Greggs of Gosforth

[Maggie/915]

What is the secret to selling 2.5 million sausage rolls per week.

You can read all about it on page 22/23 of today's Guardian.

They claim their brand is doing the common uncommonly well.

Success for the NE.

Will they conquer Europe if we stay in the EU?

Any replies please stay lighthearted. I for one am fed up with all the claims and counter claims.

[threegee]

Do Greggs even want to be in the EU?  Having met the senior members of the family when they were looking for their first Bedlington shop I'd guess that they'd say the same as most small to medium sided UK business.  i.e. they can manage perfectly well without it, thank you!

There's very likely similar enterprises in Germany and all points East. They will each cater for varying national tastes.  We need to celebrate such differences, else what would be the point of going on holiday (OK, there's the weather! ), not homogenise them away with top-down regulation, and the likes of TTIP.  The only people who benefit from this are international corporations who can exploit both producers in poorer countries, and then milk consumers in richer countries.  And... dare I say it, but your fave phone megacorporation is one of the very worst offenders here!  Links to non-Guardian/non-BBC articles on request!

[Canny lass]

Maggie, it's difficult to be lighthearted about something that has 349 calories, contains 25 g fat and 1,8mg sodium per roll!

I have a Dutch friend who swears that Holland is the homeland of the sausage roll.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Simple answer... Britain… Right???

Not really.

The modern version of the Sausage Roll is commonly attributed back to the Brits, but the idea of wrapping meat (or any food) in a puff dough is something the historians can never agree on. There are several examples of Ancient Greeks and Romans using pastry in delicate cuisine, but it's commonly believed the modern version of pastry wrapped meat was developed in the 18th Century.

Flaky or Puff Pastry was concocted a long time after plain pastry had become common around most parts of the world. Many popular European flaky pastries, which are now seen commonly in supermarkets, are often eaten sporadically as a premium snack in the UK. One of the most famous snacks and earliest flaky pastry is the croissant. The origin of the croissant goes back to 1686 when the Turks tried to seize Budapest by digging under the walls of the city at night. Only the bakers were awake (working of course). They heard the noise and sounded the alarm, foiling the surprise attack of the Turks. The reward was permission to sell a delicacy at a premium price: the croissant became that delicacy. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 19th century in France that flaky (feulleté) dough was used and the now common forms first appeared.

That's also about the time a very hungry British man decided he could make fun of the French by wrapping their favourite pastry around some cooked pork. Do visions of Inspector Clouseau cursing "swine" come to mind? Needless to say, the result wasn't all that great, but the war effort was just gearing up and the British people were very hungry. Sausage Rolls became an instant hit.

The next major revelation for the Sausage Roll came around 1980. A very Hungarian (not hungry) man and his wife were just starting a new family in the wilds of the British Columbia Interior. Paul & Susan (P&S) Tolnai were entrepreneurs just starting out in the food business when they came across their first sausage roll. They decided to bring the Hungarian influence back into the pastry used to create the Sausage Roll. After years of fine-tuning their recipe they are finally ready to share this Anglo-Hungarian treat with the rest of the world.

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Is 17 November 1558 to 24 March 1603 too early for the sausage roll, or is Elizabeth 1st right?

The Blackadder series has several mention of sausage rolls. In the first series, episode "Born to be King", the Queen is loathing the return of her husband because she feels as she's "being used all night long, like the outside of a sausage roll". In the second series, episode "Potato", Queen Elizabeth I's excitement at the return of Sir Walter Raleigh lends her an excuse to describe some of her "pretty wild dreams", one of which is her being a sausage roll.

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The Dutch make their own versions = Sausage filled rolls are much loved in Holland. They go by the name of ‘worstenbroodje’ made with bread dough or ‘saucijzenbroodje’ when made with puff pastry.

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For how long can a Gregg's sausage roll be kept?

 

 

[Malcolm Robinson]

Until you eat it Eggy!  

 

[moe19]

Urban Dictionary has an entry on the humble Greggs savoury 

  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gregs+dummy

 

And a song has even been dedicated to it.

.

 

 

[threegee]

Hmmm... you believe all that Eggy?  Next thing someone will pop up to claim that Sir Walter Raleigh didn't actually bring pizza back from America! 

[Canny lass]

Sir Walter Raleigh didn't actually bring pizza back from America! He only brought the concept. The actual pizza would never have survived the journey. I thought everybody knew that.

[threegee]

Ah, yes, it all comes back to me now.  Queen Elizabeth fancied an Indian takeaway so Walt thought he'd try out a new short cut by going the other way around.  He sailed up to Manhattan, and the silly fellow thought he'd arrived in India. When they inexplicably refused his credit card he had to trade beads for those strange looking chapatis and papadums.

Without proper spices, well of course it would all be inedible when he got back!  Easy to appreciate why she threw her glass of Coke over him; even the corgis turned their noses up at the stuff! Thus (without the royal endorsement) pizza took a good while to catch on.  History is so interesting I don't know why they no longer do the real thing in schools these days.

[Canny lass]

That's the way I Heard it too! As you say, pity they don't do real history in school these Days.

[Maggie/915]

I love the song and all the humour in these posts.

The  one humourous item in the paper was that a Google Advert for Greggs had been got at by an internet troll it read 'Shit made for Skum'

Greggs handled the abuse well and did not over react. No publicity is bad publicity maybe!

A little like our ' Bedlington it is the pits'

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

9 hours ago, threegee said:

Hmmm... you believe all that Eggy?  Next thing someone will pop up to claim that Sir Walter Raleigh didn't actually bring pizza back from America! 

 

GGG - If you buy me a years supply of Gregg's sausage rolls I'll believe what others have written!

[threegee]

On 3/6/2016 at 21:35, Eggy1948 said:

GGG - If you buy me a years supply of Gregg's sausage rolls I'll believe what others have written!

A year might not be deliverable Eggy!

GERMANY BANS SAUSAGES: Pork banned in cafes and schools to 'not offend refugees'

[Maggie/915]

That must be a joke 3g.

[threegee]

Of course, but that doesn't preclude an element of truth, and it's in the best tradition of Jewish humour. On the flipside the stoical denial of creeping Islamification - being equally absurd - also has an element of humour.

[Canny lass]

Denmark is still supplying plenty of pork to Germany. I wonder what they are doing with it?

[threegee]

20 hours ago, Canny lass said:

Denmark is still supplying plenty of pork to Germany. I wonder what they are doing with it?

Cast your mind back to 1st January 2014 and those two Labour MPs standing at the airport to meet and greet the single Romanian "car washer" on the first flight in.  A great PR stunt by Labour, but in the context of what has happened since the joke is on them, not on the people who accurately predicted a migrancy crisis, and were the subject of the mockery.

There's some good jokes to be had about Turkey right now, but for some strange reason the left is no longer keen on striking at the empty goal.

[Canny lass]

?

[Malcolm Robinson]

Stunningly delicious..........

 

 

 

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

The simple things in life - that could be the last Greggs Sausage Roll I ever see, mouth watering. Thank you Malcolm. 

As I grew older and took head of the dangers to one's health from eating all that hot pastry wrapped lovingly around the sausage rolls I decided I must not waste all my money on enjoyment. So I switched to the Gregg's hot Corned Beef Pastie thus reducing my life expectancy, as the fat content etc. is higher than the sausage roll, and leaving more money for the kids!  

[pilgrim]

I recall the greggs chicken pie - it could only be eaten upside down!! and  also the 'steak bake' which could produce an absolute tsunami of wind!!

[Ovalteeny]

I'm with Eggy on the Corned Beef Pasties. Best snack around. I can see Rafael Benitez getting hooked on them.