Utahns a bit peckish for little taste of English eats?

The Daily Grub
BRITISH INVASION!
SOME BANGERS FOR YOUR YANK BUCKS!
Lawrence Stevens was born in Nottingham, and spent most of his life in London.
"I had no intention of leaving the U.K., let alone moving to America," he said.
A ski trip to Utah changed everything.
"I went back to gray, cold, busy, polluted, stressful London, and I was like, 'OK, what am I really doing here?' "
So he moved.
"It's a big shock coming out here," he said. "Hooper was almost the opposite extreme, ... having no stoplights and sheep as your next door neighbor."
Happy with the change, he still pined for one thing he left behind -- British food.
Stevens isn't the only one who yearns for a taste of home. Mandy Island, originally from Towcester, England, used to drive to Salt Lake City to pick up her favorite foods from a British specialty store.
Island didn't like the drive, so she and her husband, Nick, opened their own shop in Layton. Little Taste of Britain is part restaurant, specializing in fish and chips, and part grocery store. In the grocery section, shoppers can buy "England's Finest" brand sausages, made in Utah by Stevens.
Stevens and Island say Utah is the right place to sell English foods.
"We do get a lot of British people," said Sandie Thomas, manager of Little Taste of Britain, estimating clientele at about 60 percent British and 40 percent American.
Stevens says Utah's predominant LDS religion adds to the demand for British food.
"Because of the church, and missions and things like that, there's a lot of people who have had exposure to British and English stuff," he said.
Missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who served in Australia and New Zealand often acquire similar tastes. And, many of those on Hill Air Force Base have been to England.
Imported items with well-known brand names are popular, but Stevens says Utah-made British food is a good idea.
"It's not gone past the expiring date, and it's not spent four weeks on a ship and in customs," he said, adding, "A lot of the ingredients are better quality here."
British food
British food is not as well known as the cuisine of some other countries.
One reason, Stevens says, is that traditional British food is similar to traditional American food. Many early U.S. settlers came from the U.K.
Island says it's just basic, honest food.
"Some people think our food is bland, but it's not," she said. "It's not covered in all the spices, so you can actually taste the food."
There are foods that are iconically British, like fish and chips.
Island has had to explain to customers that chips are thick-cut french fries -- not potato chips (which the British call crisps) or the batter-dipped potato squares sold as chips at some American restaurants.
Marion Hansen, a Clearfield resident originally from Scotland, drops by Little Taste of Britain every week.
"I get fish and chips, and then I get bread and butter and put the chips on the bread and fold it over," she said.
She also orders Irn-Bru, a bubble gum-smelling soft drink from Scotland.
"My friends, when they come, get the pasties with the curry sauce on it, and mushy peas," Hansen said. "Mushy peas are peas that are cooked a lot, to the point that they're mushy.".
Pasties are folded pastry crusts, filled with meat and/or vegetables.
Little Taste of Britain recently celebrated the first anniversary of its fish and chips shop, and Island says the business is "kicking over nicely." They've put in more seating, and have been asked about franchising. At customer request, they've recently added English-style sandwiches to the menu, including tuna and cucumber.
The shop is also doing well, with English chocolates as a customer favorite.
"Chocolate here tends to be waxy and coats the top of your mouth," said Island. "English chocolate really does melt -- it's creamy and milky."
Bangers or sausage
Stevens got into the sausage business because he really missed bangers.
"British-style sausages are generally more moist, and they use a natural casing, and when they used to cook them in the old days, they'd split and pop, and sizzle and crack, and hence the term 'banger,' " he explained.
Bangers have bread crumbs mixed in with the pork and spices.
"It makes the product lighter, and the texture less greasy and more fluffy," he said.
It also makes it, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not sausage.
Stevens wanted to call it sausage, for American shoppers, so he had to replace the bread crumbs with rice flour.
Stevens, who now lives in Ogden, tested his recipes at a neighborhood party in Hooper. Report cards, filled out by about 250 tasters, showed a preference for the English-style sausages, but convinced Stevens to add a little more spice for American tastes.
"They're kind of traditional English flavors," he said. "Lincolnshire is like a sage-flavor sausage."
Black pepper is the dominant flavor in his Cumberland recipe.
"I've got plans for other sausage flavors," he said, mentioning traditional English combinations such as pork and apple, or pork and leek.
If the sausage sells well, he may expand into other foods. Preserves, cakes, candies and biscuits (cookies) are all possibilities.
Curiosity satisfied
British food sales will grow, if there are more customers like James Higashiyama.
"I really like to try new things, like new foods and new cultures," said the Ogden man.
"Curiosity got to me, and I wondered what it was really like to eat authentic fish and chips, and with the malt vinegar on top of it. It's actually really good."
Now he drops by about once a week.
"I always try to get something new every time," he said. "I've tried almost everything, except for their sandwiches. ... The steak and kidney pie, I'd say that would be something that people might have to get used to, but the steak and onion pie is delicious."
He also tries the grocery items. "They have different flavor sodas, like dandelion and burdock," he said.
Higashiyama has been to the Middle East, Japan, and Vietnam with the military, but never to the U.K.
"This is as close as I can get," he said, "until I actually go."