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.
I think the issue is mostly in the visuals. When you look for traditional English food, it is usually a plate full of beige stuff, sometimes paired with really unappetizing boiled carrots and beans. The gravy being on the side instead of part of the dish doesn’t do it any favors either.
Also I’d argue England has pretty low standards for what counts as “food”. I’ve had to work in England for a month, and finding something fresh, healthy and tasty to eat was a real challenge. I’ve never been as fat as when I came home.
The epitome of the wasted potential of English cuisine is the fact that it’s an island full of the best fishes in the world, yet the only fish you can find is battered cod. Why is it so hard to get a salmon fillet? You have Scottish salmon ffs!
I’ve heard that food in the US is generally bad, so maybe not the best comparison 😜 😂
They clearly never had soul food or Gullah/Geechee food.
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heard that food in the US is generally bad,
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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.
I like the safety third crew but they’ve also ate dog food and didn’t find much issue with it.
That’s a really good point 😂
He’s Canadian.
You cant trust those frozen tree suckers
Are the trees frozen or the suckers?
Depending on the time of year, yes.
How rude (although it was a clever insult and I literally laughed. I needed that. Thanks)!
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.
I don’t think I’d recommend chilli peppers with your user name.
It’s probably cause his spoon is too big.
Ahhh, that makes sense. Kinda rough that the rep hasn’t gone away yet, though.
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.
It’s the same with English beer. On the continent, people keep saying that Brits drink their beer lukewarm. When I was there, they actually had temperature displays at the tap in most pubs that usually showed something around 4°C (~39°F). For reference, that was in the Huddersfield area (between Leeds and Manchester) around 15 years ago.
That’s because of a lot Englishales are drunk at room temp/ slightly below though not as cold as refrigerated.
True and thats because they were invented before refrigerators.
Well in this case the reputation for “warm beer” is true and I’m willing to die on this particular hill.
Proper cask ale should be served at between 8 and 12C, AKA cellar temperature, cool but not cold. Nothing beats a traditional pint of ‘best bitter’ in an old pub!
Plenty of people in the UK drink lager and other styles of beer that are more nightly carbonated, stronger ABV, and served colder. Personally I’m not a fan but each to their own.
I live about an hour from London in a rural area with loads of great pubs but I find it difficult to find a nice beer in most parts of London. It’s much easier to keep a keg of carbonated beer under pressure than a cask ale that you have to finish within a few days of tapping, which is why when a certain proportion of a pub’s clientele start drinking other styles it just isn’t worth it for the pub to keep real ale. Hopefully it won’t become a niche thing.
I’ve home brewed a lot of English ales and I agree that those ales should be served warmer. If you don’t, the cold mutes and kills the subtle and rich flavors.
Lagers are good, but a good British Ale is something to savory with good friends.
It hasn’t gone away because countless students from across the globe have moved there and found it to be largely true. While there is good food available in the UK it seems as if the average Brit is content to eat very badly and then supplement what is largely a terrible diet with copious amounts of alcohol.
What else would you supplement a terrible diet with?
Coffee? Tea? Illicit drugs.
(They do all the above).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Literally by definition boomers would have been born after WW2.
Yeah this one was the silent generation
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.
Case proven, all the good cooks left.
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 use a lot of herbs, garlic and mustard traditionally.
It’s not even that they don’t use spices they just haven’t even tried to evolve their cuisine. They still eat the same bland boring shit from 100 years ago. Meanwhile the rest of Europe thriving. It’s like they opened the books once 50 years ago to let chicken Tikka in and then immediately closed the books again. They can always point to that one dish and be like see.
Sounds like a cope to me.
Which parts of Europe is that?
Is it Germany where you can only buy shnitzel, sausage and cabbage in various different forms?
Or Italy, where they’re so proud of their food it’s basically illegal to serve anything that isn’t Italian?
Or France where spice and chilli is outlawed, only garlic and herbs allowed?
It’s true that a lot of traditional British food is bland, but there are way more Chinese, Indian, Thai, mexican, Italian restaurants in any town in England than you’ll find anywhere in Europe.
