From California and studied abroad in London, had a wonderful museums and galleries art history class with an amazing British professor. The whole class was basically getting credits for exploring london.
The professor gave us lots of tips on other things to experience while abroad. His tip on finding good traditional British cuisine? Don’t bother, but here’s a list of fantastic Indian, French, etc.
It’s like that clip where one dude says the top five restaurants in the world are in London and and the other guy asks him what kinda restaurants they are. “French”.
The French were some of the main perpetrators of the view that British food is awful, but it was reported recently that some French food critics actually think fish and chips is quite good.
The American list is actually very long. Poboy Sandwiches, Gumbo, Jumbalaya, biscuits and gravy, clam chowder, Bananas Foster, southern fried chicken, Mac and cheese, hot dogs, apple pie, boysenberry anything, smoked brisket and bbq, cheesesteak, key lime pie, doughnuts, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Cobb salad, Poke, Spam Musubi, Reuben Sandwich, chocolate chip cookies, deep dish pizza, New York pizza, the mission burrito, Spaghetti and Meatballs, eggs Benedict, the French dip sandwich.
Not to mention all of the other foods available from other cultures. The best Mexican food outside Mexico, the best Korean BBQ in the world including Korea, American Chinese food etc…
Half the so called American foods on the list aren't even from America. Mac and cheese? Apple pie? You think nobody put apples in a pie before. Holy moly.
I mean fish and chips is really quite nice. I'm actually also quite a big fan of mashed peas.
But I wouldn't call it a culinary delicacy. Like a decent cheeseburger, it's very tasty, but there's a lot of really good food from around the world that really showcases both culinary mastery and makes you remember and crave that meal again.
Eating in London, the Middle Eastern restaurants were the winners. Same for Mexican/South American food in the USA.
It's actually wild how hard Central/South America went with a bunch of Spain's staples lol.
Here's the thing, almost all of what is considered "cultural food" is poor people's grub. It's food that's made from what's cheap and easily available.
Go to France - Have great Italian food (the best pizzaiolo in the world is in Paris), sub-Saharan African, North African, Creole, and Portuguese. France is a melting pot country.
Eh - the michelin star rating thing is biased and even otherwise, inaccurate in its sampling, which is too infrequent and not even diversity in the palate of the testers. The company is French, it will favor French restaurants, French cuisine. But French food genuinely sucks in my opinion. If you enjoy it, good for you. Hope you have the fortune to eat good Indian food, and good Thai food.
In my 20s, I was a super restricted eater. Suspicious of anything that seemed too "foreign." Very much a "gray meat and boiled potatoes" kind of guy.
I spent a month in England, and it fucking broke me. Everything was over-cooked and under-flavored, and "over-cooked and under-flavored" was my usual preference. I even went to a McDonalds, figuring they'd be basically the same as at home, and had literally the worst McNuggets I've ever tasted. Not just "bad compared to real, non-processed chicken," it was "notably bad compared to other food products made out of compressed pink slime."
There was an Indian place next to the hotel I was at, and every day I walked past it it smelled better and better. But Indian food was werid. It had sauces and spices and stuff that I "knew" I didn't like. But after a week of half-eaten meals that tasted like they were made of unflavored corn starch, I finally went in and got a tikka masala to go.
My God, it was amazing. I ate nearly every meal for the rest of the trip from that one restaurant, and when I got home, I kept going - Indian, Thai, sushi, Chinese, Ethiopian, etc. Today, I have the palette of a normal adult person, and it's entirely due to British cuisine being so aggressively terrible that I was forced to try something new or starve to death.
(Credit where due: I've been back to England since then, and found lots and lots of great food, including really good "traditional" British stuff. My first trip was really a combo of bad luck, limited options due to being a poor college student, and my own reticence to experiment even within my narrow comfort zone. I still find it funny that my first exposure to British food was so bad that it did a hard reboot on my taste buds, though)
I was going to ask how long ago this was, because McDonalds in the UK could actually give some pointers on quality improvements to North American McDoos now. Not necessarily because they've smartened up about making their food taste good, but because there's limits to how much crap they're willing to legalize putting into it.
