this is tangential to the general thread of salad and weird food culture, so i'm just going to leave it as a reply to your comment.
I grew up in the south in the USA. I'm, therefore, southern. Ergo, I grew up with southern cuisine.
Fast forward to my mid thirties. I now live in France. I invited some of my non-southern and non-american friends over for a thanksgiving dinner one year. I served fruit salad, as one does, on the side of dinner. Apparently that's weird. Nobody else eats fruit salad as a dinner side except southerners, apparently. Also, the non-americans were weirded out by eating cranberry sauce on the bird.
But look, it’s a matter of degree. You must have a truly cultured palate to discern the subtle variations of bland. Any pleb can taste the difference between a great dish and a shit one, but only a tongue honed by centuries of mediocrity can discern the subtle variations between mushy peas and ever-so-slightly-too-mushy peas. And don’t even get me started on perhaps-a-bit-less-mushy-than-yesterday-but-I-can’t-complain peas.
I see this a fair bit, but like our main things are Full English (fried), Fish & Chips (fried), and Roast Dinner (roasted, shockingly), so where does this come from?
Like the entire "hurr British food bad" meme in general, it was just made up by Americans who have very little knowledge of the going on of things outside North America.
I'm gonna get crucified for that statement, but it's true.
You're right, British foods are typically baked, fried, or roasted. I really don't know where this idea of boiling stuff comes from. Boiling is actually something I find unusually rare in British cooking.
during the rationing period I think boiling was more common. not sure why, but my gran would boil the hell out of sprouts. rendering them awful. always thought I hated them.
I think in the 70s and 80s in the US people were boiling the shit outta vegetables as well. I don't know who thought turning every vegetable into watery mush was a good idea, but it's no wonder kids from that time grew up hating peas and brussel sprouts
The meme is funny (it is!) until people take it too literally.
Yes there are things in traditional English cuisine that are atrocious (from difficult times for some of them) but I believe what counts as English food is what you can find in England today.
If you want cheap then you have Indian, Chinese etc in addition to the usual fast food places. Fish and chips is good but you have to let go off your prejudices. The fish is super crispy outside and flaky inside but bland. It's meant to be eaten covered in salt with tartare sauce or your vinegar soaked chips.
True the cheap traditional food can be meh compared to Italy or France. If you want really nice English food you'll have to pay more. Gastro pubs, genuine fancy "British cuisine" restaurants are everywhere but you need to be ready to pay the price.
In addition many other countries also have soso traditional food (I think NL, DK etc according to their own citizens). But the problem obviously is that the UK are more fun to target, because the UK wants to be perceived as a superpower in other aspects as they once were. So yeah let's make fun of their food.
Common misconception, as well. Take for instance our sausages: Lincolnshire and Cumberland being the most popular, both well seasoned. Or Pork removeds (which are a type of meatball and gravy/sauce dish).
British food is generally shared with Europe. Like, Brits eat Steak, but who can say where that was invented. Steak is eaten throughout Europe. Same with various roasted meats, savory pies, sausages, etc. There might be some slight differences between "bangers", "chorizo" and "wurst" but it's fundamentally the same dish. Most food eaten by / prepared by Brits is fundamentally just European food. And even though KFC and McDonalds are American franchises, what they sell is essentially European food, and they're popular worldwide.
As for food that nobody except Brits eats, that can be pretty bad. But, often foods that only locals eat is bad. French food is world renowned, but that's the popular "generic European" food made with lots of butter. Andouillette hasn't caught on, and probably won't.
I think steak is kind of like fire or the knife...it wasn't really invented so much as discovered, and by an earlier species of hominid than us. Like you start the game with that tech unlocked.
Edit: Actually now that I think about it, steak outright requires a knife. It is, by definition, sliced meat.
On the other hand, in East Asia you can get fried / grilled meat, but steak isn't really a local thing. In those cultures, a big hunk of meat will have been chopped up by the cook before it's served.
There's more than slight differences.every country in Europe makes different kind of Sausages,hell in some countries you move by 100km and the food is completely different.
I moved to another continent and can easily find chorizo at my local deli, I consider it pretty unique.
I can occasionally get my hands on German bratwurst at fairest, love it and not even close to chirizo in look, texture or flavour.
Boring English Sausages? No idea where to find them noone really sells them here.
Then I lost you at McDonald's and KFC selling European food, are we actually talking about food? Have you ever eaten at a local restaurant in Spain, Italy, Greece or even Germany?
hell in some countries you move by 100km and the food is completely different.
People always say that, but it's never true.
not even close to chirizo in look, texture or flavour
It's still a sausage.
Then I lost you at McDonald’s and KFC selling European food
KFC is deep-fried roasted chicken. Frying chicken in fat was something that people were doing in Scotland hundreds of years ago. The fact that KFC is an American corporation doesn't mean that it's not fundamentally making a European dish. As for McDonalds, Frisadelle is basically a hamburger patty, and it's been a German / Scandinavian dish for centuries. Slapping bread around meat was popularized by the Earl of Sandwich around the 1760s. Maybe the hamburger in its current form is a US thing, but it's merely a slight refinement of a few European ideas.
