The meme is funny :)
That being said, the only UK foods I’ve had were made by expats here in the states. None of it was bland, with the exception of breakfast beans, “because they’re meant to be mild to start your day” as I was told by a lovely liverpudlian.
She would do fish and chips, and the batter was well seasoned. Not heavily seasoned, but some pepper, a little paprika, and a bit of onion powder to give it some aromatic kick. Well balanced, and imo, as good as any of the southern fried fish recipes I’ve had.
The chips were obviously just salted and vinegar used per person.
But when we did pot luck at work, she would bring in what she called “good english food”, which included some curry a few times.
But her shepherd’s pie? Holy hell, that was some great stuff. She said it was really cottage pie because it was beef usually. But it had the usual pepper, onion, garlic, and herbs.
And the other expats I ate with were similar. Maybe different amounts of a given herb or spice, but it was in there.
I think the UK food thing is a meme in itself, and likely arose the way things usually do, with the majority of cooks just being bad cooks, rather than representative of a cuisine or the way things are done properly in that country.
The reputation comes from the US military being stationed in the UK during the height of WW2 rationing when there was an extremely limited list of ingredients to cook with. They were unable to associate a country under an attempted siege from U-boats with a reduced supply of food.
We do have a love of beige food at times, but it’s essentially our version of chicken tendies.
Ahhh, that makes sense. Kinda rough that the rep hasn’t gone away yet, though.
Boomers made that bland war time food linger. They were children during and just after WW2 so it was part of their childhood nostalgia and they fed it to their own kids. Also we’ve had Indian/ Chinese restaurants in the UK for a while but they were mostly just in major cities at first so the average person still had little exposure to foreign or exotic food until the late 1970s/ early 1980s.
Literally by definition boomers would have been born after WW2.
Yeah this one was the silent generation
Boomers weren’t children during WWII. Boomer means baby boomer, as in someone born during the baby boom. The baby boom happened after the war ended.
Good point. But rationing continued in the UK until 1954 so it did affect them.
I went to the the UK when I was a teenager pre 9/11 and I remember the food being amazing imo.
But honestly I love savory food that just needs a pinch of salt to make it pop so maybe I’m the problem too.
My ex mother in law and her mom both can’t eat any food that’s not a certain level of bland. Too much of any spice at all and they set it aside like an autistic kid with arfid. Which… come to think of it…
Yep, this sums up everyone I know over 60 that is descended from British -immigrants- sorry expats.
Actual British people coming over now that still sound British seem to have much more refined taste. BIR-style curries are indeed very popular vs bland British “stew” / casserole
man if you make stew right it’s the most flavourful thing out there. half a bottle of red wine, couple cans crushed tomatos, chop up half your intended vegetables( Carrot, potato, onion, green onion stems, parsnips and celery for me), brown the beef, dump it all in except the other half of your vegetables, bring the level up with strong beef broth till everything is covered, and simmer covered till it all except the beef dissolves into a brown gravy, then add the other half of your vegetables and serve when they are cooked. Bay leaves and rosemary and thyme and pepper of course too. Garlic. Usually enough salt from the beef broth.
Also as an American we don’t really have room to talk. Yes there’s the iconic southern foods but even then, grits are bland and meh. But for the most part a lot of traditional American food needed to have spices rediscovered. It seems like for a long time our attitude was to use sugar, pre ground pepper, and maybe salt as seasoning for something that had any good texture cooked out of it.
We also had rationing for a good while longer than other countries after the wars (right into the mid-50s), so we have a whole generation who were pretty much raised with limited food options. That kind of national trauma sticks around and took a while to shake off.
I don’t think I’d recommend chilli peppers with your user name.
It’s probably cause his spoon is too big.
My favourite “traditional” English meal is a good Steak and Kidney pie, made with an ale sauce. Seasoned with lots of pepper, Worcestershire sauce (anchovy sauce), onion and stock. Absolutely delicious.
We do have a lot of very bland food over here, but a lot of us like that.
It’s a lot more about the texture sometimes, some of us (not me) can do some amazing roast vegetables and everyone seems to have their own ancient tradition for how to make them
Shepard’s pie is Irish btw. Not a surprise a scouser would be able to make a good one when Liverpool has a large Irish community.