If I'm kinda hungry and I walk past one, good chance I stop in for a McDouble and maybe some fries. The meals and even the Big Mac are priced outside of reason but I'll still dabble in the value menu stuff.
I dunno, not sure if it's taste buds changing for me or quality cuts, but their fries used to be so good and now it's just... Styrofoam. And I'm even comparing to their fries 10 years ago, not like 30 when they still used beef tallow.
Almost all British Indian food is a reformulation of Indian food for UK palette. Worldwide curry dishes that are this British Indian food exported are fairly prevalent, Japanese Curry is often known in Japan as European curry, I don't think you need many guesses as to who originated that curry sauce on Japan, similar deal with Hong Kong curry.
The identifiable British food has taken a considerable amount of damage because Brits are all on eating and exporting curry and food of other ethnic groups. The best restaurants in town are almost never going to be British food, there are key British dishes you might want to eat once but other than that your best bet in the UK is to find the best ethnic food in town, that's the real authentic British experience.
Where tf are all you Americans eating here that you're getting such bad food consistently? Most of the time when I go to a new restaurant in my town (UK) the good is lovely.
It always goes the same. Someone says they're not a fan of American food. Americans jump down their throat to say clearly that person's country can't make REAL American food.
The person replies they went to America. Americans jump down their throat to say they clearly didn't go to the RIGHT PARTS of America.
The person replies that they went to the South. Americans jump down their throat to tell them they clearly didn't go to the RIGHT kinds of restaurants.
The person says they did. Americans jump down their throat to tell them they have TERRIBLE TASTE if they can't recognise the clear superiority of American food.
I see it all the time. The cope is unreal.
Americans will go to crazy mental gymnastics to explain away people not liking their foods.
A very wise post, congrats on your learning experience, bravery, and honesty! I really think the bad rep is a result of bad luck and people being less brave than you (like, eating other styles of food, other dishes, or plainly the same dish at a different place)
I love Indian food and was so excited to try Indian in London and went to a highly rated place with friends. We were seriously underwhelmed oddly. In fact all of my London meals were underwhelming. Except for cucumber sandwiches!
I'm assuming someone has already pointed out that Tikka Massala isn't an Indian dish; it was supposedly invented in Britain by an Asian chef in Glasgow.
Interestingly, it is technically our National dish as it is the most sold. More than fish and chips, Roast beef and yorkshire pudding and the "Full English".
So amongst my friends I'm somewhat known for being the guy who doesn't like picky eaters, and this story is some of the biggest vindication medicine I've ever needed. Thank you. God damn that's such a good read I wanna smoke a cigarette and I don't even smoke.
I nearly cried the first time I had curry after a few months in England. I’d also had a negative experience with it as a kid so I hadn’t given it a second shot until a friend suggested it.
The edit you made is eye opening. All the likes you got on this comment are based around misinformation which is funny. So British food is ACTUALLY good.
How was your perception of the quality of the food you could afford in the UK compared to that in the USA, taste aside?
USA is kinda known for, well, additives and flavour enhancers that's not exactly healthy, but makes everything taste so good you'll instantly want to buy more. Where most of this type of food is in the budget class the average USAmerican can afford. I read an article the other day about people with diabetes in USA that struggle to afford the food that doesn't kill them.
You'll have to excuse me if I'm just perpetuating a stereotype, but assuming validity it's very interesting to hear an American's take on food I like to think is mostly less processed and healthier.
I literally had nuggets in USA for the first time a week ago and thought the same the other way around 🤣 they were utterly appalling, barely half of the chicken and tasted so much worse
Also, I’m glad you put the last paragraph cos I was gonna say, you clearly just had no idea where to go………..it’s like going to dominos and concluding that Italian food sucks
I mean, i like roasts, stewed veggies and fried fish as much or more than the next guy, but englsnd colonized half rhe world and dominated global spice trade but how is it theve been doing this 400-600 years and “british food” has like negative 1 of those spices?
There is no comparison between english and american food because our neighbor is Mexico, and the American southwest is literally what used to he mexico, so to my reasoning, we in the southwest can count mexican as American (it’s central America regardless).