I've eaten all over North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. That's why I know that British food is basically just European food, just as North American food is also mostly just European food.
So I asked someone from Hamburg (Northern Germany) if they liked Käsespätzle (the most beloved southern German dish). They had never heard of it.
That made me think, so I asked my cousin's wife from Bavaria (Southern Germany) if they had ever eaten Matjes (a pretty well liked and popular Northern German dish). She also had never heard of it.
Käsespätzle is popular in Switzerland too. It's very well known except sometimes they call it Chnöpfli / Knoepfle / Knöpfle or Spätzli. It could be that they'd heard of it under a different name? Spätzle is even eaten in Hungary, eastern France and Serbia under local names.
You can easily find it on the aldi-nord.de website under Spätzle. I mean, it's possible that there are products that are on sale in local supermarkets that people have never noticed, but then is it really that the diets of the North and South are so different, or is it that some people don't like variety or trying new things?
As for Matjes, that's pickled / brined Herring. It's no surprise that people far from the sea don't eat it. But, pickled herring is super common. It's popular in Germany (apparently only the north), Netherlands, nordic countries, etc. Slightly different versions are popular in the parts of the UK near the ocean, in Russia and Ukraine, even Canada. In fact, it's pretty common in Minnesota in the US despite them being far from the ocean simply because they had a lot of immigration from nordic countries.
What's interesting is that "The Earl of Sandwich" was just a title like "The Earl of Devon", "The Earl of Suffolk", "The Earl of Essex", etc.
Sandwiches got their name because that Earl liked playing cards and wanted food he could hold that wouldn't mess up his cards. So, it's like calling one of the things he (or his cook) invented "A McDonalds". But, now, we're so used to the name "A Sandwich" that the title "Earl of Sandwich" sounds weird. Even though "wich" is a pretty common place name ending, like "Norwich", "Dunwich", etc. And, "Sand" is pretty normal as part of a place name, but not as part of food.
I did it for years as a kid. We had a bunch of gooseberry bushes. I'd pick them and eat half. The thorns are easier to avoid than you'd think because the berries are at the end of the stalk.
As a Brit I will take this shit from anyone except Americans. Your chese is either sheets of plastic or comes in a can, you have no room to criticise any countries food.
Most grocery stores in the US have two cheese sections. There's the cheap shredded/sliced cheeses, and then there's a separate section with the fancier cheeses, both foreign and domestic.
Cheese in the US is weird. We make both Velveeta and Humboldt fog. An American cheese won the World Cheese Awards a few years ago, but most of the cheese eaten in America is cheap, mild, mass produced, pre-sliced/shredded semisoft cheese. Most of it isn't "american cheese", though.
Just like our beer. Yeah, budweiser is watery crap. There's also a new microbrew popping up every week.
Also, American cheese exists for one thing: melting over everything. It provides the creamyness. If you want flavor, mix in some aged chedder, which normally doesn't melt very well.
You can actually make your own American pretty easily with good cheddar, sodium citrate, and water. That's how I usually make Mac and cheese. A+ would recommend picking some sodium citrate up on Amazon.
Lmao you absolutely can, just there's not much point as both the reaction that creates the petides and the cheese crystal formation will be over long before even 5 years. So you won't see much difference or may even deteriorate over time.
It's usually not the maker that ages them for so long but the mongers who will buy vintage cheddar and then continue to age it to sell for a premium, there's a couple of places in london I know that would sell at least decade aged cheddar, one on jermyn Street and another in knightsbridge. But I havnt been to either in a long time so idk if they still do it.
Its supposed to be a large breakfast sausage wrapped in a pancake and covered in syrup. The ones you find in stores are the equivalent of an inbred Habsburg.
I could go on and list dozens, because the joy of British food is that it's often a mix of different cultures and techniques. Britain is one of those rare places where they'll steal food from everywhere, while also being one of the best places to get "authentic" versions of another country's cuisines.
Honestly as someone who grew up with lots of Chinese immigrants friends real Chinese food maybe is a bit odd the first couple of times you eat it but after that it beats the pants off of any American Chinese food.
You don't have time because it's widely accepted by many that chose to make Britain their home, and you'd spend your time arguing with what is essentially established truth at this point.
As for it sounding stupid, well, it's not on us to make you understand it. Do some critical thinking, and come back when you have the time.
Honestly british recipes actually make some nice food if cooked with good ingrediants, post covid/brexit/ukraine though British food is fucking awful. Vegetables so close to turning that you end up throwing half the thing away before cooking, so much palm oil that many pastries (savoury and sweet) have the consistenty of playdough and such rampant ingrediant substitution that you can actually buy foods so unflavourful that you can drown them in sauces and somehow not even taste the sauce you just added like there's a negative flavour blackhole or something.
I recently was in Scotland with friends and we had fish and chips for dinner one night. We did have vinegar but I also brought some 10 varieties of hot sauce with me from the states. I can tell you with all confidence the sauce was gone the next day because it made the fish edible.