Common myth, not true.
First recorded recipe for Shepherds Pie is from a Scottish cookbook from 1849. First recorded use of Cottage Pie is 1791 by an English clergyman.
Cottage Pie was used for both lamb and beef varieties until recently and was a way of eating leftover meats.
I’ve heard that food in the US is generally bad, so maybe not the best comparison 😜 😂
Lmao!
A lot of people everywhere don’t know how to cook. They don’t even bother to try and learn, so they rely on corporate packaged foods and restaurants. That’s a separate thing from the cuisine of a given place, or the cooking of people that do know how to.
That may seem like sophistry, but it is an important point to remember when talking about cooking when not joking around for fun. You can’t really use people that aren’t actually doing a thing, or have never learned how to do it as an representative example of what a country’s core is. It’s like athletics, you can’t say that Ethiopians are bad ice skaters if the average person can’t access time and equipment to ice skate in the first place. (Not picking on Ethiopia, it was just the first country that came to mind as not being very present in the world ice skating stage).
It’s legit to say that the US has a major food education problem, as does the UK from what I’ve heard, but that is a different issue than the national cuisine.
True, it’s not American cuisine that’s bad, apparently McDonald’s hamburgers taste better in NZ than the USA too, probably because all the beef here is grass fed.
Meanwhile yanks with their two spices - butter and sugar
“Our food is the tastiest in the wuuuurld”
Aye but yous can’t afford that coronary eh mate 😂
I mean obviously you’ve never taken the time to explore the US. US food is utterly fantastic.
Our beer is better too.
I know you’re probably just trolling but LOL.
Bri’ish food is some of the best in the world too. Because we know how to use spices and not high fructose corn syrup
Name a British food that uses spices that wasn’t brought by colonization.
Eels
Are you a native American or one of those colonizers?
That has nothing to do with the topic at hand, you’re just trying to change the topic, and think that somehow calling out America’s history of colonization (by not only Britain mind you) is some sort of “gotcha” moment.
But I’ll bite. Personally, European descent. But many native friends and family members, and lots of time volunteering with local native non-profits and political campaigns. Which is likely more than 99% of Americans could say about any sort of native support.
I’m on the west coast, you know where all the natives were forced to move. Many of the “illegals” the bigots complain about in my area are actually Native Americans or have native ancestry.
But none of that is about the topic at hand, food and Britain’s lack of utilizing the spices they spent so much effort to get.
🤪
Wew lad
And how, in your wee head, does the fact that it came about due to colonisation make it not British?
American “beer” lol. Laughs in German.
Edit: Grumpy Muricans, your downvotes only prove my point!
We do dopplebock far better here.
So you say the only good beer you got is a beer you copied from us?
Been to the US a few times. Your food tastes extremely average and the only difference to anywhere else is that it has about 3 times the kcals and half the nutrition. I’ve had heartburn and constipation virtually every time I’ve visited.
And your beer is possibly the worst in the world. It’s pisswater.
With opinions like that I’d be surprised if you’ve even left your own state, let alone the country.
Where the heck did you eat? Corporate McSteakhouse? If the response when asked about beer is Bud or Coors then blink twice, you need help.
And your beer is possibly the worst in the world. It’s pisswater.
C’mon, stop it. We Americans are bad at many things, but no one can refute that Americans have created some damn good beer over the last two decades.
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You are clearly making a poor joke, but… Butter is literally what the French are known for. Sugarcane is from the South Pacific and sugar itself originated in India.
Southern and Creole cuisine originated in America however, and that uses a ton of spices on par with native Indian cuisine.
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Thank you Indians
Most popular dish in the UK is Tikka Massala.
But:
Fat, carbs and protein do not come purer than fish and chips.
Exactly. Many people have an ignorant view of British cuisine, as though only foods grown in the British Isles are British. All kinds of foods and dishes from all over the world have been shipped, used, and adapted in Britain since at least the time of the Roman Empire. Heck, most of what a British, European or North American person would see on the menu of their local Indian restaurant is not traditional Indian food at all, but rather Anglo-Indian.
