This post is an update of my previous publication after another week exploring this country. For this second week, I explored another county in the Midlands: Northamptonshire!
Two reasons for this choice: it seems to be quite a not so known county like Rutland and as a French I can’t pronounce the name correctly (NoRdAmToNshEeR) lol.
Anyway, there is one live cam working in the county town of Northampton powered by the YouTube Channel [National Lift Tower](https://www.youtube.com/@NationalLiftTower/featured). It’s situated on the tallest building in town, and you get a nice overview of the place. You can even see people playing rugby on the field down there, stranger to the fact that at least one supporter is watching them.
This tower is one of UK’s tallest facility for lift development and testing. Concerning testing, they also do free fall test to rate the security of the lift. If you crave strong sensation or just like “everyday near-death experience”, you can ask to be in the lift during one of these experiments. Theoretically you shall be bruised but all right. Of what I read on Reddit, the centre of Northampton at night also offers other kind of vivid experience, but you may get more than haematomas.
Leaving Northampton, I checked for some of the other towns of this county and stumbled upon this video from Alex in Great Britain named [“Top 10 PRETTIEST Towns in NORTHAMPTONSHIRE”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuXRJ5XBJF0&t=93s). His video is really worth watching and coming from a small town myself, I laughed in pain at the similarities, like the non-existent transportation system or the bizarre names.
Now to the cooking part. Online I found some recipes from the Victorian area, which, in a way, seems to be connected with Northamptonshire and I tried to make two of them: Cattern cakes and Clangers.
Cattern cakes are very simple cookies with caraway seeds. Because I couldn’t find these seeds, I put fennel instead.
For those of you who do not know what Clangers are, let me explain it in one word: Efficiency. This pastry were eaten by workers in the 19th century and lunch had to be quick, so the filling is 2/3 main and 1/3 dessert. The salty part is filled with savoury pork meat and the sweet part with cooked apples. It seems very strange but taste very good.
All right guys, this is it for the second week. It was very interesting to explore England this way, and if there is one thing that I will keep from this “virtual trip” it’s the buttery pastry. It’s so simple and the result is so delicious. The trick to blind bake a pie before putting the filling is also a clever thing.
Even though both Rutland and Northamptonshire are quite lost, I really liked to explore them, although only virtually. Next year I may even plan a trip to England to visit the Midlands by myself, we will see.
Next week I will cross the Atlantic (again) and will be posting in r/argentina!
For the record, Clangers are actually from Bedfordshire which is not in the midlands and borders Northamptonshire. As someone who comes from Bedfordshire this is a matter of local pride but Iām glad you enjoyed your virtual tour of my adopted county š
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Hello everybody!
This post is an update of my previous publication after another week exploring this country. For this second week, I explored another county in the Midlands: Northamptonshire!
Two reasons for this choice: it seems to be quite a not so known county like Rutland and as a French I can’t pronounce the name correctly (NoRdAmToNshEeR) lol.
Anyway, there is one live cam working in the county town of Northampton powered by the YouTube Channel [National Lift Tower](https://www.youtube.com/@NationalLiftTower/featured). It’s situated on the tallest building in town, and you get a nice overview of the place. You can even see people playing rugby on the field down there, stranger to the fact that at least one supporter is watching them.
This tower is one of UK’s tallest facility for lift development and testing. Concerning testing, they also do free fall test to rate the security of the lift. If you crave strong sensation or just like “everyday near-death experience”, you can ask to be in the lift during one of these experiments. Theoretically you shall be bruised but all right. Of what I read on Reddit, the centre of Northampton at night also offers other kind of vivid experience, but you may get more than haematomas.
This wonderful piece of architecture even have two Instagram pages: [an official one](https://www.instagram.com/nationallifttower/?hl=en-gb) and [a troll one](https://www.instagram.com/thenationallifttower/). Whereas the first page features a simple overview of the tower, the second one contains pictures of it getting wasted and surrendered by chicks.
Leaving Northampton, I checked for some of the other towns of this county and stumbled upon this video from Alex in Great Britain named [“Top 10 PRETTIEST Towns in NORTHAMPTONSHIRE”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuXRJ5XBJF0&t=93s). His video is really worth watching and coming from a small town myself, I laughed in pain at the similarities, like the non-existent transportation system or the bizarre names.
Now to the cooking part. Online I found some recipes from the Victorian area, which, in a way, seems to be connected with Northamptonshire and I tried to make two of them: Cattern cakes and Clangers.
Cattern cakes are very simple cookies with caraway seeds. Because I couldn’t find these seeds, I put fennel instead.
For those of you who do not know what Clangers are, let me explain it in one word: Efficiency. This pastry were eaten by workers in the 19th century and lunch had to be quick, so the filling is 2/3 main and 1/3 dessert. The salty part is filled with savoury pork meat and the sweet part with cooked apples. It seems very strange but taste very good.
All right guys, this is it for the second week. It was very interesting to explore England this way, and if there is one thing that I will keep from this “virtual trip” it’s the buttery pastry. It’s so simple and the result is so delicious. The trick to blind bake a pie before putting the filling is also a clever thing.
Even though both Rutland and Northamptonshire are quite lost, I really liked to explore them, although only virtually. Next year I may even plan a trip to England to visit the Midlands by myself, we will see.
Next week I will cross the Atlantic (again) and will be posting in r/argentina!
For the record, Clangers are actually from Bedfordshire which is not in the midlands and borders Northamptonshire. As someone who comes from Bedfordshire this is a matter of local pride but Iām glad you enjoyed your virtual tour of my adopted county š
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