I also had haggis and loved it because it was seasoned, and in general, I noticed all of the good British food was, surprise, not from the English region.
Best fish and chips I've ever had in my life was in a London pub (the kind that still has rooms for rent upstairs) made by South American immigrants. Fucking phenomenal. I still dream about it sometimes.
My grandma is an Anglophile, and always staunchly defends "British Food" by sayinf things like "London has the best restaurants, I can get excellent Lebanses or Indian food there at any time".
Not to ruin the circle jerk but for as much as you can go to Greggs and ignore the Fat Duck, you can also go to Taco Bell and ignore The French Laundry, or Délifrance and ignore Guy Savoy...
Mostly in pubs, but I did try a few places. Carvery buffet, a few different full English breakfast places. Those are the things I'd chalk up to bland but not bad. Brits truly do use less seasoning from what I could tell. Even the takeaway I tried was pretty boring, and all you have to do is fry and salt that stuff.
I don't think your comparison of fast food vs. fine dining is fair. In the US, and the few other countries I've been, "pub food" or family style restaurants are usually always good. They're not high quality but still tasty. I've only been to 7 countries so I'm not super well traveled, but the UK is the only place I've been where I consistently didn't enjoy the food. I can only remember one meal in Serbia I didn't enjoy.
Idk man, maybe you just got unlucky. I just got back from London and all the meals I had were well seasoned - didn't matter if it was a pub, a fast casual place, or a fine dining restaurant.
Parmo was created by Nicos Harris, a Greek American navy chef. He was wounded off the coast of France, and brought to the United Kingdom to be treated at what is now James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough.
It largely depends on where you go, and where you eat. It's kinda like saying that I hate American food because I only visited Seattle and ate at shitty shrimp places.
It also depends on what you refer to as "British food". It's essentially comfort food, so you won't find many places trying to do the gourmet version of it without busting your wallet open. The great thing about food in the UK is that you can get food from basically all cultures everywhere (if you're in a city).
I recall reading somewhere that a lot of prepared food in the UK has to be packaged to be bland due to food health and safety laws. I know the laws are a lot stricter but on preservative and additives but does this include more general spices as well?
Idk where you got that from. I suppose it depends on your standards, when I visited the US I found everything suuuper sweet, so I guess it isn't like that. But most food here isn't as bland as it's reputation and there certainly aren't laws on how many spices you can put in packaged food lmao
"That," he said, "that... is really bad for the eyes."
It was a roast of classic, simple design, like a flattened salmon, twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it.
"It's so... black!" said Ford Prefect. "You can hardly make out its shape... light just seems to fall into it!"
The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it.
"Your eyes just slide off it..." said Ford in wonder.
the post is specifically targeting english food, not all white people food. There are plenty of white cultures that have amazing food. English isn't really one of them.
Am a British expat, the stereotype is true. Our most famous dishes in the UK are typically stolen from other places like India. And even then, we manage to ruin it. No one can colonise chicken korma more tragically than the British.
Nowadays I live in a European city with every type of cuisine available...heck even the Irish pubs are here. But no sign of British restaurants. Probably because they'd close within a month due to lack of customers.
Nah mate. I don't know where you come from but if this is how you think about British food then your parents just didn't know how to cook. Shepherds pie, Roast dinner, Welsh rarebit, meat pies beef wellington, even simple meals like bangers and mash, toad in the hole, fish and chips are really good when you pit a bit of effort in.
Then not to mention desserts, scones, Victoria sponge cake, trifles, apple pie, sticky toffee pudding, tarts, custard, biscuits etc.
And the cheese, we have something like 700 different kinds of cheese in the UK famously including Cheddar, Wensleydale, Stilton, red liecester etc.
Now imagine that count of (granted, good British dishes) multiplied by about 10x-100x and you just got Greek Cuisine, or Portuguese, or even Spanish (so not even mentioning French or Italian).
Mind you, it's not only the Brits that have but a handful of really good local dishes: from my experience of also living in The Netherlands, they're about the same in that domain: a handful of good dishes which is but a fraction by of what you would find in the local cuisine pretty any Southern European country.
While it's just outright deceitful to portray Britain as devoid of good local dishes, the local cuisine in general (both in variety and in terms of what the average person normally cooks at home) isn't exactly great.
Someone had told me a lot about fish and chips but also said I've only eaten fake Swedish versions. Then we heard of a British restaurant supposedly run by British people but by the time we actually went there it had closed.
Of course this was 2020, Brexit had just happened, and the pandemic was at its highest which affected all restaurants.
British is not a race. It's a nation and a culture
You could say that my country has the most boring music of all time while the Brits have the best one and it wouldn't make you a racist person but a man of culture.
Now begin a sentence with "white people are..." and I wouldn't let you finish it.
I mean...the stereotype is that British cuisine is bad...and it is infact bad.
That's not to say that no Brits can cook, although thai green curry definitely needs to take out a restraining order against Jamie Oliver (context: see YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksB2S90FVY).
