah in e5 because the quantities are insane because east london it's like sort of cotton attitude here

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 you were doing a good job man you were doing a good job and i loved it i absolutely loved it i mean i i before i started doing the cooking on stage shows i had this real because i was doing stand-up for years before that kind of more conventional stand-up i had this real thing where i thought i'm gonna i'm gonna stop doing stand-up altogether and i'm gonna do something in the culinary world like you know have a cafe or whatever, something like that.

Speaker 1 And then I started doing the on-stage cooking and realized, oh, watch, I can do both. But I think I could work in a bakery.
I'd be happy going in every day doing the same thing. It's meditative.

Speaker 1 You feel like you're creating something

Speaker 1 of value. You know, it's not intense.
It's just, yeah, it's fantastic. Was there something about bread? Because that is such a staple food for so many people that making it feel sort of...

Speaker 1 Oh, it's quite. It's like integrity.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that the right word? Also, it was only when I met your daughter that I realized your surname isn't actually egg.
Yeah, I know. Because I always assumed it was.
Meg Egg.

Speaker 1 And then your daughter's called Meg. And I was like, there's absolutely no way.

Speaker 1 That is mad that that is the first time you thought that egg might not be George's real name. I've met a guy called Paul Foot.

Speaker 1 There are real eggs out there.

Speaker 1 I've had people find me on social media and say, I found another egg. Yeah.

Speaker 1 so what's the particular type of bread you want then for your because I know you're George Egg you're not gonna just want bread in general well here's the thing so I want to give a shout out to I suppose honourable munchons that's what we say yeah

Speaker 1 to white sliced bread with margarine and cress

Speaker 1 and I tell you why that is because When I was in nursery school, we grew cress.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, as we all do.

Speaker 1 yeah and i will never forget the sensation of having and we when we finished growing it took a week or so and then we cut it down and we we had white bread and it would have been margarine thickly spread and then we cut the put the cress in and just the sensation of having that it's just you know it's the ratatouille you know critic that's very crazy moment but that's not the bread i'm choosing i'm choosing e5 bread because it's it's such incredibly good bread and because i've been there and i've made it and my daughter makes it and you know it's great bread I know it's great.

Speaker 1 I know it's great. I mean they featured on my first dream menu I did here.
I think my side dish was the roast carrots there.

Speaker 1 When I came and met you backstage, I also met the person who made the carrots. Wow, but did you talk to the parent for you? Yes, I talked to them.
I said, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 I said, will we be, because for those people who don't know E5, the menu changes every day. It's a different lunch every day.

Speaker 1 So, you know, I very pathetically went, will we be seeing those carrots again anytime soon?

Speaker 1 Well, you never know. James's life is going to restaurants and asking people who work there when is a menu item coming back.
But that is the worst, though, isn't it? It's the thing of when things...

Speaker 1 Here's something I want them to bring back.

Speaker 1 I don't like mortloaf, serene mortlaf.

Speaker 1 There is a thing you can do. There's a recipe in the book where you microwave it and add butter and then it turns almost into like kind of sort of sticky toffee pudding.
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 But briefly, Serene did a like a cereal bar called the Go Bar.

Speaker 1 Stopped doing it. It's gone.
Can't get it anymore. But you loved it.
It was just, it was so good. It was kind of multi-serene, but it was like a flapjack, and yeah, it was just heavenly.

Speaker 1 But if you met the people from Serene, would you go, Oh, please bring back the Go Bar? Oh, I really would. Do you know what? I've thought, I've actually thought about writing to them.

Speaker 1 Of course, you have.

Speaker 1 How do you think the people at Serene would apologize to you? Well, I

Speaker 1 oh

Speaker 1 if they just went, We apologize,

Speaker 1 you'd be like, Fucking hell, guys,

Speaker 1 It's right there.

Speaker 1 We are multi, sorry.

Speaker 1 Come on.

Speaker 1 I went to the French in Manchester recently, which I've shouted out on the podcast before. I love it.
And their bread changes pretty regularly.

Speaker 1 They get it from Pullen Bakery in Manchester, and they did a malt loaf sourdough hybrid. And it was so good with beer butter.
Oh, wow. Beer butter.
Yeah. Wow.
And or beef butter.

Speaker 1 Actually. Actually,

Speaker 1 as I said, beer butter, I was like, that's not right.

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Speaker 1 Let's get into your menu proper, George, your dream starter. Well, am I allowed an amuse bouche? Yeah.
People have had a moose bouche. Yeah, yeah, you're allowed one.

Speaker 1 Well, Jenny tried to introduce it as a format point for a while. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I tried to, but it was me telling them what the amuse bouche was because, you know, I thought it's an amuse bouche.

Speaker 1 But also I call it amused bouche because I didn't know at that point it was amuse bouche. I really did embarrass myself.

Speaker 1 But I mean, it amuse is amused, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. I'd think so.
Yeah, but your bouche, it's an amuse bouche before you've eaten it. But it's amused, it's an amused bouche.
After. After.
Oh, I see.

Speaker 1 Or

Speaker 1 you have an amused

Speaker 1 amused bush. But please, of course you're allowed an amused bush.
We expect nothing less from the snack hacker. His

Speaker 1 menu. I thought

Speaker 1 one thing I contemplated was, because I'm always crippled by choice for restaurants.

Speaker 1 And I was contemplating saying, well, could you just order for me? Wow. Because I've started doing that.

Speaker 1 If I've gone somewhere with someone who I trust and just saying, look, you know, wow, it's out of my hands. And that's never gone wrong for you? No, it's always better.

Speaker 1 I i couldn't imagine ever relinquishing that control i can't imagine it i'm often the person who has to order for everyone but i'll tell you what happens george is what happens yeah so be at the table with my wife will be there inevitably she doesn't she follows me around well um listen to the joy in the word inevitably

Speaker 1 james might be there yeah james's partner you know other friends whatever big menu there's like like you're ordering small plates or whatever oh i like the sound of this i like the sound of this i'll be like oh yeah they go you just order ed you just order i go fine i'm gonna order but you've said I can order now, so I'll start ordering.

Speaker 1 Then they start throwing stuff in. They go, oh, no, but we'd like, but directly to me, even though the person stood there.
Yeah, I probably, I would probably be guilty of that.

Speaker 1 I like the idea of someone ordering for me, but I probably would say

Speaker 1 it's inferior. It's

Speaker 1 too much fun to do it to them.