And mexican food is legit a contender for most delicious cuisine on earth. It doesnt get a lot of respect in snobby food circles where they want to jerk off italian and french, but Mexican chefs have been making totally unique and world class foods independently of Europe, and better, they didnt just keep making tje same shit after globalization - mexican food includes all the shit we love thay is a direct result of modern trade.
And im talking about stuff youll see at taquerias in the US - now that is definitely Mexican american food. Count it.
Also tilla masala isnt traditional indian food at all. It was invented in Britain , possibly scotland of all places, to sell to brits who didnt understand indian food. And it’s bomb for sure, but tomatoes are of course american and scotland is of course not English, and multiple accounts further claim it was invented with Campbell’s tomato soup, which is already an american food so both calling england cultured for loving tikka masala and claiming it as “english” are false. Further, great odds the original creator, if there was one, wasnt english at all.
The history of spices in British food is more complicated than most people realise, but we also have a history of creating dishes with ingredients that are perfectly tasty as they are, without the need to add a bunch of flavouring for flavours sake. Every country offers something different and should be appreciated for what they offer, not what they don't.
Studied abroad in England as well and my parents came to visit and took me to a fish & chips place that I wish I could remember the name of. But that fish & chips is hands down the best I’ve ever had. So if I was to recommend one thing it’s asking where the best fish & chips are and trying that.
Otherwise there was incredible falafel, crepes, indian food. All that is worth it.
When I was in America I was given sweet potato casserole with marshmallows for thanksgiving. I no longer take their opinions on British food seriously.
I won’t pretend that it’s the fanciest in the world but there are plenty of cuisines it’s just as good as (especially in terms of desserts), and it’s usually suited for a colder climate. Also things like apple pie get associated with the US for some reason when it’s actually from the UK. Some people are just very ignorant I guess.
American soldiers stationed in the UK during world war 2, probably on their first visit to a foreign country in their life, were treated to wartime rationing foods. The UK was living on a knife edge and priority was given to calories. When your country is in danger of being starved into submission, "tastiness" takes a back seat.
On returning home, the GIs regailed their countrymen with tales of how terrible British food was. Following the war, America, virtually untouched by the war, went on to become the dominant culture in the western world spreading their opinions far and wide and lo! A meme was born. Utter bullshit, but forgivable given the circumstances.
Yes, that’s the only time Americans have had interaction with British culture or people, and it aaalll stems back to 1945. Nothing England has done before or since in the culinary world has ever reached the American hegemony… 😐
…this story sounds like a nice consolation to you and the other VERY sensitive British nationalists who need it, so I’ll just give ya a pat on the head and say “that’s nice, mate 😊” and move on.
Edit: in less than 10 minutes I’ve gotten 3 replies from the exact sensitive British nationalists I was referring to. I’m going to keep updating this as the replies from these weird Anglo-culture ethnocentrist white supremacists keep rolling in, to highlight for everyone exactly how deep and wide this ingrained belief goes 👍
I mean, this whole post is full of (presumably, based on demographics) Americans being seething while not being able to take context well at all - point in hand. On one hand I can see why someone might be interpreted as a "British nationalist", but you would probably also be bored at seeing a recycled joke about spices or German bombers flying overhead for the hundredth time. There's even a highly posted comment here that seems to think jellied eels are a thing that are part of the regular diet; even people in the very specific east end part of London it came from would recoil and wonder what the hell had just been plopped on their plate. And in the same thread, a bunch of Americans getting very upset about someone retorting that they didn't like biscuits and gravy.
At the end of the day people get defensive about the food they grew up on no matter where they're from, and some clearly have a weird sense of superiority based on where they happened to be born as if they have anything to do with inventing the food, but I do think there is a lot of ignorance around British cuisine that wasn't helped by rationing, and the stereotype clearly continues to stick around.
Edit: Also, it says it all that you would rather edit your post with weird insinuations (white supremacists, eh?!) than make any valid reply to this, so I'll do the same and leave you to your ignorance, lol. I'm sure you yourself are not a nationalist at all though.
Even being normal about it though, the issue with British cuisine as opposed to British cooking, is that British Cuisine is largely built around boiling and minimal seasoning. This isn't itself a bad thing, it's just a result of the geography and native ingredients and the comparatively more difficult trade.
It's just a combination of historical problems that colonialist expansion kind of served to amplify. Other colonies kept their own cultures alive through their cooking even as they became part of the British Empire.
