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Britons: Is your food really that bad?

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RobotChant said:
Don't want to shock you Britons but baked beans was an American product. Beans in a sauce is prepared and consumed all over the world but that style of canned beans was an American export. In America, baked beans is still widely consume but usually not for breakfast. We have different styles of baked beans depending on the region (some sweeter, some tangier, some with chunks of pork) but the tomato based baked beans is still popular here.
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You might have invented it but we made it our own.
 
Living in the US for over 10 years and I miss ton of food back home. lol
-Fish and chips from the chippy or battered sausage with a side of curry sauce
-Pukka Pies! Steak and Kidney! When my father visited 4 years ago he tried to bring through some pies but he declared them at customs for some stupid reason and as a result they were taken. He gave the customs officers grief telling them they're just taking them so they could eat a good dinner for once!
-Sunday roast dinner..roasted potatoes, Yorkshire pudding..the works.
-Breakfast! Just like the one posted on this page. lol
-I'm going to say a good Indian takeaway just because I can't find any by where I live here in Michigan and back home they were everywhere including 5 minutes down the road from home.

That and more and of course all the sweets and desserts. I'm heading back for the first time in 6 years and I'm expecting to come back to the US a few pounds heavier...lol
 
British food is horrible. Thank god for Kebab shops for making it bearable to visit London from a culinary standpoint. Same goes for Spanish (not Mexican) food.
 
I was in the UK last summer. The food wasn't great but some of the dishes were pretty amazing.

Traditional breakfast with the brined bacon is great, hand pies, bangers and mash etc.

coldfoot said:
British food is horrible. Thank god for Kebab shops for making it bearable to visit London from a culinary standpoint. Same goes for Spanish (not Mexican) food.
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Yeah, I ate lots of Kebabs, Indian and Tapas when I was there. Lots of the traditional fare is so reminiscent of bad US food.
 
Cullen-Skink.jpg


Cullen Skink, essentially traditionally a smoked haddock chowder is lovely.
 
To be fair, I can't really think of any iconic meals associated with the British other than starchy fatty foods like bangers and mash, fish and chips or roast dinners. My wife and I are vegetarian and we tend to eat a lot of Mediterranean foods.
 
travisbickle said:
Great Britain is the island of England, Scotland, and Wales.

You might be confused with Northern Ireland which isn't part of Great Britain and why they always get pissed off with the name "Team GB" at the olympics rather than "Team GBandNI".
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Great Britain isn't Britain though. I was being a pendantic wank.

Britain is England and Wales, Great Britain was a term made when Scotland joined
 
The_Hitcher89 said:
Sure that's not just the Mars Bar? Says Mars Inc. was founded in Washington in 1911
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Well, it's kind of confusing actually. I'm not sure they were the same company at the time.

Mars then took a buyout from his father and moved to England where he created the Mars bar while estranged from his father in 1933
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So basically the factory Forrest Mars set up in England wasn't the same company. It eventually became the same company when Forrest Mars took over his Father's company. lol
 
leadbelly said:
Breakfast?

british-breakfast.jpg
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Blech. Its reminds me of when I would have breakfast at my friends house and they were struggling financially so it always became a "Lets throw whatever we can find together!"

Baked Beans plus hot dogs and scrambled eggs.

I always assumed it was a food combination that probably originated on 8 Mile.
Then I went to London.

coldfoot said:
British food is horrible. Thank god for Kebab shops for making it bearable to visit London from a culinary standpoint. Same goes for Spanish (not Mexican) food.
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How funny the close second to english food in mediocrity is definitely spanish. Which is ironic because they seem to think its something incredible. Spain has a lot going for it but food definitely isn't one of them.
 
kmag said:
Cullen-Skink.jpg


Cullen Skink, essentially traditionally a smoked haddock chowder is lovely.
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THIS. So much. Scottish soups in general are guaranteed to be delicious.

Over the last two years I've spent about six weeks visiting my husband's family in Scotland. While I found that some dishes weren't seasoned enough for my taste, I honestly don't remember ever having a bad meal. The things I miss most are Cullen Skink, British bacon (superior to US bacon, imo), and the desserts. A thick slice of shortbread layered with caramel and chocolate is absolute heaven.

Also, haggis is not the super grossness that people make it out to be. Haggis can be very tasty when it's done well. I wouldn't eat a whole plate of it by myself, but I would definitely share with others as an appetizer.
 
Never really had British food but there's a distinct lack of British cuisine restaurants from what I can tell. Compared to Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indian, Italian, Mexican, Greek, etc. it seems like the British menu has nearly zero representation from my experience in Japan, Mexico, SK, and USofA
 
Abounder said:
Never really had British food but there's a distinct lack of British cuisine restaurants from what I can tell. Compared to Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indian, Italian, Mexican, Greek, etc. it seems like the British menu has nearly zero representation from my experience in Japan, Mexico, SK, and USofA
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Pretty much any town I have been to has a sandwich shop.
 