Speaker 1 I would like you to order for me, though. Yeah.
No, I mean, like in real life somewhere. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But make sure you throw stuff in.

Speaker 1 Or throwing stuff in that I've already ordered as well. That's fucking annoying.
Yeah, sometimes you want two of them. Well, you want enough for everyone.
You've got a big gang, you know?

Speaker 1 I haven't thought, I'm thinking, now I'm suddenly thinking about the secret ingredient. Oh, yeah.
Now I'm worried about that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you don't need to worry about that. Okay, good.
You do. We have chosen.

Speaker 1 You should worry. What it is, is it is what

Speaker 1 I don't know if it's just to my family calls it a bit of each. That's what we would call when you're having a full English breakfast breakfast and you have on your fork a little bit of every element.

Speaker 1 And when I was a little boy, my dad did most of the cooking at home. And occasionally we would have a full English breakfast for dinner, which is just such a

Speaker 1 best, isn't it? Messes with your head in the best way. Yeah.
No, absolutely.

Speaker 1 I didn't even know this was a thing until the podcast, until we interviewed Jess Phillips, and I couldn't get my head around it. Do you know what else I like? Non-breakfast items for breakfast.

Speaker 1 Curry for breakfast? Yeah. When I go overseas to gig, I will, you know, I'll have the went to Hong Kong with some other acts and they were having the

Speaker 1 sort of British,

Speaker 1 which was pre-milked cornflakes. Oh my God.
Yeah. And they were going, oh, they're all soft.
And it's like, well, don't get the, don't get their idea of what, you know, get

Speaker 1 what people in Hong Kong eat,

Speaker 1 which is some unusual kind of rice porridge thing with fish flakes on, but it was great.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I told you, when I was in Japan the last time, on the breakfast buffet in a hotel we were in, there was the Japanese breakfast and the Western breakfast and the Western breakfast was spaghetti carbonara.

Speaker 1 I'd like that.

Speaker 1 They've had bacon and egg.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Now I'm thinking. Let's get back to this amuse bouche.
Amuse bouche is a bit of each, but it's a bit of each from when I was so now my full English order would be very different to what it was.

Speaker 1 So when I was small in the 70s or 80s, probably around like the early 80s, this would be, a bit of each would be bacon with rind on it, which I'd have to cut the rind off because I didn't like that.

Speaker 1 A bit of sausage, flat mushroom, egg. Of course, I wouldn't have the tomato.
It was a bit of a fussy boy, so I didn't like the tomato on the plate.

Speaker 1 It was too wobbly in the skin and choke you and everything else.

Speaker 1 And then fried bread. Amazing.

Speaker 1 So that would be my bit of each then. Now, you know, it would be very different.

Speaker 1 So I don't, I actually am undecided whether it would be a bit of each from then or a bit of each now, which is going to include, you you know, your black pudding and your hash browns.

Speaker 1 Well, we could get you a really long fork for this amuse bush. How long? Or two forks.
Or two forks. I think a moose bush, we could set it up.
It'd look really nice, actually.

Speaker 1 Because it wouldn't be like full-length forks, so like half-length forks, but they cross like that, like an X. And one's got a bit of each past.
Yeah. And one's got a bit of each present.

Speaker 1 There's going to be some crossover. I suppose that's where they cross over.
Yeah. Because that's where you've got...
So we've got black pudding, we've got a hash brown.

Speaker 1 Any other new elements that you want to put on there not beans you don't want like just a little bean on each prong thank you george i don't like beans on a full english breakfast thank you unless i'm on a ferry

Speaker 1 imagine if i agreed with that but it just feels like

Speaker 1 i always say that correct you know what i mean a ferry like you're getting a ferry to france yeah and there's something about i don't know certain environments on a ferry in a youth hostel dining room what you you're not beans you're you're old man

Speaker 1 what

Speaker 1 What are you doing in the youth hostel? I was a child. Oh, yeah, fair enough.
Youth hosteling holidays. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough.
I thought you're talking about now.

Speaker 1 Although you don't have to be a youth to stay in a youth hostel.

Speaker 1 You can stay in a youth hostel as

Speaker 1 a grown-up as well.

Speaker 1 Youth hostling is going to come into this later on, anyway. But yeah, I think beans in a supermarket, cafe, youth hostel, dining room, and ferry.
That's the only time it's allowed.

Speaker 1 That's the only time it's allowed. Not on this bit of each.
No way. This bit of each sounds delicious.

Speaker 1 are you sauce what are you doing uh i'm guessing you're gonna have two splodges on the plate one ketchup one hp do you know at the moment i'm really into my hot sauce i'm i'm i'm kind of entertaining the rim of my plate with a sort of spectrum of brown sauce ketchup various different hot sauces salad cream Salad cream?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I say hot.
I mean, I'm a hot sauce guy. It's going nowhere near a full English for me.
Just a little bit. It's got to be brown.

Speaker 1 Rumbling now. I'm thinking about that.

Speaker 1 It happens.

Speaker 1 James has farted already this episode, haven't you? My butt's rumbling.

Speaker 1 I really like salad cream with a full English. Really? Well, it's, do you know what I call it?

Speaker 1 White ketchup.

Speaker 1 But it is. It's like your wrap now.
It's, it's, we'll be still breaking it. Yeah, yeah.
It's vinegary. It's sugary.
Yeah. I mean, it's literally tomato ketchup without the tomatoes, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And I don't think tomato ketchup really tastes of tomatoes.
No, it doesn't. It just tastes of vinegar and sugar.

Speaker 1 Well, let us let you into a little secret before we get on to your starter because you were worried about saying the secret ingredient. You've not said your secret ingredient, but.
Did I get near it?

Speaker 1 Obviously, the first suggestion we had for secret ingredient was egg because of your surname. Oh, that would have been so hard.
It would have been harsh.

Speaker 1 We decided it would be unfair. But if we had done it, you'd be out on your amusement.

Speaker 1 What's your dream starter? When me and my brother were teenagers,

Speaker 1 we did this little, a few years where we did walking holidays and we would stay in youth hostels and we'd walk between them and, you know, hiking. And we'd get exhausted.

Speaker 1 And on the way home, we would always get the train back to London and we would treat ourselves to a British Rail microwave burger. Oh, God.
And

Speaker 1 it was awful.

Speaker 1 Of course it was. So these days with the microwave burgers, when you get them, they suggest that you toast the bun separately, you microwave the...

Speaker 1 the burger itself, blah, blah, blah, you know, and it, and it's actually a more kind of realistic assimilation of a half-decent burger. It can be.

