Ben Mervis doesn’t hesitate to say British food is the cuisine of his dreams. For the Philly native, the fare presents comfort meals made from wild foods of the island nation, rich in histories of migration, innovation and preservation.
For Mervis, the founder of Fare Magazine and lead researcher for Netflix’s "Chef’s Table," his time as an impressionable international student in the United Kingdom sparked a quest to chronicle the nation’s food culture — one that led him to savor sausage rolls with English mustard in a “ritual-like calm” and eat his weight in fresh fish and langoustines.
In his new cookbook, "The British Cookbook," Mervis leads a culinary tour through the U.K. — from crowdie (a soft, spreadable cheese traditional to Highland Scotland) to mulligatawny soup (the Anglo-Indian dish that landed in British cookbooks as early as the 1800s) — which he hopes is “the first port of call” for those looking to dig in to British food.