Yes, there have been a few comments mentioning Tikka masala, but can you name another British dish with flavor? I don’t think so.
None with flavor, plenty with flavour
pepper steak pie
How do you feel about thanks giving dinners and apple pie?
Edit: because they’re both British.
Turkeys are native to the Americas.
Now that I think about it, so are potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, corn and cranberries. Thinking about my own Thanksgiving dinner table, the only thing I can identify as an Old World food are yeast rolls.
That’s cause it was ham and duck with onions, leek and parsnips before.
Its almost as if they just swapped out the chicken for turkey, having discovered and been using potatoes for years beforehand.
Nothing on the apple pie then? Just the one you thought you could refute, it would seem.
By your wild “logic” that would make every pork dish ever Chinese and Southern fried chicken Indian, as the pigs we eat today and chickens come from China and India respectfully.
Yeah, apples aren’t native to the New World and apple pie wasn’t invented in the Americas. It’s not specifically British, either; it seems to have emerged independently across Western Europe in the middle ages, and was first brought to the Americas by the Dutch rather than the English. Hell, not even the quintessential American pie apple was invented here; the granny smith is Australian.
The British invented roast turkey about as much as they invented roast bison. You want to get into more specific recipes, I’d say chicken tikka masala is British and chicken parmesan is American, but I’m not letting the British have right of way over “get bird, add heat.”
Pumpkin pie is kind of a strange one; the first thing you’d call a “pumpkin pie” was more of a savory soup eaten by Dutch settlers in Massachusetts in the 1600s; the first pumpkin served in a pastry crust was French, and the modern pattern of “sugar pumpkin puree in a shortbread crust” was invented a few minutes after the US Constitution was ratified.
Sweet potato pie is less ambiguous; it seems to have popped into existence fully formed in the American south in the 18th century.
Basically all corn products including popcorn and cornbread were known to the Native Americans for thousands of years before Europeans arrived.
The first known recipe for cranberry sauce as we would recognize it today was written in 1796 in the United States.
Green beans are native to Central America, green bean casserole was invented in New Jersey in 1950…
Again, what of this is particularly British? An American thanksgiving meal is as British as pizza.
Beast of a comment. Found all of that really interesting 👍
Apple pie is from England, even if you don’t want it to be. Its not even about it not being American but it having flavour and being nice to eat.
They swapped out chicken for turkey and used the exact same recipe and cooking style. Declaring it unconnected changes nothing.
Green beans is a substitute for the exact same green veg you get with a British roast meal. If I put peas into a stir fry, it doesn’t make the meal not Chinese lol.
Again, how can you not see those mildy adapted British things as British?
Because I’m from a country with an actual national identity of its own, not some washed up little island whose national museum has on display a lot of things stolen from elsewhere and not much of its own, because their national culture has extremely little to show for itself.
I don’t have to pretend we invented (checks notes) cooking food to feel like have any kind of national identity. You do, and it’s hilariously pathetic.
Money can’t buy you taste 😉
Well, the whole spice trade was literally wealthy people buying taste.
…eh…profiting in a commodity trade doesn’t mean you…Ever see any midwestern farmer actually eat chickpeas? They love the bushel price most years though.
Clearly you’ve never had rich friends, they’re notorious for having everything and never using it.
“Oh man, I didn’t know you play guitar. That’s a beautiful Orange double stack and Thunderverb.”
“I bought that when I tried to learn guitar, haven’t used it since.”
i was told by a brit that american biscuits were “salty scones”
and i have never wanted to complain more in my life. Especially given the american propensity to make shit sweet as fuck.
It’s true, the “biscuits and gravy” biscuits are closer to scones than what a Brit would think of as a biscuit.
Also, biscuits and gravy, wtf
What’s wrong with biscuits and gravy?
Biscuits with sausage gravy doused in hot sauce and a couple fried eggs make a great breakfast
In this case I prefer fresh cracked black pepper to hot sauce. No other notes.
That fresh black pepper makes biscuits and sausage gravy killer!
I think he’s a trucker. the biscuits and gravy at a Love’s I could see dumping hot sauce on. Not generally though.
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Oh of course, I load up the gravy with more pepper than most folks like
he just hasn’t tried it made by a competent cook yet
do the brits not have bread?
