Stew
Fixing dinner tonight, it occurred to me to wonder whether my cooking is odd (or un-English). Basically, a pigeon stew, with stock vegetables (IIRC onions, carrots and celery only today) and red wine, but I've seasoned it with a mixture of spices (again from memory, juniper berries, nutmeg, caraway, cloves, a pinch of cinnamon, and sage), thickened it with ground almonds and then addes some prunes for sweetness. Should be tasty, but where do these rather unusual mixtures of ingredients come from? (I can think of some similarities to middle eastern food, and to european mediaeval, but still...)