North East England embraces spice, and will love Mannys Sauces

North East England has its ups and downs in terms of food. We go from the High Street masses of Greggs to several Michelin-starred restaurants. But one thing that I have experienced in the North East that I perhaps didn't expect was an addiction to spice. For a part of the country that hasn't experienced the same amount of immigration as London or The Midlands but the people here have embraced food from all over the world.

The people of the North East and its surrounds have taken spicy food to their heart, from Chinatown in Newcastle to Bradford winning curry capital 5 years in a row-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-34586019

And if spicy food is something that you are interested in then you need look no further than Mannys Sauces. They have a variety of options for the discerning customer and were set up by Manny. Here is his story-

“As any other person in the world, I had a huge dream - to open the first Piri-Piri Chicken Restaurant in the world, and then spread this dream to every corner of the planet. It wouldn’t be easy to achieve, but neither was it impossible. I had the will, the courage, the faith and family support to make it come true. Early in 1985, I sold my home to open the first piri-piri chicken restaurant outside of Mozambique. CHICKENLAND was the chosen name and Johannesburg, South Africa was the birth place of my dream! After a short while, I was making, bottling and selling a range of 5 different Piri-Piri Sauces and Marinades. After a slow start, the business was a stunning success! The name quickly spread across the city and everyone was talking about this new food place that was taking the food industry by storm.

The business success was proven! The next step was expansion to other parts of the city, country and abroad, and many people tried to get financially involved. Expansion included a need for capital and people, and so in 1987, I sold some of my business shares to two young men: one of Portuguese origin and the other, a South African of Jewish origin. Shortly after they joined, the business name was changed to NANDOS. Chickenland was a nice name, but according to marketing experts at the time, it was felt that the business should be backed by a personal name before the expansion took place. Between MANNYS and NANDOS, I was out-voted two to one, and the latter name was chosen. Despite a few initial problems, the expansion started taking off and now more than ever, the success was tremendous!

A few years later, the rug was pulled out from under my feet and I was forced to leave my business. I lost my dream; one of the best things in my life after my family. After this happened, I opened a few other restaurants including Chickenland in Portugal, but these weren’t my dream. It was a way to make a living, but it wasn’t my passion. It took me a long time to recover from what happened, but I was determined and pushed through until another dream emerged; to make the best sauces and speciality food products in the world! MANNYS SAUCES is now my new dream! Once again I can see this new dream taking shape and growing strong all the way to the TOP! The passion is back and I again have the will, the faith, the support of my family, and the support of so many loyal customers that know and appreciate the high quality products that we make. I am forever grateful to my family and my customers for their support and the divine forces for showing me the way.

Manny x”

There are three of Mannys Sauces that I’d recommend for those with more discerning tastebuds-

The Original Piri-Piri Sauce

This is the classic - and you don't mess with a classic! It's a taste that has to be tried to be believed. It mixes the heat of the chilli with the depth of flavour that you require from a sauce or marinade. In fact, Manny guarantees that it is the tastiest Piri-Piri in the land. Try it and you won’t be disappointed.

Curry Sauce

Make the most delicious and healthy curry in your own home, without any hard work or effort! Whether you use beef, lamb, chicken, fish or seafood, add this sauce to create the most delicious and flavoursome curry.

Meat Marinade

Excellent marinade created to marinate any meat, but can also be used with fish or seafood. Make the best BBQs, roasts, or stews. The contents of a 250ml bottle will marinate 3kg of meat.

And don't forget the selection of cured meats. One of these is presunt, a very tasy and popular Portuguese-style parma ham and is great for any occasion.

The North East hasn’t seen anything quite like it before. Try the whole collection, they are delicious. Mannys Sauces can be contacted in various ways, which is befitting modern business. If you want to contact them, follow them or just find out more then you can try-

www.twitter.com/Mannyssauces

www.facebook.com/Mannyssauces

www.youtube.com/channel/UCPvHPFfaz5yJRTtlv_ViDPQ

www.mannyssauces.com

Dinner's at twelve o'clock, tea's at five, no messing around

One of the first things that occurred as something really different to me when I moved to the North East was meals and mealtimes. There is a strict regime at play here and you should be very aware of it if you ever invite guests over or make plans that involve meal times (phrases such as "meet you at tea time" have never been so close to getting you into trouble.) The North East meal times are generally set in stone and woe betide anyone who doesn't follow this.

The meal in the middle part of the day is called dinner and is eaten at Midday on the dot.

The meal later in the day is called tea and is eaten at five pm, without fail.

From someone who emigrated here from the South East of the country and was used to eating lunch and dinner it actually took quite some getting used to. Also the rest of the world has a far more flexible set of timings for meals. When I go to Spain I can tell what time the locals eat by when the restaurants get busy. Unfortunately it's usually at around half past ten at night, which is when my children are more than ready to go to bed. But in the North East the meal times are more of a home thing. These meal times are when things happen in the home and how the day is structured around this. Because of the early "tea" the evenings pub visit and beer drinking starts at around six o'clock and is often over before half past nine. See how this compares to the Spanish day!

I think that Gary Neville hits the nail on the head in this YouTube clip from Monday Night Football -

The fact of the matter is that these times are an important part of the way of life up here and I am interested to see how this distinction has developed. From my preliminary investigations, I have read that the word "dinner" relates to the main meal of the day, irrespective of the time of day that this meal is eaten. But from the times when men worked in the pits, they would have been working on shifts and would not have eaten cooked or heavy food during or just before working in the pit. The crouched position in which the men had to work causes heartburn if the stomach is full. Nothing fried was eaten down in the pit or just before going down to the pit.

With so many of the men working on shift, where does this North East certainty of naming these meal times come from?

This blog and commentary sheds some dim light onto the subject and attempts to look at the younger North Easterners and their changing attitudes to the words and the meals-

https://scranshums.wordpress.com/tag/north-east-england/

But if you talk to those of an older generation (I'm talking probably anyone over 50 here) then it's ingrained as dinner and tea and the times are set in stone - especially for those that are retired. This is where the distinction starts to really take hold and develop into the ideas that Gary Neville quotes as "dinner's at twelve o'clock, tea's at five, no messing around." 

It's my parents and grandparents that have had this structure built around their home life particularly from perhaps when they were young and people didn't have as many pressures on their time as the current  lives.

It's ingrained in the psyche in the area about how the day is structured around food and meals. It's a large part of the North East and it's just one of the things I've found different in my time here. I'll look at more differences in future blogs.