Have you ever had one of those moments, maybe you were cleaning out your closet, and discovered that old blue sweater in the back recesses that you never really wore when you bought, but trying it on now, years later, it fits beautifully, and is warm and soft– precisely what you have been looking for. Or maybe you have finally found the ideal ball point pen, just narrow enough to make a serious stroke yet fluid enough so that it has a bit of caché. Well that’s sort of how I feel about my latest discovery.
Branston Pickle Relish is hardly a new product to any Brit out there. But for me, an American with more of a, shall we say, austere palate– it was a revelation. It all started a few months ago, as I was getting ready to leave New York. I had dinner in Brooklyn at Northeast Kingdom, a little restaurant in Bushwick that served haute British food and whose only neighbors seemed to be the industrial buildings that lined the block. Dinner was great, conversation even better, and my fellow diners and I all shared the ploughman’s salad as a starter. The pickled beets were tangy and sublime, the sturdy greens were tough and manly, but it was the wedges of Grafton cheddar cheese, and the shiny, deep brown blob of Branston Pickle that truly stood out.
The cheddar was smooth and subtle, and paired with the sweet and tart taste of the relish it was a match made in heaven. It got me thinking, wouldn’t a grilled cheese sandwich, made in this exact combination be stupendous? And then I moved. The fridge was emptied, boxes loaded, and Bushwick became a distant memory. Some ideas die hard however, and I hadn’t been in New Haven very long when I found the bottle standing thin and proud, on the shelf of a Turkish market near my new home.
I quickly snapped the bottle up (this market has a very bad reputation for carrying products one day, only to have them disappear the next). The Grafton cheddar came next, and before I knew it, I was having the best grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. Glimpsing at the ingredients listed on the bottle, it’s true– Branston Pickle has everything but the kitchen sink, and it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing condiment on the planet, but the taste more than makes up for it. Who knows, I may never eat a plain grilled cheese again.