But when it comes to British dishes that aren't fucking cakes, all there is are various bit of shit that you have to smother in gravy to get any taste, the same way an absolute monster smothers a steak in ketchup.
So no, I wouldn't call it xenophobic because it's totally true. It's certainly not racist because no racial stuff is involved.
Edit: I overlooked some dishes of British origin that can, infact be amazing. I'm still leaving this up, but yeah, turns out I forgot a few things.
How does the saying go:
Thank you very much for the laugh!
I love the fact they conquered half the world, took their spices and don't fucking use them.
We don't?
I just buy grama masala for pure decoration. I mean what else am I going to do with it? Pour it on plain toast?!
Do you?
Absolutely
The Oldest Fast Food Restaurant in London's East End.
I enjoyed that, cheers.
He used salt and pepper!
They have marmite, no need for more flavour
That's like the observation that many astronauts come from the US state of Ohio. Because they want to get as far away as possible.
(Michigander here, we love you Ohio, really we do!)
Californian here, y'all are basically SCPs to me. Especially the Yoopers.
This has probably been posted and upvoted by people who put salad on the same plate as a roast dinner.
“I will have the spaghetti and a side salad. If the salad comes on top I send it back.”
I'll have the gabagool
the gabagol? pass it here!
Is a salad side not normal in some places?
It belongs on a separate plate.
I guess it would be nice since it doesn't mix with the rest of the food, but I'm not bothering with two plates at home.
Hmm. I've lived in two very different countries and always had salad on the side of... Everything.
It's interesting to find that it's not done there. In which situations do you eat salad?
this is tangential to the general thread of salad and weird food culture, so i'm just going to leave it as a reply to your comment.
I grew up in the south in the USA. I'm, therefore, southern. Ergo, I grew up with southern cuisine.
Fast forward to my mid thirties. I now live in France. I invited some of my non-southern and non-american friends over for a thanksgiving dinner one year. I served fruit salad, as one does, on the side of dinner. Apparently that's weird. Nobody else eats fruit salad as a dinner side except southerners, apparently. Also, the non-americans were weirded out by eating cranberry sauce on the bird.
The famous ikea swedish meatballs come with lingonberry marmelade on the meat, so it's not unheard of
I think meatballs without lingonsås are not worth it. :) In our local IKEA there's even a dispenser so you can get as much as you want.
Dude salad and fruit salad are completely different things
That's just like your opinion, man.
I read that in the voice of the hippie from that 70s show. I hope it's close to yours, kind stranger.
Close enough, it's actually a quote from another hippie from the film "the big Lebowski"
Some Mandela effect going on. Maybe due to aged men banter factor
I love the special this is from so much.
If made incorrectly … also yes.
But look, it’s a matter of degree. You must have a truly cultured palate to discern the subtle variations of bland. Any pleb can taste the difference between a great dish and a shit one, but only a tongue honed by centuries of mediocrity can discern the subtle variations between mushy peas and ever-so-slightly-too-mushy peas. And don’t even get me started on perhaps-a-bit-less-mushy-than-yesterday-but-I-can’t-complain peas.
Honestly, I don’t understand all the hate.
"Boiling everything is a really super smart way to cook everything."
I see this a fair bit, but like our main things are Full English (fried), Fish & Chips (fried), and Roast Dinner (roasted, shockingly), so where does this come from?
Like the entire "hurr British food bad" meme in general, it was just made up by Americans who have very little knowledge of the going on of things outside North America.
I'm gonna get crucified for that statement, but it's true.
You're right, British foods are typically baked, fried, or roasted. I really don't know where this idea of boiling stuff comes from. Boiling is actually something I find unusually rare in British cooking.
during the rationing period I think boiling was more common. not sure why, but my gran would boil the hell out of sprouts. rendering them awful. always thought I hated them.
My granny would boil cabbage until white, that was her way of telling it was done. I used to hate cabbage.
Then I found that you can fry it with butter and bacon and black pepper. So good... although I'll admit that boiled was probably healthier 😁.
They did used to taste worse as well though, the ones you buy in the shops now are a different variety to the ones back in the day
I think in the 70s and 80s in the US people were boiling the shit outta vegetables as well. I don't know who thought turning every vegetable into watery mush was a good idea, but it's no wonder kids from that time grew up hating peas and brussel sprouts
In Italy it's common to joke about British food too.
Yes, because the stereotype was started by Americans.
Another common stereotype is bad teeth, despite British teeth being healthier than that of the US (or Italy) by a fair margin.
Because of the US's ability to publish media globally, they dictate a lot of stereotypes in media.
It's a quote from SNL Sarcasm 101
Thanks for sharing, enjoyed that. RIP Matthew Perry
Boiling is pretty rare here. Pretty much the only consistently boiled thing I’ve had are potatoes.
The meme is funny (it is!) until people take it too literally.
Yes there are things in traditional English cuisine that are atrocious (from difficult times for some of them) but I believe what counts as English food is what you can find in England today.