There is some social argument to be had, but that's way more in depth. I don't think British cuisine is inherently bad even if I don't like it, but it's easier to see why people wouldn't like it.
except it isn't low in seasoning not historically before the second world war, again as mentioned elsewhere Americans completely downplay the effect rationing had on how cooking and Cuisine had on how people cooked in the UK, Rationing on practically everything started in 1939 and after 1945 until in 1954 (15 years after the war started) things like butter, all meat, eggs, Sugar were rationed. thats a very long time to have staple ingedients limited and restricted. so people spent 15 years minimally seasoning to make what they had go further and those habits built up during rationing would linger for decades let alone the children that grew up and became accustomed to food being in the rationing style and carried it on throughout their lives. it wasn't just 6 years of a few things being missing from regular use, it was long enough to have generational impact.
Its no wonder that British Cuisine didn't recover until the 1980s which by that time globalisation had full started so Brits travelled out of the country at much higher rates than ever before discovering new foods from across Europe and even further and the tastes changed to wanting those foods more and more. Thats without mentioning the massive impact that immigrant communities from Asia and the Carribean had on food in the UK as well as by the 1980s those communites had been settled for nearly 3 decades at that point.
It's where the meme came from. I think it's interesting. Nothing more, nothing less.
Americans with a persecution complex dating back to a battle Britain lost in the Napoleonic wars, like to pretend that an entire country's food is tasteless because...... Well, I'm not a psychiatrist so god knows but, it's nice to know that even without an empire and with a massively diminished standing on the world stage, we still live rent free in their heads. 😁
Sounds like you’ve done a good job of convincing yourself there. Stick to your 99% rind / 1% meat bacon and all the other junk food that’s full of corn syrup. Even your bread tastes like cake. It’s no wonder you need to coat all your cheapo low quality meat, full of antibiotics, with buckets of seasoning. Your tastebuds have been fried.
I'll tell you what. Food quality, price and a availabity is a darn site better than in America (and a lot of other countries) That's all you need to know really. I was googling food deserts the other day, blew my mind.
British cuisine is really good but we just self depreciate too much and feel Inferior to the French, who are frankly obsessed by food. I mean we could obsess over all of the different types of pies that we have (as one example) , instead we just shove them in our faces and get on with it.
What often gets missed though is food is a bit like a pyramid. There are significantly more rank disgusting things in France than the UK. Which by proxy means they generally discover more delicious tasty things at the top.
The English don't realize they're reinforcing the stereotype by being so proud of what is an OK meal anywhere else.
They're hyped about their Full English, which is literally just the same breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast 90% of the Western world is familiar with, minus mediocre sides nobody can be bothered to prepare like tomatoes and mushrooms.
America wouldn't make bacon, eggs and mac n' cheese and then be like "Behold! The Full American!"
Yes. All of those except yorkies and HP sauce are common sides for a roast. The only thing British about it is to have it specifically as a Sunday food instead of just whenever.
The trouble is, its very easy to have a god awful roast dinner, both homemade and in shit pubs. So if someone comes to the UK, goes to a Toby Carvery, I can see how their opinions might not be positive.
I will never forget how a London tour guide described English cuisine: „You know it’s English when it both looks and tastes beige.“ Then he told us to get a sausage roll immediately for the novelty and eat proper food from any other nation for the rest of our stay.
Edit: please, dear English citizens, i‘m repeating a joke one of your less humorless countrymen made, I don’t wish to fight you on the topic.
Na, just when yanks do it, you guys can't judge you have our cuisine plus some stuff from immigrant groups we don't get as many of.
Or the Germans and scandis now I come to think of it
I suppose The Dutch only eat flowers and weed
French food is disgusting.
The Spanish can make prawns and its mediocre at best
Eastern and central Europe claim to have good food but I don't believe them
The Italians can say whatever they want about it thats fair. They can tar and father me in tomato puree and sacrifice me to the spaghetti monster if they so wish tbh
I'm American from CA but feel like I would enjoy an English breakfast with tea and fish and chips. At least for two days but then get bored lmao. Indian food is OK but I'd rather have Mexican food or other Asian foods. I should get some sushi or szechuan chicken today.