American Southern food kills British food by itself :P

I'm not even bringing up BBQ and Southwestern/TexMex.

I do love Chicken Tikka and Fish Chips, though.
 
plasmawave said:
Poutine trumps them all. I'm so sorry.
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Chips, cheese and gravy is the national dish of the Isle of Man.
It's not really, but it doesn't seem to be eaten much anywhere else.
I tried poutine when I was in Canada and it was pretty gross in comparison. Whatever was on it was not what I'd call gravy.

Maybe I just got it from a shitty place though.
 
poppabk said:
Pretty much any town I have been to has a sandwich shop.
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Mmm sandwiches. Still they seem to have lost their British identity and you don't really see British themed restaurants unless I'm just bloody blind (unless pubs count). Gimme a Philly Cheesesteak please mmmm
 
Has anyone linked to Orwell yet? Because that bloke knew what was up

http://orwell.ru/library/articles/cooking/english/e_dec

It is commonly said, even by the English themselves, that English cooking is the worst in the world. It is supposed to be not merely incompetent, but also imitative, and I even read quite recently, in a book by a French writer, the remark: ‘The best English cooking is, of course, simply French cooking.’
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[reels off a list of BEST FOOD IN THE WORLD]

It will be seen that we have no cause to be ashamed of our cookery, so far as originality goes or so far as the ingredients go. And yet it must be admitted that there is a serious snag from the foreign visitor’s point of view. This is, that you practically don’t find good English cooking outside a private house. If you want, say, a good, rich slice of Yorkshire pudding you are more likely to get it in the poorest English home than in a restaurant, which is where the visitor necessarily eats most of his meals.
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entrement said:
American Southern food kills British food by itself :P

I'm not even bringing up BBQ and Southwestern/TexMex.

I do love Chicken Tikka and Fish Chips, though.
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l.jpg

Like this abomination? I live in the south and on average southern food is on par with english food. Grits are almost universally bland processed goop, fried chicken or steak is dry, and the biscuits are even drier and so hard as to be inedible. Now I have had all these things taste great at a good restaurant but you go to the average local town restaurant or a national chain and they are generally mediocre at best. White gravy is so gross that I wouldn't even risk it at a good restaurant.
 
cyberheater said:
You might have invented it but we made it our own.
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I'm ok with that. Americans have made many things their own.

I'm surprised more people don't know that British baked beans had American roots. It's still a staple side dish with American grilled, bbq, hot dog, cook out style entrées. Just the image should be recognizable.

Many American traditional, home cooked style food are similar to european/UK staples and have a meat protein with two vegetable based side dishes. The British Sunday roast is Americana as you get, except we don't do Yorkshire. Instead it's a bread roll of some kind. Britons would be in heaven with the traditional American fare food, especially Southern American food.
 
When I was in brittania, all the people regurgitated on their food first before they ate it, like flies. It was strange but I was a little turned on.
 
poppabk said:
l.jpg

Like this abomination? I live in the south and on average southern food is on par with english food. Grits are almost universally bland processed goop, fried chicken or steak is dry, and the biscuits are even drier and so hard as to be inedible. Now I have had all these things taste great at a good restaurant but you go to the average local town restaurant or a national chain and they are generally mediocre at best. White gravy is so gross that I wouldn't even risk it at a good restaurant.
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I'm talking about stuff I've cooked from cookbooks. I rarely eat out.

London does have great fine dining.
 
wienke said:
The Italians pretty much rule that roost these days in the US.

Edit: the mini tomatoes part is sort of confusing me. Do you eat them like a strawberry since the top is still on?
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Hm, I don't remember seeing tomatoes served fresh on full English/Scottish breakfasts (in restaurants at least). They were usually cut in half, then pan fried or broiled.
 
The_Hitcher89 said:
It's not our fault the bunch of idiots known as 'the rest of the world' never picked up on chicken tikka masala
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The rest of the world does eat it. No matter what people in this thread want to say, it is not British food. It was created by an Indian. It's base is chicken tikka, which has been a common food in India for thousands of years. The variation of adding a saucy tang to it has been argued to have been either created in Britain or India. No matter what, though, it was created by an Indian.

I mean heck my family's chicken curry recipe could easily be confused for chicken tikka masala, and my family has been making it for years before the 'supposed' invention of it.

My dad's variations on Indian food are not considered American food all of a sudden for example. It's still Indian food.
 
No, there is a lot of great tasting food on our lovely islands.

Admittedly a lot of it is not fancy, but there are many great dishes.

Oh, and we invented apple pie, so when you say 'as american as apple pie', you really mean 'it's not intrinsically american per-se, it's an adaption from somewhere else and we put our name on it'.

But that's ok, to be fair because we'll let you have that, if we can claim a few Indian dishes that were 'invented' over here.

Finally British Biscuits are the best in the world.
 
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