If you want cheap then you have Indian, Chinese etc in addition to the usual fast food places. Fish and chips is good but you have to let go off your prejudices. The fish is super crispy outside and flaky inside but bland. It's meant to be eaten covered in salt with tartare sauce or your vinegar soaked chips.
True the cheap traditional food can be meh compared to Italy or France. If you want really nice English food you'll have to pay more. Gastro pubs, genuine fancy "British cuisine" restaurants are everywhere but you need to be ready to pay the price.
In addition many other countries also have soso traditional food (I think NL, DK etc according to their own citizens). But the problem obviously is that the UK are more fun to target, because the UK wants to be perceived as a superpower in other aspects as they once were. So yeah let's make fun of their food.
And because they colonized a lot of countries and pillaged their spices, and then proceeded to do absolutely nothing with them.
Common misconception, as well. Take for instance our sausages: Lincolnshire and Cumberland being the most popular, both well seasoned. Or Pork removeds (which are a type of meatball and gravy/sauce dish).
Pork removeds sounds like a rural Arkansas insult.
I do that a lot in games, I collect all the collectibles and weapons and potions, but I proceed not to use them.
British food is generally shared with Europe. Like, Brits eat Steak, but who can say where that was invented. Steak is eaten throughout Europe. Same with various roasted meats, savory pies, sausages, etc. There might be some slight differences between "bangers", "chorizo" and "wurst" but it's fundamentally the same dish. Most food eaten by / prepared by Brits is fundamentally just European food. And even though KFC and McDonalds are American franchises, what they sell is essentially European food, and they're popular worldwide.
As for food that nobody except Brits eats, that can be pretty bad. But, often foods that only locals eat is bad. French food is world renowned, but that's the popular "generic European" food made with lots of butter. Andouillette hasn't caught on, and probably won't.
I think steak is kind of like fire or the knife...it wasn't really invented so much as discovered, and by an earlier species of hominid than us. Like you start the game with that tech unlocked.
Edit: Actually now that I think about it, steak outright requires a knife. It is, by definition, sliced meat.
On the other hand, in East Asia you can get fried / grilled meat, but steak isn't really a local thing. In those cultures, a big hunk of meat will have been chopped up by the cook before it's served.
Steak kinda logically follows fire and knife.
Probably.
There's more than slight differences.every country in Europe makes different kind of Sausages,hell in some countries you move by 100km and the food is completely different.
I moved to another continent and can easily find chorizo at my local deli, I consider it pretty unique. I can occasionally get my hands on German bratwurst at fairest, love it and not even close to chirizo in look, texture or flavour. Boring English Sausages? No idea where to find them noone really sells them here.
Then I lost you at McDonald's and KFC selling European food, are we actually talking about food? Have you ever eaten at a local restaurant in Spain, Italy, Greece or even Germany?
People always say that, but it's never true.
It's still a sausage.
KFC is deep-fried roasted chicken. Frying chicken in fat was something that people were doing in Scotland hundreds of years ago. The fact that KFC is an American corporation doesn't mean that it's not fundamentally making a European dish. As for McDonalds, Frisadelle is basically a hamburger patty, and it's been a German / Scandinavian dish for centuries. Slapping bread around meat was popularized by the Earl of Sandwich around the 1760s. Maybe the hamburger in its current form is a US thing, but it's merely a slight refinement of a few European ideas.
I've eaten all over North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. That's why I know that British food is basically just European food, just as North American food is also mostly just European food.
So I asked someone from Hamburg (Northern Germany) if they liked Käsespätzle (the most beloved southern German dish). They had never heard of it.
That made me think, so I asked my cousin's wife from Bavaria (Southern Germany) if they had ever eaten Matjes (a pretty well liked and popular Northern German dish). She also had never heard of it.
Käsespätzle is popular in Switzerland too. It's very well known except sometimes they call it Chnöpfli / Knoepfle / Knöpfle or Spätzli. It could be that they'd heard of it under a different name? Spätzle is even eaten in Hungary, eastern France and Serbia under local names.
You can easily find it on the aldi-nord.de website under Spätzle. I mean, it's possible that there are products that are on sale in local supermarkets that people have never noticed, but then is it really that the diets of the North and South are so different, or is it that some people don't like variety or trying new things?
As for Matjes, that's pickled / brined Herring. It's no surprise that people far from the sea don't eat it. But, pickled herring is super common. It's popular in Germany (apparently only the north), Netherlands, nordic countries, etc. Slightly different versions are popular in the parts of the UK near the ocean, in Russia and Ukraine, even Canada. In fact, it's pretty common in Minnesota in the US despite them being far from the ocean simply because they had a lot of immigration from nordic countries.
"The Earl of Sandwich" is just the most greatest thing or I am just too high. I hope he has a statue somewhere
What's interesting is that "The Earl of Sandwich" was just a title like "The Earl of Devon", "The Earl of Suffolk", "The Earl of Essex", etc.