Speaker 1 But in those days, when they first did them on the buffet car on the intercity train, it would be the whole thing in a polystyrene box, all microwaved.

Speaker 1 So the bottom bun would be like hard, like cardboard. And then you have this hot burger, and the cheese is just completely fused, and the ketchup's boiling.
And then the top bun is steamed as well.

Speaker 1 So it's all wet, which is now a thing. Everyone's steaming the buns.
But anyway, we'd have that with a can of bitter.

Speaker 1 And we were only like 15, but you could just,

Speaker 1 you know, those were the days.

Speaker 1 And it was just sensational. And it was just, it was so welcome.

Speaker 1 You made that sound disgusting, Dodge.

Speaker 1 You imagine if you're 15 and you've walked, you know, three days, kind of three or four days, 25 miles a day, and you're knackered and you've got on the train, you're going home.

Speaker 1 And you're hungry, you want someone to eat. Yeah.
Get that. And actually, it just hit the spot.
Yeah, but anything would. Yeah, but that did.
Yeah, yeah. But that was what you did.

Speaker 1 You had the routine of it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but it was that. Yeah, it was that.
It was that was what.

Speaker 1 was the thing fair point but here's the thing so then so i so that that was like a amazing memory of having that and and and i hadn't hadn't had one for decades and then when i did my first edinburgh i was coming back from doing my uh my tech and uh and i was all knack and i'd driven there the same day and and heading back to my digs and i went into a supermarket and i just thought i'm gonna I thought I'm gonna get a rusters because I knew there was a microwave in the accommodation and we didn't have a microwave at home.

Speaker 1 So I thought I'm just gonna try and and I was exhausted and then got in a can of beer, didn't read the instructions, put the whole thing straight in the microwave.

Speaker 1 And it was again that ratatouille Anton ego moment of taking a bite and going, I'm 15, I'm on the train again. So one of them, please.
But it's got to be from circa 88, 89.

Speaker 1 Do you want the British Rail? It's got to be the British Rail, but it's got to be in the Polystyrene box.

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe even I'm, you know, jiggling about because I'm on the intercity. Yeah.
Yeah. We can put you on a train carriage.
Can of stones stone's bitter. Stone's bitter.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Bottom bun, solid like cardboard. Chewy.
Soggy top bun. Soggy top bun, cheesefully hot.
I mean, like... Boiling ketchup.
Yeah. Boiling ketchup.

Speaker 1 Like cheese welded. Do you let it cool down before you start eating it? Or do you just, do you or your brother just tuck into them straight away? We would tuck into them straight away.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Bone your mouth. You would inevitably have to be sipping the beer at the same time.
Yeah. You would get, that would cool it down and then you'd swallow.

Speaker 1 Occasionally you'd do, you wouldn't have enough beer and you'd, and you'd swallow too early yeah and you'd have a kind of locket of boiling hot the puck of burger like behind the ribs next to the heart next to my heart the snack hacker by george egg is available via blink publishing well do you know what do you know what here's the thing and i'm not going to do this with all of them

Speaker 1 but but no here's the thing this listen in in the book i have recreated that by making a burger that's it's like an inside-out burger.

Speaker 1 So you flip the bun and you taste the outsides and it's squashed down and there's a beer and mushroom sauce. That sounds nice.
That sounds lovely. That sounds nice.

Speaker 1 You're picking the British Rail burger. Yeah, but you're not picking that delicious sounding burger that you make.
I'm picking the British Rail Burger for this. Yes.
For the memory.

Speaker 1 Because you want to be with your brother on the bottom.

Speaker 1 What would you and your brother talk about on the train while eating these burgers? Clugging the bitter. I don't know, because

Speaker 1 we had quite strict rules.

Speaker 1 We said no walkmans when we did the walking on us. We thought, you know, we want to all be chatting.

Speaker 1 I think we were kind of talked out by then. We would have talked the whole time.
We would sing songs from the BBC Radio Lord of the Rings when we were walking.

Speaker 1 I absolutely love the idea of 15-year-olds going, no Walkmans.

Speaker 1 It's a time for conversation. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wholesome is lovely. It was wholesome.
No, and then, but yes, so we did a lot of talking on the holidays. So my memory of the train was snoozing, eating British Royal Burger, drinking cans of stones,

Speaker 1 and then going, How much more we got? We've got another two hours. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I can't wait to get home to my Walkman. Yeah,

Speaker 1 your dream main course, George Eck. So, when the kids were small, we used to, my kids are all grown up.
That's why my daughter works in a bakery. Yes, she's not a child,

Speaker 1 child labourer

Speaker 1 in a sort of magic example

Speaker 1 scenario.

Speaker 1 But when they were small we used to do a lot of camping holidays and we'd go to france and we found this campsite really near to uh dieppe a place called where it's pronounced uh it's just spelled eu and it's really difficult to find because as soon as you google it you just you get stuff all about the eu we've left that now yeah which is a shame but when in fact that's that's if you ask for directions where do you want to go

Speaker 1 we're fine

Speaker 1 it said in the book it said pronounced as a grunt that's exactly what it said

Speaker 1 yeah so

Speaker 1 but anyway yeah so we found that we found this um this campsite lovely municipal campsite where you didn't it's quite basic and you didn't get uh you didn't get any other british people there which is always a bonus yeah you know

Speaker 1 uh you don't want someone going come have barbec won't come and have barbecue with them

Speaker 1 all right no i've got a firmness full of sausages

Speaker 1 they're still hot yeah don't need that and i've had the beans on the ferry but um and what we would would have and we still recreate at home is it's a camping dinner that we of of french sausages so you know you get the long the long chipolators in france which i always am fascinated how they don't because they're clearly proper uh intestines or whatever you know they're not they're not like you know the whatever the and have you noticed so many supermarket sausages now have in nice places it's all the kind of the the fake collagen they're all for you can't squeeze the insides out they break up the sausage oh really yeah

Speaker 1 by the by but in france you get the long ones they stay straight they don't curl don't know how they do that anyway so barbecued long French chipolatas, lentils from a tin, tinned lentils and tinned French beans, which have a taste that's so evocative of holidays and, you know, potatoes.

Speaker 1 Cooked,

Speaker 1 the beans and the lentils cooked with cider. Oh, wow.
And then you get to drink the cider, so I get extra drink because then I'm just, because there's the ciders left. Yeah.
So I can have that.