That’s pretty much what a biscuit is here. Also what do you mean wtf biscuits and gravy slaps.
Also, biscuits and gravy, wtf
I may lose my Yank card for this, but I’m not a fan myself. That said, it’s just scones and bechamel sauce. Hearty, meaty, salty and what you can do with the rendered fat from greasy breakfast sausage*. It’s basically hangover food that caught on.
(* There’s a subset of traditional American food that stems from doing a lot with very little, while having a complete disregard for cholesterol and calorie intake. Assuming that wheat and dairy are the cheapest things in your pantry, you get stuff like this. See “scrapple” for another example.)
I had the distinct pleasure of explaining what biscuits and gravy were to a confused 6th Doctor Who actor Colin Baker. To his credit, he said he’d like to try it.
ah, it’s you again. Anyway. Gotta hate, i mean love the brits, and the wacky shit they get up to.
I’m everywhere!
judging by the amount of posts/comments, yeah, makes sense.
Chicken Tikka Masala entered the chat.
I’m happy Great Britain was able to make one interesting dish 50 years ago, but the cuisine could use a couple more seasoned recipes.
I will not argue against that.
Indian food?
Origin is Scotland I believe…Glasgow.
It was popularised by cooks from India living in Great Britain, but I don’t believe that makes it any less Indian. Just as the chimichanga wasn’t invented in Mexico, but is still considered Mexican food.
Chicken Tikka Masala is a British national dish and that is common knowledge.
If by common knowledge, you mean that a significant portion of the population believes it, I’m not sure how reliable that evidence that is. People will believe a whole lot of strange stuff.
On topic, even the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page states that it was “popularized by cooks from India living in Great Britain”. Regardless of where it was first created, this is clearly the product of Indian immigrants. I don’t believe their heritage should be ignored just because they moved. Although, I don’t want it to sound like I believe in a 100% black and white distinction here. It’s clearly a fusion dish with British influences. The original chicken tikka was a lot dryer and the “masala” sauce was added to make the dish creamier to appeal to British tastes.
However, I don’t go around claiming General Tso’s chicken isn’t Chinese food, just because it was first made in New York; or that the chimichanga isn’t Mexican food, just because it was originally made in Arizona; or that a Cuban sandwich isn’t Cuban, just because it was first made in Florida. These dishes wouldn’t exist without the immigrants who modified their cultural recipes to adapt to a new environment.
To me, chicken tikka malala is an Indian dish with British influences.
E: Tao to Tso.
So let’s agree that it’s neither Indian nor British, but a fusion of the two, created in Britain by immigrants or their descendants and becoming a national dish loved by people in Britain regardless of their cultural background.
Hey, they also needed more people to play cricket with.
I like the little flag. Classic move claiming fish fingers for the empire.
Fish don’t have fingers, dolt.
Embrace; Expand; Extinguish
We use a lot of herbs, garlic and mustard traditionally.
Tell me you haven’t had proper British food without actually telling me.
Don’t blindly believe everything you hear.
Beans on toast can be done well also.
my favorite is when they serve it hot! yum
i do that all the time, but my own recipe, which is essentially hopped up chili beans on garlic toast. So i start with frying four pieces chopped up bacon in a bean pot, then add half an onion chopped n fry that soft, then a can of the heinz bbq chipotle beans, half a cup of E.D. Smith Baja Chipotle bbq sauce, half tbsp ancho powder, half tbsp jalapeno powder, quater tbsp white pepper, half tbsp garlic powder, simmer that all up and serve on and with thick cut buttered garlic toast. and to put the lie to any stereotypes bout regional cuisine, i’m doing this shit in western canada. I have a restaurant here, but this particular recipe is a bit too hot for most my customers.
That sounds good. I’ve never seen Heinz chipotle beans though (in Canada). I’ll have to keep an eye out.
They’re marked as Barbecue in the big print, the chipotle is in very small print underneath. You could just start with the more easily found deep browned beans or whatever.
My father is British. My grandmother was British.
There is no way to make British-style beans on toast palatable to people outside of Great Britain. I’m sorry.