Sandwiches got their name because that Earl liked playing cards and wanted food he could hold that wouldn't mess up his cards. So, it's like calling one of the things he (or his cook) invented "A McDonalds". But, now, we're so used to the name "A Sandwich" that the title "Earl of Sandwich" sounds weird. Even though "wich" is a pretty common place name ending, like "Norwich", "Dunwich", etc. And, "Sand" is pretty normal as part of a place name, but not as part of food.
Sandwich is also near the village of ham
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ham_Sandwich_road_sign,_Kent.jpg
Nice
The world doesn't know what it's missing with andouillettes
That's why they colonized many parts of the world, for flavor.
They stole everything except spices
They did stole the spices but they find the smell of money nicer.
Yet their food is still bland as paper.
Chicken tikka masala is a British food.
You can have my gooseberry jam when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!
So like.. 6 weeks?
I will have you know that I have survived on gooseberry jam for years!
Harvesting a goose's berries must be one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
I did it for years as a kid. We had a bunch of gooseberry bushes. I'd pick them and eat half. The thorns are easier to avoid than you'd think because the berries are at the end of the stalk.
Geese have thorns down there? They're even scarier than I thought!
I need to read more carefully.
As a Brit I will take this shit from anyone except Americans. Your chese is either sheets of plastic or comes in a can, you have no room to criticise any countries food.
American cheese is one specific cheese made in America. It's essentially cheese made into a cheese sauce, then chilled back into a block. There's a number of quality levels of it based on how much they skimp on the cheese. And when eaten melted, it's actually pretty decent, if mild.
Most grocery stores in the US have two cheese sections. There's the cheap shredded/sliced cheeses, and then there's a separate section with the fancier cheeses, both foreign and domestic.
Cheese in the US is weird. We make both Velveeta and Humboldt fog. An American cheese won the World Cheese Awards a few years ago, but most of the cheese eaten in America is cheap, mild, mass produced, pre-sliced/shredded semisoft cheese. Most of it isn't "american cheese", though.
Just like our beer. Yeah, budweiser is watery crap. There's also a new microbrew popping up every week.
Also, American cheese exists for one thing: melting over everything. It provides the creamyness. If you want flavor, mix in some aged chedder, which normally doesn't melt very well.
You can actually make your own American pretty easily with good cheddar, sodium citrate, and water. That's how I usually make Mac and cheese. A+ would recommend picking some sodium citrate up on Amazon.
Some of the best cheese in the world is made in Wisconsin. There is plenty to criticize about American food but cheese seems like an odd target.
Yeah some of the best chefs in the world are British. Its a joke response to a meme, not a serious point.
Also no one outside of America really cares about wisconsin cheese.
You literally have burger cheese. It's the same shit.
The vast majority of people do not regularly eat Kraft singles just like the majority of brits don't eat burger cheese every day.
Wtf. There's so much more to cheese than 'burger cheese', whatever the fuck that is.
Burger cheese is a specific kind of cheese that is commonly used for things like burgers in the UK.
Very similar to kraft singles.
I bought a 20 year aged chedder from a local cheese maker this past year. It was wonderful.
You picked a cheese named after a place in the UK, not the best choice for a UK Vs USA argument
And yet you can't get it aged 20 years over there.
Lmao you absolutely can, just there's not much point as both the reaction that creates the petides and the cheese crystal formation will be over long before even 5 years. So you won't see much difference or may even deteriorate over time.
What UK cheese maker does 20 years? Hook's is the only one I could find, and I pick that up at my local farmer's market.
There is certainly a difference between 5 and 7 years. I'll admit the difference between 7 and 20 is diminishing returns, but it's there.
It's usually not the maker that ages them for so long but the mongers who will buy vintage cheddar and then continue to age it to sell for a premium, there's a couple of places in london I know that would sell at least decade aged cheddar, one on jermyn Street and another in knightsbridge. But I havnt been to either in a long time so idk if they still do it.
Pigs in blankets are amazing and much nicer than the American pigs in a blanket.
Which is basically a shitty sausage roll.
Its supposed to be a large breakfast sausage wrapped in a pancake and covered in syrup. The ones you find in stores are the equivalent of an inbred Habsburg.
Case in point:
That looks decent tbh. I'll certainly eat that up
Ah, that old stereotype that originated during the second world war.
Tell me one good british recipe.
Chicken Tikka Masala
I could go on and list dozens, because the joy of British food is that it's often a mix of different cultures and techniques. Britain is one of those rare places where they'll steal food from everywhere, while also being one of the best places to get "authentic" versions of another country's cuisines.
Honestly as someone who grew up with lots of Chinese immigrants friends real Chinese food maybe is a bit odd the first couple of times you eat it but after that it beats the pants off of any American Chinese food.
This is still the stupidest, most disingenuous response. I don't even have time to go into the like 10 things wrong with this response.
You don't have time because it's widely accepted by many that chose to make Britain their home, and you'd spend your time arguing with what is essentially established truth at this point.
As for it sounding stupid, well, it's not on us to make you understand it. Do some critical thinking, and come back when you have the time.