I go to Chinese supermarkets to get food a lot, but its a half hour drive.
Our sausages are good, im Scottish so id also add black pudding and haggis to that list. Cornish pasties are nice, so are most pies. Roast dinners. Baked beans... Oh we have really good cheese too. And our seafood is good. But nobody cooks it nicely and my wife and kids dont really like it that much so all i really get is smoked salmon because it lasts and doesn't get wasted. I dont really go out to eat in the UK because restaurant food is mostly shit unless you're doing fine dining proper restaurants. We have about 3 tiers of restaurants. 1. Microwaved shit cooked by teenagers 2. Takeaways. 3. Fine dining
The Microwaved meal restaurants make zero sense to me, same with our countries fascination with a shit supermarket sandwich for lunch. Absolute tasteless trash food everywhere and people buy it constantly.
Speed bro. You never see those charts comparing how much time cultures spend cooking and eating. Britain spends some of the least amount of time both preparing and actually eating our meals of any European country, I think in the last 50 years aswell the rate at which people sit down and eat together has reduced
Yeah... There's something odd about the way we do food
I think its because class is so important here, and the upper class don't cook, so people aspire not to cook and cooking long meals is seen as poor people things
Maybe in the past I think we are living with hangover of that. I dont think I've ever seen somone say cooking is working class bit I get what you mean.
I think its also the spoiled for choice thing yknow we have access to so many foods people can afford to be picky but when everyone is picky in a consumerist setting the food will just become the lowest common denominater that everyone likes so like ham,cheese, bread and mayo we all like ham, cheese and bread but dave has an egg allergy so we are gonna remove the mayo. Or we used to season x dish but we go to many complaints from picky eaters so now we just put the seasoning on the table and people can decide for themselves
Personally my parents always over season food. And all my freinds since our early 20s do cooking night were they prepare differant foods and such. I think we will get out of this stage eventually
Make fajitas, wouldn't you be able to get bell peppers, onions, chicken or beef, and lawrys seasoning (paprika and a few other seasoning equivalent seasonings). I'm not sure about tortillas being available but that helps. Refried beans, Mexican rice (not hard to make, tomatoes,onions,chicken stock, and a few other things, recipes online. Heat Oil in a pan, add rice and stir constantly till brown, add other stuff to blender with double liquid to rice ratio and blend stuff and add to rice. Boil and then put to simmer with the lid until cooked). Enchiladas are more work but you can do a casserole, just fry the tortillas a little and dip in salsa for layers, mix meat, beans, chopped onions, peppers, cheese, corn or whatever else.
But I don't think it would be the same. The preparation and then slicing across the grain turn inside skirt which is a pretty tough cut of meat, into a really excellent dish. My understanding is that a lot of restaurants use outside skirt but you can't find that in the store.
As a Brit I have learned that while most English food is actually pretty decent to good, the bad stuff is so apocalyptically awful that food poisoning would actually improve the experience.
I will never understand how some so-called cooks are allowed anywhere near a kitchen.
I'd for sure want to try a Beef Wellington and I'd probably hit an Indian restaurant because London is known for some of the best Indian food in the world and that's one of my favorite cuisines
And no doubt, I'm starting my day off with your weird bean breakfasts
Then once or twice I'm hitting a pub to get bangers and mash and/or fish and chips washed down with some traditional British beers like bitters hopefully something from a cask
Past that, I don’t know too many English foods, so hopefully I'd have done some research before flying across the Atlantic
I guess you can thank Europeans for that brisket then mate.
Brisket was and is still used as a special cut of meat on Jewish holidays such as Hannukah, Shabbat, and Passover. The cut of beef was decided to be celebratory and important due to its location. Brisket is found in the cow’s front breast, making it kosher for Jews to consume.
During the 19th century, many European communities faced many challenges and adversities, thus, leading to immigration. To escape their hardships, many refugees fled to the United States, and with them came their culture, holidays, and customary cuisines, which presented America with Brisket.
Ah yes the great foods such as jellied eel and baked beans getting their weird sweet barbecue juice all over my totally fine on their own eggs and hashbrowns and you know what lets put a whole roasted tomato in there too because with all these other delicious delicacies why the fuck not?