There are plenty of British foods I will absolutely defend as terrific. I will murder a wedge of caerphilly cheese and I sometimes import Rowntree’s blackcurrant fruit pastilles, I love them so much… but beans on toast? I can’t go with you down that road. Also, Daddies Sauce. What the fuck is wrong with you people? Including my father. How do you put that shit in your mouths?
And don’t even get me started on Marmite.
That bloke is gently handling those pies.
Ain’t nothing wrong with fish and chips
I actually went and had some last night and jesus christ my palate was offended. Even when swimming in malt vinegar and tartar sauce, I just couldn’t stand it. I can fix this:
- Salt, pepper, paprika, garlic, cumin, and cayenne in the dry dredge
- A dry stout in the wet dredge mix instead of a lager or a pale ale, anything with a body really
- Maybe a layer of panko breadcrumbs I toasted beforehand
- A far more flavorful fish than cod, i’m thinking salmon fingers
The sun never set on the British empire, and they never used the spices they stole.
That kind of just sounds like you went to a bad restaurant.
No true…Englishman?
100%, they did. Good fish & chips doesn’t need fixing.
The thing about spices in cooking is that - as great as they are, and as much as they enhance flavour - you shouldn’t need them to make good food.
Fish & chips is the perfect synthesis of the “Salt, acid, fat, heat” theory of cooking. Truly delicious food starts with the combination of those elements in exactly the right amounts.
There’s a lot of great things you can do with spices. I love, love, LOVE Indian food, Thai food, Mexican food, Spanish food, Chinese food, Cajun food, etc, etc, etc. But if you don’t understand how to make something delicious without spices, you’ll never really understand how to make good food with them. It’s always about fundamentals.
Edit to add: Here’s another really good way to think about this; people to bring up British food and complain about a lack of spices, but you never see the same complaint about aglio e olio or caccio e pepe, two dishes that contain, respectively one herb and no spices, and one spice and no herbs (parsley, and black pepper).
It’s exceptionally easy to do as a tourist. Last I visited, first we went to a restaurant and ordered and it was subpar. So then we were told “you have to go to a Chippy, if you want real fish and chips” so we did… they should have told us which “Chippy”, they are not all the same.
That was the worst culinary experience of my life. I have never had a more oily nasty fried fish. The wet breading just fell off, and it tasted like very old oil. I threw out 2/3s of it, as did basically everyone else.
We ended up eating at indian restaurants the rest of the trip.
To be fair, this is not helped by the fact that British people are often very bad at recommending good places to eat. A lot of people value familiarity over quality.
We were actually there for my uncle in laws wedding, so you would think we would have gotten better advice. But I guess weddings are busy…
The food at the wedding was amazing though. I can’t even remember it all, they brought out so much food. I think there was venison and duck, and fish I have never even heard of before, it was over the top. But his parents were like old money wealthy, so I doubt that’s common. It was also in like a minor castle, and the grounds were just gorgeous. I could have spent days just inspecting all the plants, so much variety of foreign plants and super cool hardwood trees.
That was the only great food we had, although the Indian food pretty good. Got old after a week though.
Oddly enough, I had the exact opposite experience last time I was in London. Amazing fish and chips, terrible Indian food. Worst saag paneer I’ve ever had. By far. And that’s a low bar because I’ve had some really disappointing saag paneer.
Also, I was entertained when the South Asian guy at the Chippie asked me stuff like, “do you have a big car and a big house?” when he heard my American accent. I had to disabuse him of the notion that we’re all wealthy. I wasn’t even paying for that trip, it was an especially good contract work gig.
Are you a breakfast person? We normally just ate the biscuits from the hotel room and starved until lunch, but one day my dad and I was going to meet up with my mom and her sister for a traditional English breakfast. However we got lost and ended up in some tiny Cafe, God knows where. They were serving lasagna for breakfast, and it was delicious.
My mom and aunt actually found the place and had some beens and toast and blood sausage, they were not impressed.
I am definitely a breakfast person and a full English breakfast, minus the horrific beans on toast, is great. I’m not sure about lasagna for breakfast though. Seems like kind of a heavy breakfast meal.
After some trips to GB and eating there, I am happy to live in Spain