Mash potatoes are pretty good
Cornish meat pies.
I'll give you that one, even though Spanish empanadas are straight up better.
Fish and chips.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8uMjNZOyotE
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I think Yorkshire pud and fish n' chips cover a multitude of sins.
Honestly british recipes actually make some nice food if cooked with good ingrediants, post covid/brexit/ukraine though British food is fucking awful. Vegetables so close to turning that you end up throwing half the thing away before cooking, so much palm oil that many pastries (savoury and sweet) have the consistenty of playdough and such rampant ingrediant substitution that you can actually buy foods so unflavourful that you can drown them in sauces and somehow not even taste the sauce you just added like there's a negative flavour blackhole or something.
I love how this implies it tastes worse than expected if not made perfectly.
The big breakfast plate is good. Just substitute the blood sausage for something edible.
I think that's one of the few decent foods in Brtish cuisine. We also have something very similar to it in Hungary called Véreshurka.
Wow they really went with the Brexit huh
I was joking about British being separate from Europe
Spotted dick is tasty
I recently was in Scotland with friends and we had fish and chips for dinner one night. We did have vinegar but I also brought some 10 varieties of hot sauce with me from the states. I can tell you with all confidence the sauce was gone the next day because it made the fish edible.
I also had haggis and loved it because it was seasoned, and in general, I noticed all of the good British food was, surprise, not from the English region.
What are you people doing to yourselves
Best fish and chips I've ever had in my life was in a London pub (the kind that still has rooms for rent upstairs) made by South American immigrants. Fucking phenomenal. I still dream about it sometimes.
My grandma is an Anglophile, and always staunchly defends "British Food" by sayinf things like "London has the best restaurants, I can get excellent Lebanses or Indian food there at any time".
I thought this was just a meme until I went there earlier this year. The food ranges from bad to bland.
The only legitimately delicious British food I had was a parmo. They got one thing right. I'd eat that every day.
Not to ruin the circle jerk but for as much as you can go to Greggs and ignore the Fat Duck, you can also go to Taco Bell and ignore The French Laundry, or Délifrance and ignore Guy Savoy...
Where did you eat, my man?
Mostly in pubs, but I did try a few places. Carvery buffet, a few different full English breakfast places. Those are the things I'd chalk up to bland but not bad. Brits truly do use less seasoning from what I could tell. Even the takeaway I tried was pretty boring, and all you have to do is fry and salt that stuff.
I don't think your comparison of fast food vs. fine dining is fair. In the US, and the few other countries I've been, "pub food" or family style restaurants are usually always good. They're not high quality but still tasty. I've only been to 7 countries so I'm not super well traveled, but the UK is the only place I've been where I consistently didn't enjoy the food. I can only remember one meal in Serbia I didn't enjoy.
Idk man, maybe you just got unlucky. I just got back from London and all the meals I had were well seasoned - didn't matter if it was a pub, a fast casual place, or a fine dining restaurant.
Not enough corn syrup is my guess.
What's parno? Doesn't sound like a typical English dish
It's a meat cutlet battered and deep fried, covered in bechemel sauce and cheese. Common in the Teesside area.
Thanks. I read on Wikipedia:
It makes sense, greek food is very good :D
Hahaha that explains why it's a standout then.
It largely depends on where you go, and where you eat. It's kinda like saying that I hate American food because I only visited Seattle and ate at shitty shrimp places.
It also depends on what you refer to as "British food". It's essentially comfort food, so you won't find many places trying to do the gourmet version of it without busting your wallet open. The great thing about food in the UK is that you can get food from basically all cultures everywhere (if you're in a city).
British food bad
well, yes.
So brave
I recall reading somewhere that a lot of prepared food in the UK has to be packaged to be bland due to food health and safety laws. I know the laws are a lot stricter but on preservative and additives but does this include more general spices as well?
Idk where you got that from. I suppose it depends on your standards, when I visited the US I found everything suuuper sweet, so I guess it isn't like that. But most food here isn't as bland as it's reputation and there certainly aren't laws on how many spices you can put in packaged food lmao
Everyone hates apple pie
Or mac and cheese
the blandest thing on the menu
British "food"
may i present, for your enjoyment, the toast sandwich. it's a piece of toast in between two slices of bread.
Please sir, can I have a bit less
IIRC, the toast sandwich is a wartime poverty thing, in an attempt to make the "cheapest meal".
Frankly, with our fucked things are here, it wouldn't surprise me to see it make a return...
So what's the deal with onion sandwiches?
Do you mean Indian food or actual British food?
Image Transcription: Reddit
Is British food really that bad?, submitted by /u/the_penis_taker69 to /r/NoStupidQuestions
British food is bland but nothing compared to the stuff in offer in the American Midwest.
Like Wisconsin cheese, Chicago pizza, Indiana tenderloin, Kentucky racism, and Ohio meth?
Three words: tater tot hotdish. It’s what disappointment tastes like.
These weak xenophobic memes/mentality are exactly why I left reddit, ffs
Yeah, my bad, shouldn't have mentioned reddit.