Speaker 1 That's not my drink. It's just there.
We've already given you a tin of bitter on a train. I think you're.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, I didn't want the tin of bitter with my

Speaker 1 starter. Are you joking? Actually, no.
You need that to cool it down.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, you're not going to be able to taste the rest of this dream meal because you lost all the skin from your tongue and your mouth. Eviscerated yourself.
You need the bitter.

Speaker 1 Isn't that the worst when you do have a bite of something hot and then you immediately know when you touch the roof of your mouth with your first bite?

Speaker 1 You just always feel it baggy and you just think. First bite, oh, great.

Speaker 1 Well, this is me for a while. Yeah, days, isn't it? Yeah.
Not even the meal. Yeah, yeah.
Awful. Brushing your teeth and catching it.

Speaker 1 So that's the main, that's the main.

Speaker 1 We're camping in France and we've got, and it's the sausages sausages with the tinned lentils with dijon mustard in with the lentils and cider in with the lentils and tinned potatoes you know i love how often sausages have popped up in the menu already yeah you love sausages man yeah they have haven't they yeah but sausages are great yeah yeah they are good so it's the lentils potatoes uh

Speaker 1 tinned lentils tinned beans as well tinned french beans which just like you know they're like a paste but there's the flavor of the the tinned flavor yeah that just works and cooked in cider as well cooked inside so so put those in a pan and then put some cider and bubble that down.

Speaker 1 I'd fry some onions first. Fry some onions and garlic.
And then I'd put the cider and let that bubble down. And then I'd put the tin,

Speaker 1 the lentils and the beans. Yeah.
And then let that cook. And then add a little bit of Dijon mustard at the end.
It's that simple. Amazing.
Loads of parsley. Do you ever give this dish a name?

Speaker 1 Because if you cooked it so regularly,

Speaker 1 people could come up with... I think we'd call that...
the holiday dinner. Yeah.
Something like that. Maybe.
You've got cassolating holidays. Cassolate vibes.

Speaker 1 Slightly, but it's more like brown lentils small brown lentils so it's not like the big you know and it's not tomatoey it's so good you could have called it din uh

Speaker 1 yeah yeah stop trying halfway through the word but doesn't food when you have food outside yeah it makes everything feel a bit more special doesn't it especially if you've cooked it it just tastes different it definitely tastes different when the kids were small we had this book called tastes and smells that has this

Speaker 1 little rhyming couplets yeah it's just got this bit which says ham is hammier jam is jammier i love it But it is so true, isn't it? I love that you were reading that to your kids. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And they were just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you were like, I love this book.

Speaker 1 Poetry. Ham is hammier, jam is jammier.
And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, or whatever. This is the fifth time you've read.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Stop reading this book.
Are there any other memories from those kind of holidays that you have that like are food related? Well, I mean, I love going to France. Yeah.

Speaker 1 My highlight of going to France, I do like going to like a proper French market, but my highlight, well, in fact, my highlight of going abroad anyway is going to a supermarket.

Speaker 1 Just love shopping in a foreign supermarket. And I think probably one of the biggest highlights is seeing what different flavor crisps they've got.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Always a big moment when you're in a country you've not been to before to see what wacky crisps are going on. Yeah.
I got some given to us.

Speaker 1 Our neighbours went on holiday to France, came back a couple of days ago. They gave me.
I haven't tried them yet. Guess what flavor they are? Go on.
Oh,

Speaker 1 let's guess. You could even do it like 20 questions.
James loves guessing games, so this is

Speaker 1 we have a game that we play lasagna called no toad in the hole i'll give you a clue yeah france it's a french thing snails no but frogs try those no comfy duck do you want to like narrow it down by saying is it sweet or savory or do you want to just guess we've already started to narrow it down crepes crepesette no wait this is going to take too much i'll tell you no uh panachocola no guess that'd be croissant no panaraisin no is it savoury um

Speaker 1 i kind do you know i'm not really sure

Speaker 1 Why did you offer that?

Speaker 1 Do you not want to narrow it down sweet and savory and then you're not sure? Well, I'll tell you what, that really narrows down.

Speaker 1 That really narrows it down if. I'm 51.
If. That narrows it down, doesn't it? If you don't know if it, if I don't know if it's sweet or savory.

Speaker 1 That narrows it down more than me saying yes or no. Yes.

Speaker 1 Come on, Ed. No, I'm enjoying watching you struggle.
Should I give you another clue? Bond bonds. What?

Speaker 1 No, they're definitely sweet, aren't they? Should I give you another clue? Yeah. A drink.
It's a kind of not sweet. Cafe au la.

Speaker 1 No. Very French.
Much more French.

Speaker 1 A booze drink. Martini.

Speaker 1 It's a French booze drink. Daiquiri.
Spirit. Cognac.
Like a pair of tooth. You dab it with water.
Oh, what's it called? The anise, do you want? Yeah, pastis. Pastis.
Pastis flavoured crisps. Wow.

Speaker 1 George, I don't know if I've heard of that.

Speaker 1 You know, you're like Pernot.

Speaker 1 You know, you have Pernot and then you have some water and it goes, and it's like magic because it's clear and then you add water, which is also clear and then it's all cloudy. I don't know that.

Speaker 1 I love it. I love the sound of it.
It's very aniseedy. Yeah.
I don't know crisps. Well, I'm intrigued.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, I love aniseed in other things. I love aniseed flavor with pork.
You love aniseed. There's a lot of the snack hacker stuff you put licorice in.
You made some licorice buns, was it? Like some.

Speaker 1 I made some licorice pancakes. So I did pancakes with blackcurrant jam and then I got like a panda licorice bar and grated it like parmesan.
Oh, wow. And it's like blackcurrant licorice sweets.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. On a pancake, and then you dust it with icing sugar and then grate more on top after it's all rolled up.
Oh, beautiful.

Speaker 1 My favorite thing to do in foreign supermarkets is to try and find some products that are rude in English. Yeah, that's good.
Like finding some cereal called cum and stuff.

Speaker 1 And do you photograph or do you buy it? Photograph it normally. I very rarely want to eat a bowl of cum.

Speaker 1 What about if it's been pre-milked?

Speaker 1 That snack, George.

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Speaker 1 Your dream side dish, George.

Speaker 1 I haven't chosen it yet. I've got two choices, and I've got to decide now.
Uh-huh. Should I tell you what they're between, or should I just decide? Tell us what they're between.
Because I think so.

Speaker 1 We might have. No, I'm just going to tell you what I'm going for.
No, no, tell me. Tell us what it's between.
The one I've decided not to go for is too green.

