London Food Tour: Essentials of British Food Culture

Our only comment is that we were confused about the $40 tasting fee. We had small samples of cheese, as anyone would receive that came in the shop, before buying some Stilton and biscuits for later. The 4 of us shared a Nordic cinnamon roll Jeanine paid for. Dave paid for beers and cider at the pub, at the end of the tour. FYI...we gave Jeanine a $50 tip.

I am enclosing a portion of my daily review I sent to my family after the walk with Kathi. She was great! It was just the 2 of us and Kathi. I have had 3 hip surgeries so I was concerned with keeping up with a group, particularly, in the rain. Not a problem. She was personable, knowledgeable and very enthusiastic about her area of expertise. Here was my report to my family-- "We spent the first 90 minutes on various floors on Fortnum and Mason learning about the start of the store itself (selling candles) and its evolution into food marketing. Now the "best of the best foods" are found and sold there, including to the Queen herself. We first went to the prepared meat pies section. Meat pies were the sandwiches of the working class. Generally, the crust were not edible but served as "handles" (where the seams of the pastry were) and the insides would contain a meat prepared to last at room temperature for the day mixed with some type of vegetable. We had a "Scotch hen egg" which is a soft boiled egg wrapped in a sausage which is then wrapped in a pastry. It was served with piccalilli (a spicy relish that accompanied many cold meat dishes). There are many types of piccalilli but the one we tried was mustard based. It is an English interpretation of Indian pickles, a relish of chopped pickles, vegetables and spices. Next, we went to the cured meat section and tasted jerky (only Mike tasted the jerky to be honest) and several different types of hams. One was from a pig that was acorn-fed and hand massaged! Jamon Iberico, from Spain. It was very good but very spicy. Air dried. Also the priciest. Leaving meats, we went upstairs to look at a section devoted to tea and all the accoutrements for making tea. Every type and price range of tea service and teapots from sterling silver tea urn (costing 122,000 BPS) to a Brown Betty porcelain teapot that every average home would have for about 20 BPS. There were also Asian teapots and tea sets. There was instruction of differences in tea, high tea and afternoon tea. The tea itself, however, is located on another floor. Next we went to the honey department for a discussion on the various types of honeys from the blondest to the darkest, from those honeys found on the British Isle to those imported from Africa! There were a LOT of honey choices. Now, in London as in most major cities, bee hives are placed on buildings all around the city including F&M, to help strengthen the bee population. Now we entered the sugary department of candies and chocolates. We tasted chocolates that were flavored with flowers--rose, lavender, and violets. We got to choose a variety of chocolates (12) to go in a box for us to take home. There were probably fifty flavors of chocolate from which to choose. Then we ended our "grocery" trip with the tea department. We smelled various teas but the prize tea was "Countess Gray" with an infusion of orange into the Earl Gray like flavor. There was also "Celebration" tea created for the Queen's Jubilee last year. Leaving Fortnum and Mason we walked a few blocks to Paxton & Whitfield, "Exceptional Cheese since 1797" in St. James. Here's a tip: If you are hot in London, go to a cheese shop. They are very cold! :-) We tasted four different cheeses here: 1. Cornish Blue Cheese from Cornwall 2. Westcombe cheddar 3. Lincolnshire poacher 4. Chaource -- a French cheese, originally manufactured in the village of Chaource in the Champagne-Ardenne region. The leftover cheeses were wrapped for us and sent home with us with some crackers. Very tasty! We left the cheese shop and walked from St. James to SOHO in a light rain, traveling through Chinatown and watched two women making Chinese dumplings (one with pork, one vegetarian) by hand in the window of a restaurant. In SOHO we visited an Algerian coffee shop that has been in the same spot since 1887. It was pouring rain so we stood under the store awning outside and drank our coffees and visited. From the coffee shop we walked to the Covent Garden area to a place where seven streets meet in a circle, Seven Dials--a small but well-known road junction in the West End in Covent Garden. It is an area filled with quaint shops, cafes and taverns. Kathi was prepared to take us through Covent Gardens but we had been walking and standing for over three hours and I told her I needed rest. We thanked her for the great information and took a taxi back to the hotel to dry off and rest."

The only thing we might change is to have a scheduled tasting on the end of the tour. We discussed that it might be good to start with Fortnum and Mason and end with a cheese shop. Or maybe it would be good to do the Soho/Chinatown walk and end up at F &M and the cheese shop. In our case, Kathy offered several options for tastings at the end but we couldn't get a group concensus (several of our party were tired) so it fizzled a bit. This was NOT Kathy's fault. As I say, she offered several options for us. We ALL loved Kathy and really appreciated her knowledge and willingness to structure the tour for our needs. She is fantastic. We LOVED the Seven Dials area and are so grateful she showed us this area!