Still, it's, three or four brain cell required, low hanging fruit, that's been regurgitated a thousand times in echo chambers very similar to this.
It's just a little depressing that this shit still gets lapped up, but I guess that's social media, and the world, over.
k
And I expect zero cool responses, go for it. Gimme your worst gif!
It has been [ 0 ] days since a British colony or former border for a British colony has caused some kind of global affair
Haha, racism is funny!
Racist against what? Tan, brown, slightly darker brown food?
I mean this is the British we're talking about here, that food is going to look like Vantablack.
To paraphrase one of their most brilliant sons:
How is British cuisine a race of all things?
the post is specifically targeting english food, not all white people food. There are plenty of white cultures that have amazing food. English isn't really one of them.
No time for common sense, there's Offense to be taken!
(Or is that offence)
What exactly do you think that word means?
Where is the racism?
Am a British expat, the stereotype is true. Our most famous dishes in the UK are typically stolen from other places like India. And even then, we manage to ruin it. No one can colonise chicken korma more tragically than the British.
Nowadays I live in a European city with every type of cuisine available...heck even the Irish pubs are here. But no sign of British restaurants. Probably because they'd close within a month due to lack of customers.
Nah mate. I don't know where you come from but if this is how you think about British food then your parents just didn't know how to cook. Shepherds pie, Roast dinner, Welsh rarebit, meat pies beef wellington, even simple meals like bangers and mash, toad in the hole, fish and chips are really good when you pit a bit of effort in.
Then not to mention desserts, scones, Victoria sponge cake, trifles, apple pie, sticky toffee pudding, tarts, custard, biscuits etc.
And the cheese, we have something like 700 different kinds of cheese in the UK famously including Cheddar, Wensleydale, Stilton, red liecester etc.
I mean this is also pretty true to the best of my memory. My stepmum could cook but she did Turkish cuisine.
I always thought shepherds pie was Irish but I just looked it up and I was wrong. It is infact British.
Never had Welsh rarebit or beef wellington so I'll take your word on it. They do look tempting though.
The roast dinners I remember weren't exactly great, but that might just be a me thing.
You're definitely right about the others though, can't believe I overlooked them, even if I do prefer Mediterranean fish and chips.
And yeah, you got me good on the deserts, some of those are something special.
You know what? Fair play mate. Consider me schooled.
Now imagine that count of (granted, good British dishes) multiplied by about 10x-100x and you just got Greek Cuisine, or Portuguese, or even Spanish (so not even mentioning French or Italian).
Mind you, it's not only the Brits that have but a handful of really good local dishes: from my experience of also living in The Netherlands, they're about the same in that domain: a handful of good dishes which is but a fraction by of what you would find in the local cuisine pretty any Southern European country.
While it's just outright deceitful to portray Britain as devoid of good local dishes, the local cuisine in general (both in variety and in terms of what the average person normally cooks at home) isn't exactly great.
A) immigrant. You're an immigrant like me
B) yeah but I miss the biscuits
yeah that works too. Hello fellow immigrant!
are they that hard to find where you are?
Not if you're stuck in the 70s and are partial to Lemon Puffs 🤢
Haha oof! I'll pass!
Expat is when you're talking from B*ittish context, immigrant when talking from the unfortunate hosting country's context
Interesting take. I'm an immigrant and an emigrant, who loves my host country and brings value to it
You're a twat
Relax, I'm having fun on just Brits
Someone had told me a lot about fish and chips but also said I've only eaten fake Swedish versions. Then we heard of a British restaurant supposedly run by British people but by the time we actually went there it had closed.
Of course this was 2020, Brexit had just happened, and the pandemic was at its highest which affected all restaurants.
Depending on where you are, Irish bars that serve food also do fish and chips very similarly to the British style.
You can have scones in some cafes in Germany
so true stereotypes aren't racist?
British is not a race. It's a nation and a culture
You could say that my country has the most boring music of all time while the Brits have the best one and it wouldn't make you a racist person but a man of culture.
Now begin a sentence with "white people are..." and I wouldn't let you finish it.
« Listen here you little shit »
no, no, that's not what I said.
I know what you said
Define racism and you’ll get your answer.
Racism is linking unrelated facts to racial traits.
« White people can’t jump » is racist « French people are grouchy » is not
I mean...the stereotype is that British cuisine is bad...and it is infact bad.
That's not to say that no Brits can cook, although thai green curry definitely needs to take out a restraining order against Jamie Oliver (context: see YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksB2S90FVY).
But when it comes to British dishes that aren't fucking cakes, all there is are various bit of shit that you have to smother in gravy to get any taste, the same way an absolute monster smothers a steak in ketchup.
So no, I wouldn't call it xenophobic because it's totally true. It's certainly not racist because no racial stuff is involved.
Edit: I overlooked some dishes of British origin that can, infact be amazing. I'm still leaving this up, but yeah, turns out I forgot a few things.
You can't be racist against the British, they're a colonial powerhouse. The British basically invented racism.