Speaker 1 Well, it's just macaroni cheese, but I love it in so many permutations. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, I love a lobster macaroni cheese well listen god do you want me to offer you this people have hacked the menu before by having a pasta course before the main course i think you could especially in the snack hacker world a lobster mac and cheese would be a pasta course thank you i've still got to decide because it's between here's the here's the choices for the mac and cheese well first of all

Speaker 1 how do you feel about mac and cheese as opposed to macaroni cheese because i was brought up calling it macaroni cheese.

Speaker 1 Mac and cheese has become the thing and it still irks me slightly. And I think, come on, yes.
Mac and cheese to me is the modern one where there's stuff added to it

Speaker 1 and it's got a crust on the top. Macaroni cheese to me is like a big glob of it.
Not all runny. A big glob of it all runny.
Yeah, crispy top. Yeah.
That to me is macaroni cheese.

Speaker 1 Also, I would say every time I have mac and cheese, I'm excited about it. I love the idea of it because I love cheese.
I love Mac.

Speaker 1 I've never really had a macaroni cheese that I've been like, that was as good as my image of macaroni cheese is in my head. I have.
And it was his fault.

Speaker 1 It was his fault. Hello.
Well, not his fault.

Speaker 1 His

Speaker 1 suggestion. So when I went to New York the first time, I knew that he likes food.

Speaker 1 He, the genie over there. Hello.
And I texted him and I said, can you give me some food recommendations for New York?

Speaker 1 I mean, it's probably going to end up being Ed's fault this, because there's probably somewhere that Ed originally recommended to me.

Speaker 1 Well, first of all, it was the most comprehensive list I've ever had. Well done.
Thank you. Honestly, there must have been about 30 suggestions.
Fantastic. Yeah, it's fantastic.

Speaker 1 And one of them was SMAC. Yes.
Oh, so actually, this is Henry Whittakham's fault. Oh, okay.
Henry Whitticom recommended this to me, and I passed it on to you. Well, what a place.
Have you been there?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I went there with my mum and my girlfriend. It's just the best.
I love how scrubby it is.

Speaker 1 James said that like it made him sound really cool.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I went there with my mum and my girlfriend.

Speaker 1 I'm doing pretty well with the ladies.

Speaker 1 It's two different people, by the way.

Speaker 1 so that mac and cheese the one i i so i've been there a few times yeah to smack uh and the best one i had was the that had big hunks of like big fat bacon you know like real chunks crispy oh my god so that but then also case of spatze which i just love and i had i did a show in germany did the show and then after the show it was just lovely it's it's so like that

Speaker 1 in europe which it isn't here or or you know

Speaker 1 other places where i've where i've done a lot of comedy uh at the end of the show the audience all goes and they get these big long, like, you know, Oktoberfest tables and benches.

Speaker 1 And these catrists come in and put all these big dishes on the stage and everyone eats. And there was this cachio spatzala, which is just, I love it.
And I try and recreate it.

Speaker 1 So it's basically mac and cheese, but it's got a macaroni cheese. Yeah.
It's got a crispy top, though. So maybe it's mac and cheese, but it's not.
It's a cashier spatzala.

Speaker 1 And you've got this seam in the middle of slow-cooked onions. Oh, yeah.
Like, you know, like kind of

Speaker 1 like total caramelized, like French onion soup onions. Wow.
And then it's, and it's like noodles rather than

Speaker 1 rather than

Speaker 1 are they tubes still?

Speaker 1 No, they're like the way they make the spatzler, which is their noodles, I believe it's like a batter.

Speaker 1 And they, I think they pour it through a kind of sieve or a colander straight into the boiling water.

Speaker 1 And then it's, so you get these kind of ragged, sort of noodly things that are only about kind of six, seven inches long. And then that's all with the cheese sauce and then the onions.

Speaker 1 So is that what you want as your, as your side dish?

Speaker 1 I can't decide can you choose for me out of those two I have to choose don't I well oh so you're deciding between these two for your past I'm gonna go for the smack one because it was so good and I love the scrubbiness of the place and the look and they do they've got sachets in there you like sachets sachets or what sachets are hot sauce

Speaker 1 I I love yeah collecting sachets and and keeping them about my person so I can yeah hack the snack you can hack a snack on the fly yeah whenever nature calls and they had in smack they had these little uh sachets of louisana hot sauce and guedens guedens mustard spicy mustard it's called yeah you got a whole like well you got a bag a jiffy bag of those you got a tub of those a bar

Speaker 1 untold i mean like yeah it's just so much like too much for a for a jiffy bag yeah and such a variety my my other daughter zoe went to japan recently and came back with sachets of qp oh wow how about that yeah yeah and also really weird

Speaker 1 you're an easy dad to get presents for, aren't you? Oh, honestly.

Speaker 1 Honestly, I was saying, find me, find me such a.

Speaker 1 She went to the food district in Tokyo and she got these, it's like, it's margarine and some kind of bean paste in one, well, it's like a double sachet.

Speaker 1 And then you snap the top and both, like aroldite. Like what? Aroldite, you know, the glue that's two parts that you squeeze together.
And then you squeeze the two out. Yeah.
How about that?

Speaker 1 I haven't tried them yet. I love it.
You can put them on your licorice crisps they might work yeah yeah

Speaker 1 i tell what i'm doing for my side so when when i did my first edinburgh i stayed with our mutual friend john robbins yes and who also collects sachets of sauce and has them and who also it rarely happens you are now i guess on the podcast and you cooked one of the dishes on john's dream menu i did didn't i yeah that must have warmed your heart to hear that It really did, actually.

Speaker 1 Must have felt good. Or they got it a little bit wrong.

Speaker 1 I'm checking.

Speaker 1 it doesn't matter no it does matter but it should be in a muffin like a kind of mcdonald's kind of thing but anyway and i was staying with another mutual friend mr matthew crosby oh yeah and i i cooked uh a meal for them one night and i made this salad that i made every day pretty much that festival so i was using various ingredients in my show uh like anchovies which once they were open i didn't want to use in you know too many like you know too many shows so i was eating them the ingredients afterwards as well and i made this salad that i call my edinburgh Edinburgh salad because it's from the first year I was there and it was loads of stuff from Liddle because that was just around the corner from where I was performing and it was sort of bitter leaves kind of well like just a bag of salad leaves cherry tomatoes anchovies torn up mozzarella black olives avocado torn up cured ham red onion red chili lemon oil lime mint dill and basil because i was using all of those in the show

Speaker 1 and then just a little bit of olive oil beautiful it sounds like a very tasty salad it's nice It's busy and it's bright and it's colourful.