Britain conquered India, many other parts of Asia and much of the Americas and yet they still eat Marmite. Willingly.
bovril too, huuurk
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
That bloke is gently handling those pies.
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.
And then purposefully mispronounce almost every foreign food.
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.”
The only British person who actually knows how to use spices is Gordon Ramsey, and he gets a pass on not using them cause he actually knows how to cook good food.
Then he goes off and tells me to do something stupid like put cinnamon sticks in my chili, the Brits can’t help themselves.
I’ve never watched Ramsey, and I’m not British, but a hint of cinnamon in ground meats is great. Cinnamon in savory foods is underrated in general, imo
Cinnamon, good. Chili, good. I can see where he’s coming from.
I may try that. Why not? Nutmeg is amazing in Alfredo, so I’m willing to try it. More toward fall, though. It’s too hot in spring fur such heaviness
He can’t handle spice. His 2 appearances on Hot Ones are their top-watched episodes. They’re also the best. He’s so funny. He had so much fun during his first appearance, he came back for their Holiday episode. It was awesome.
I highly recommend the watch.
Desensitization based on routine is all there is to “handling spice”. It is neither an achievement nor an ability. Anyone can get used to it by starting from small amounts and slowly increasing the spice level. Also, there are many spices, chili is only one of them.
It was a joke, mark. A Christmas joke.
It’s great for stomach troubles, arthritis though.
I love chili, I just don´t like the glorification of desensitizing ones taste.
Tbf, I’ve rarely had a chili that wasn’t mild, unless I or a neighbor who likes it hot made it. You may want to avoid certain salsas (red or green) at restaurants and bodegas where actual ethnic Latin Americans eat, if you’re not into spicy, though.
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.
Hey, they also needed more people to play cricket with.
Jeez bud. Ya think of this yourself?
Meanwhile, both the tomatoes in the baked beans and the potatoes used to make the fries/chips originated in the Americas and the guy who cooked it once experienced the taste of paprika, so there!
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Chicken Curry is the most popular British dish as of about 10 years ago and It’s only gotten better since then.
It’s like a US state dish but given the size and population that’s fair. Even more important it’s good.
It’s also been developing for about 100 years. It’s the British/Indian equivalent of Pizza. And It’s beautiful.
Thank you Indians
Jamaican curried goat is divine, and it must be Jamaican curry, and added water must be tricked very slowly down the side of very hot, cast iron Dutch oven and simmered quite a while. I was fortunate enough to have a Jamaican neighbor show me the trick. And to my American compatriots, sweet potatoes are not yams.
… Americans and mayonnaise …
Europeans and mayonnaise… like who wants to dip french fries in a big pile of mayo?
Mayo alone: ick. Mayo combined with Ketchup: heavenly.
mayo with bbq sauce is more addictive than meth
Throw in dill relish and it’s Thousand Island dressing. I worked in a restaurant making it.
But call it aoli and you fancy.
Heresy! Aioli does not contain any Ketchup!
Just call it “tomato aioli” and you’re fine.
Add a squirt of lemon juice and you’ll have what the kebab shops here call thousand island sauce
I simply can’t eat fries without mayonnaise… I do suspect that the mayonnaise we use for fries here is different from what you get in the states, though I’ve never been there so I can’t say for sure.
My sister would. She loved mayo since she was a kid
Dutchies smother their fries in it.
Me! Chilli- and/or garlic-mayo is the best thing that can happen to fries, right after Tzatziki!
Me. It’s delicious.
Don’t put that on all of us, the Midwest is responsible for most of that
Yeah, the rest of us prefer Chipotle Mayo
I’m more of a straight hot sauce guy, I don’t need egg goop on my chicken sandwich no matter how they dress it up
what is a chicken but very mature egg goop?
A chicken or cheese sandwich or Southern coleslaw (acv, no sugar) is about the only time I will use mayo, very sparingly. And it’s gotta be Texas Pete, copious amounts.