Speaker 1 And also it's that kind of thing of when you're at Edinburgh and you're eating unhealthily, hence the rustlers. Yeah.
Something like that makes you, you know.

Speaker 1 But also crucially, in Edinburgh, I find... And actually, I eat healthy in Edinburgh now.
But if I'm on a run of eating unhealthy stuff, I can't go straight from that to pure salad.

Speaker 1 My body can't take it. Oh, yeah.
I go into shock. So I have to have...

Speaker 1 cheese in it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, well, this salad, if you took away the leaves,

Speaker 1 it's still a meal. Yeah,

Speaker 1 it's substantial. Yeah, I remember discovering those salads probably as a teenager.
I'd seen them on menus and being like, hold on a second. Yeah.
There's like just a load of fried chicken in a salad.

Speaker 1 Should I tell you what I've remembered that I want to have in my restaurant? Yeah. A cat.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well,

Speaker 1 I find the whole restaurant environment quite... I don't know.

Speaker 1 Stuffy? Well, I hate going to restaurants by myself,

Speaker 1 which you do when you're on the road. Yeah.
And you find. I love it.
I love it. Do you? Yeah.
See, I'm in and out too quick, and I look at my phone the whole time. I can't.
I just like it, I think.

Speaker 1 You should make a walk in and out quickly. Yeah.
No phones, no Waltmans. I love looking at my phone.
I like being in and out quick, but I don't like looking at my phone, but I still look at my phone.

Speaker 1 And I know what you mean. But maybe you should just have the wall like you did with your brother.
What, no phones? Yeah.

Speaker 1 No phones, no Waltmans. So you can talk to yourself.
Sing Lord of the Wings to yourself or whatever.

Speaker 1 Whatever you need to do. I'm not going to sing in a restaurant.
So you'd like a cat in the restaurant. Yeah, I think that would make it really homely.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, when there's, you know, like a cat in a shop. Yeah.
Yeah. Or a cat in a pub.
Pub cats are great. Pub cats are great.
My daughter, Meg, the baker,

Speaker 1 when she was at school, they had a school cat. Wow.
Oh, that's nice.

Speaker 1 And I think it was a stray that just wandered in. And then everyone was like, yeah, that's fine.
And it would wander in out of classrooms.

Speaker 1 It was just, and even, you know, change of lesson time when the corridors are just

Speaker 1 full of kids. Did Meg go to Hogwarts?

Speaker 1 Like a Hogwarts thing. She went to Hogwarts, yeah.
Meg Egg is a

Speaker 1 name of someone who would go to Hogwarts. yeah absolutely Meg Egg from Hufflepuff

Speaker 1 would she be Hufflepuff yeah Meg Egg would I don't know what that means you know Meg Egg better than us what does she value better than Hufflepuff well they value loyalty above all else is it like bravery for Gryffindor but is it like horoscopes where whatever one you choose people are going oh yeah yeah oh yeah it's me no no because this is like a made-up world so they they

Speaker 1 can just have it they can just have it be true

Speaker 1 yeah yeah that's not i mean i don't know maybe there is i haven't actually read the harry potter book so i don't know if there's a chapter in it where some of them are going you know that that hat just says whatever when you put it on and it's and you just believe it because it's just basically it's just describing anyone you're not in really in slithering house you know do you believe in that

Speaker 1 your dream drink george so in brighton there used to be a restaurant called silo that has since moved to london yes and i haven't been to it since it moved to london but when it was in brighton when it first opened, they had this drink.

Speaker 1 It was very hipster when it first opened. It was toe-curlingly hipster.
You know, it was like all the drinks were in recycled jam jars, that kind of thing. It was a bit like.

Speaker 1 But they had this drink called Elderflower Ebulus that was made, apparently, by a Brighton-based fermenting, they made a lot of kombucha called the Old Tree Brewery, and they don't do it anymore.

Speaker 1 But it was kind of, I don't really know what it was.

Speaker 1 It was sort of somewhere between homemade elderflower wine and beer it was slightly kombucha it had a kick it was probably about five six percent cloudy looked like looked like pastis yeah cloudy kind of greeny colour heavenly

Speaker 1 and was that in a jam jar it was served in a jam jar big one and uh yeah it's heavenly and then they stopped doing it and then you could buy it from the old tree brewery and now the old tree brewery stopped doing it disaster but in lockdown do you want me to step in and ask them if they can put a break right on you yeah but what did i do in lockdown you're right you snow you had to snack you made You made it.

Speaker 1 You made it. You made it.
You made some. I made a barrel of it.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Did it taste the same or better?

Speaker 1 It was close enough. It wasn't exactly the same.
I didn't know how they did it. So I made, I basically followed a recipe for elderflower champagne is what it's called.

Speaker 1 And it's like the lazy way of doing it. So you just, you just mix sugar, elderfully, you basically make elderflower cordial and add yeast and then let it ferment.
So it's cloudy and it goes fizzy.

Speaker 1 And I did it in like a brewer's barrel.

Speaker 1 So it's got a valve on it so it wouldn't explode yeah and for the first third of the barrel it was quite sweet and then it carried on fermenting so by the end it was incredibly dry wow and it knocked your socks off yeah yeah

Speaker 1 socks gone and my son who oh god how connected is this gem who's designed the book the snap book uh it's all his illustrations in there he designed a label oh because we were idlers lockdowns things like that he designed a label for the barrel for the little circle on it that's said that said elderflower ebulis that's sort of like with our version oh that's great yeah you say now i haven't thought about elderflower champagne uh for decades

Speaker 1 when you said it just now i just and look my mum listens to every episode so mum you're gonna have to text me and tell me if this memory is true or if i've made it up in my head but my mum used to make elderflower champagne at home i remember once being at home and then just hearing this like a series of like pap papa papa really loud noises and then in the gambit all the all the tops are popping off the flower champagne so that the fizzer got too much inside the bottles was it just the tops or were there the actual oh the actual stuff was coming out of it no no no no no no no no no

Speaker 1 but like just the tops or

Speaker 1 yeah that's that's a memory i have that my mum will have to text me and let me know i think it's likely because that is definitely a thing so the recipe that i followed was from a book guy a guy called john wright who's the sort of forager guy from river cottage and he he writes so well really recommend his books.

Speaker 1 And he talks about making it the kind of cavalier way. And his lovely story about a guy who had made a load of elderflower champagne bottles.

Speaker 1 They were in his garage, in his shed, and all but two of them exploded. And he was so scared to go in there, he borrowed an air rifle off a friend to take the last two out.

Speaker 1 Isn't that great?

Speaker 1 Your dream dessert, George. And I'm hoping, because I quite fancy something sweet at the minute, and I'm hoping that it's something that

Speaker 1 like is nearby that

Speaker 1 I can hack. I can do a snack hack.
Can you see dessert from that? You're looking to the side. Well, yes, there's shops out there.
I'm looking at the windows. We're in a good area for food, though.

Speaker 1 So I reckon if there's a sweet snack hack that George has got. It is, I mean, it is a snack hack, but it's a my mum snack hack.
It's not something you could do now.

Speaker 1 You can do it at home, but because it's not PC.

Speaker 1 Where since the 80s yeah uh brian in the 80s this

Speaker 1 you couldn't do this now so for the listeners this was uh when uh thatcher was in i imagine this is my mum's uh homemade brown bread ice cream yes now you've done this on the channel i've done it always looks delicious it reminds me of something someone did a similar thing for me once it is so good um i'm very glad you've picked this because you did it as an ice cream sandwich as well at one point i did it as uh yeah just to put a photo up so in the in the the book yeah i keep saying in the book

Speaker 1 well only because i felt like i was really kind of going oh in the book this in the book that but you know what i mean you're here to talk about the book as well yeah but i mean it is it's in the book

Speaker 1 so my mum was not a very good cook at all my dad did all the cooking pretty much all most of the cooking but she did she did two desserts like dinner per kind of dinner party go-to desserts and one of them was awful and it was this kind of

Speaker 1 it's not really a trifle so she'd get maryland cookies soak them in sherry and then they were sandwiched between whipped cream, almost like a caterpillar cake, and then covered in loads more whipped cream, and then covered in Cadbury's flake, crumbled up.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'll say that now. I want to eat it.
I'd eat it. I would absolutely eat that.
I did eat it. I ate loads of it.
Of course I did. I was a little boy.
But it was too heavy on the sherry. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, it was like, I like a bit of booze in the dessert, but when it's

Speaker 1 when it overwhelms. To be fair, yeah.
As a little

Speaker 1 bit loving sherry. Even now, I like sherry.
Yeah. but I find if you've got if you've got a dessert that's too heavy on the alcohol, I find it

Speaker 1 my palate when it comes to desserts is quite infantile. I like, you know, I'm a milk chocolate guy and not a

Speaker 1 dark chocolate. Yeah, fair enough.
Maybe even white chocolate, blonde, blonde chocolate. That's the new one, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 But yeah, so that was one of the desserts. And the other one was brown bread ice cream.

Speaker 1 And then what I did is I thought it was quite nice would be to make the brown bread ice cream and then make ice cream sandwiches with the Maryland cookies. So that then I'm kind of doing a little

Speaker 1 bad

Speaker 1 dessert. But the brown bread ice cream that she used to make, it's such a simple recipe.
It's basically just wholemeal bread crumbs, hazelnuts and demerara sugar, which you toast till it's crunchy.

Speaker 1 And then you make a meringue of egg white and sugar and fold that into whipped cream and then fold everything together and freeze it.

Speaker 1 And because it's whipped, it's stable so it won't go crystally like, you know, so you don't have to churn it.

Speaker 1 And it tastes like, it reminds me of the cornetto with the hazelnuts on, you know, the chocolate cornetto. It Reminds me of that.
It reminds me of the inside of the IKEA diamond cake.

Speaker 1 That slightly bready, sugary, you know. Yeah.
Yeah. That sounds great.
I tell you what else it tastes like. One of my favourite things.
The Kinder Maxi King.

Speaker 1 Talk me through the Kinder Maxi King. I think I know what you're talking about.
The Kinder Maxi King is... Hold on.
Is it on the... Is it with the chocolate bars? No.

Speaker 1 I'm looking through the chocolate bars. It's not there.
You can't remember. I'll tell you where it is.

Speaker 1 It's in the fridge. Yeah.
But it isn't an ice cream. It's one of those in-between.
Right. So it's like a sort of whipped white, sort of sweet vanilla-y mousse covered in chocolate and hazelnuts.

Speaker 1 And then it looks like it's like a tiny surfboard. It's that shape.
And it's kept in the fridge, and it's got a kind of core of caramel. I've got to get myself a Maxi King.
Honestly.

Speaker 1 That's something we can get in the shop. Here's the thing.

Speaker 1 They're scarce. Okay, thanks.
Great, thanks. They're scarce.
They're not.

Speaker 1 And here's where you can get them. Supermarket in France.
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 Of course. Occasionally you you get them in the UK, but they're not common.
Well, congratulations to our French listeners who are going to be going out and getting a Maxi King right now.

Speaker 1 They're so good. I was going to bring Maxi Kings with me to give you all at the end, but I couldn't find them.
And the shop that I was going to

Speaker 1 in Brighton was too far away from the station. It would be too much of a detour.
And there's something else I want to have with the dessert. Yeah.
If I may, as a drink with the desserts part of it.

Speaker 1 And it is the, because it's just, oh my God. And it's another, I don't know, maybe it was you, maybe it was you through you recommendation in New York from the milk.
Is it just called milk?

Speaker 1 Yeah, mamafoku milk was originally, wasn't it? But anyway, it's their cereal milk latte. I mean, all the, I've not had the latte.

Speaker 1 The cereal milk milkshake is still one of the best things I've ever had. Have you made their cereal milk? No.
Very rarely do I make something. You make stuff loads.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but look, I should be doing more. No, come on.
Don't beat yourself up. Their cereal milk is so easy to make.
Here's a connection that I didn't know was going to happen.

Speaker 1 You basically do what they did in Hong Kong. yeah you pre-milt the cereal yeah

Speaker 1 that must have been what they were doing so you do what you do is you taste fucking tourists who are going in and taking it off them before oh we're making cereal lattes out of those bring them back fucking stupid English oh fucking hell

Speaker 1 they're eating them again and they're complaining about them I went to then had the cereal milk latte and then the next day went into a thrift shop and there's a load of books and they're right like at eye level was the Mumifoku milk bar yes of course that yeah bought it a couple of dollars she worked there didn't she i didn't know that until i saw the

Speaker 1 same documentary yeah um so you would have the i'd have the cereal milk latte but the cereal milk by itself is heavenly you toast yeah toast cornflakes yeah then put milk in a bit of brown sugar and then the thing that makes it a little bit salt and it's just And then you just let that steep, do you?

Speaker 1 So you let that steep overnight. I think you toast, yeah, you toast the cornflakes a little bit to just get a bit more out of them.

Speaker 1 Then you pour milk and then leave it and then you push it through a sieve the next day, put it back in the fridge. I'm going to do that.
And it's just, it's the best drink.

Speaker 1 I'm going to read your menu back to you now, George, and see how you feel about it.

Speaker 1 You would like sparkling water from Grand Canaria in a thin-rimmed glass. Problems of bread, you would like the bread from E5 Bakehouse.
Amuse Bouche, you would like a bit of each, past and present.

Speaker 1 Starter, you would like British Rail Microwave Burger circa

Speaker 1 89 with a can of stones bitter with your brother. On a train.
On a train.

Speaker 1 And Leo. Huh? Leo's there too.
Your brother? No, that's my friend Leo.

Speaker 1 Henry's my brother. But Leo's there too.
Leo came on the walking holidays. Henry Egg.
Henry Egg. Pastor.
Casa Spitzel. Casa Spatzler.
Casa Spatzler. Casa Spatzler? But then.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 But then did you decide on the

Speaker 1 smack and the smack. So pasta course.
The smack. The case of the bacon smack.
Yeah. Main course.

Speaker 1 Camping dinner. That's barbecued, French sausage, tinned lentils, French beans, cooked in cider with the potatoes, tinned potatoes, Dijon mustard.
Diner. Diner.
Side. Edinburgh salad.

Speaker 1 With John Robbins, I guess, and Matthew Crosby. No, Crosby was an afterthought.
He's not there. He wasn't an afterthought.

Speaker 1 He was just further down the list.

Speaker 1 Drink elderflower aboulis. With your little label on it? No, you want it from the actual place?

Speaker 1 You want it from the original place? I don't mind if it's the one we made.

Speaker 1 That was quite nice, the one we made. No, I love it from the place.
I'd like you. From silo.
From silo. From silo.
No. Silo in the past.

Speaker 1 And then dessert mum's brown bread ice cream and a cereal milk latte from milk bar and can we all have maxi kings yes yeah and then you can dish out the maxi kings as well very strong chuck them like that yeah yeah just chuck them like butcher

Speaker 1 very very strong that sounds very very tasty uh tasty i i'd say george that that's a meal that i would enjoy more as it progresses yes same what about the bit of each though surely you'd like that bit of each definitely is very appealing i i'm i'm thinking that the british rail burger is the low point but but you don't have the memory.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 That's very personal memory. Yeah, yeah.
That's personal. So like, I don't know if we've got stuff we've eaten on a train that would replace that.
You must have something like rubbish. That is awful.

Speaker 1 I used to have the bacon rolls on there all the time. They are the same problem.
But I think they're in plastic by the time I was eating them and they're soggy all the way through.

Speaker 1 But that's not a good memory.

Speaker 1 Have you got a food item you can think of that is like that's rubbish, but is a good that's like I know this is awful, but it reminds me of you know that's good actually that's a good one from the listener if you can tweet us tweet the off menu account and say if you've ever had something that you know is awful but the memory makes it good and the best one will get a signed shopping board from the great bonito

Speaker 1 thank you very much for coming to the dream restaurant George thank you for having me goodbye

Speaker 1 There we are, James. The off-menu menu of George Egg.
What a lovely man. What a lovely menu.
What an exciting sounding book. Yes, The Snack Hacker by George Egg.

Speaker 1 Yes, get the Snack Hacker by George Egg. It's published on the 5th of June.
So many cool recipes in there. Porridge pot pancakes.
Mushy pea hummus, to name but two. Cheesy cup noodle with egg yolk.

Speaker 1 Mmm, and the photos in this and the illustrations are gorgeous as well. Yes, his son did the illustrations.
Yes, shout out Nejem. Shout out Nejem.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't know what happened to my tongue there.

Speaker 1 Salakar was eating some snack hacks.

Speaker 1 You say, lovely menu. We gave him an easy ride on that train burger because it was a touch of a nice memory.
But that is disgusting, man. It was absolutely disgusting.
And then, you know.

Speaker 1 He didn't even hack it. Yeah, he didn't hack it.
Disappointed George Egg. But the rest of the menu sounded absolutely delicious.
You should all follow George Egg on Instagram at George Egg.

Speaker 1 We are very impressed that he got that handle. Yeah.
I can't believe he got George Egg.

Speaker 1 There must be loads of people called George who love eggs. Yeah.
And thought, right, that's me. I'm the egg guy.
Yeah. I love eggs so much.
My name's George. My name's George.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go for the handle George Egg because my surname's already been taken. What the?

Speaker 1 The snack hacker? The snack hacker?

Speaker 1 At the snack hacker, surely.

Speaker 1 But yeah, so at George Egg on Instagram. And you'll get, I mean, also, you've got to go on YouTube and watch all the snack hacker videos as well.

Speaker 1 I'm sure they're on Instagram too and all over the place, but that's where I watch them. Yes.

Speaker 1 I'll watch them all like all in a row before I know it, the whole day is gone because I've been watching those snack hacks and then I go and hack a snack.

Speaker 1 George did not say snacker jacks even though he's the snacker hacker. And we are very glad that we didn't choose egg which was our original.
Yes. Because he would have been gone straight away.

Speaker 1 We've been gone immediately with an amuse bouche which would have been very sad. That he's select that he put into the menu.
Can I please put this in here? It might have been funny, man.

Speaker 1 Pretty funny, actually. I do think we should have British Rail Burger as a future secret ingredient.
Yeah. Add it to the list, Benito.
It's on there. I mean, imagine it being picked again.

Speaker 1 Do you know what? That person would absolutely deserve it. Yeah, they would.
We'll get his brother on. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We'll get his brother on, kick him off. Also, like, yeah, if you ever see George Egg on a comedy bill, you've got to go and see a stand-up, too.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 This guy's doing everything. Yes, he's got a lot of stuff out there.
Make sure you go and check George Egg out and buy his book. But for now, it's goodbye from us.
Goodbye from us.

Speaker 1 That's Ed and James. Yes.
Maybe from Benito as well. I don't know if he ever is really shaking his head.
No. Not goodbye from Benito.
Benito is always in your heart.

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