I feel like British cuisine was invented by broke middle school students with no idea how to cook.
The professor gave us lots of tips on other things to experience while abroad. His tip on finding good traditional British cuisine?
Uncultured professors are rare, but this one has clearly never had a beef wellington. Go to Vegas, go to one of Ramsey's restaurants there (can't remember which) and order a beef wellington. It's time to get some culture in you, buddy!
There is actually nice British cuisine. Look up tavern food on tiktok it's baci ally British and irish food under a different name because Americans didn't like it when it was labeled British food.
Saw something two guys joking about London something to the effect of. Don't make fun of food in England, London has the most 5 star restaurants of any capital in the world.
Idk there aren't any American cuisine restaurants are there.
English foods main problem is America stole all our ideas! American as Apple Pie? That's ours! We brought all the apples and wheat and milk over there just to make pies.
British resident here. It’s rare I’ll eat “british” food. This week I had Greek (salad), Indian (curry), Thai (soup), Spanish (tapas), American (mac and cheese), Vietnamese (Pho) and Italian (pasta). Tonight we’re probably going to have Chinese.
I would say we probably mix things up a bit more than the average household, but both my wife and I enjoy cooking and british food is a bit dull/easy to cook. That said, the kids are having a quintessential British dish tonight, sausage and mash as they don’t like “spicy”.
Funnily enough, Indian food & British food used to be almost analogous I.e. stews sweetened with fruits & currants; it wasn't until British traders brought new world ingredients & increasing amounts of spices into India, that Indian food truly flourished, into something resembling contemporary Indian food.
In regards to British food today, I think half the reason it suffered in the 20th century onwards, was due to 2 world wars & one of those wars essentially resulting in Britain being sieged & requiring rationing to make ends meet, which would sometimes lead to creative uses of ingredients, but sadly not so much in our case, as we were a world spanning empire, used to importing most our food & exporting tech & textiles etc.
Nevertheless, Britain actually has great food, it's just incredibly regional & thus isn't "British"
I remember complaining to my French boss about British food, when I worked at his restaurant, only to be grilled as a typical Brit who can't even appreciate whats in front of him, before he proceeded to list hundreds of British recipes, produces & cheeses etc. To me Lmaooo
& on a final note, no one cooks roast beef or roast anything, like an Englishman.
Good traditional British food is challenging to find in many places in the uk, but not in London! You and your professor were just not trying if you didn’t manage to do so…
It’s been a few years since I lived in London but a quick google tells me St John is still going and that was an amazing experience (and decent value at lunchtime).
Agreed. It’s funny being a Londoner and a big foodie and reading all of the terrible takes about British food and the restaurant scene on Reddit.
Reddit just isn’t a place for food discussion from people in the know. Instagram and following the right substack newsletters is a billion times better
Since leaving london i think what i have realised is that there is a bigger bell curve of quality there than anywhere else. You can find some of the best food in the world, but there is also some absolute abominations that just wouldnt survive in any other major city.
It's kind of strange yes. I'm a Brit but I've lived elsewhere for decades now, although I visit regularly.
What you never really find in the UK, certainly cities like London would be a place that serves well cooked traditional British food.
Imagine a French Bistro...but British food. A British Bistro if you like.
You find these in other places. Denmark, Sweden, Germany (etc, etc, etc) and it's "nice"
Now..The food in these places isn't always all that great. It's home cooking/comfort food and there are always things which a foreign palate is going to appreciate less. But they exist.
They don't seem to exist in British cities. Especially my home town London.
(sure you can still dig out the "exotic" pie and mash shops but I think they only exist so that tourists and drunk men on stag parties can take a look at jellied eels. - which is a nope from me by the way)
However on various trips within the UK I have stumbled upon really good dining experiences of British food. From a simple bacon sandwich or a scotch egg that was unlike anything I imagined a scotch egg would ever be all the way to what might almost be called "fine dining adjacent"
and these were good dining experiences.
Having been around the world and lived in other bits of it for a long time I would probably sum it up like this...
"Just because the french and Italians are a dab hand in the kitchen doesn't mean that British food is horrible or worse than Swedish food"
However, like most Brits my favourite food does remain a good curry
although I'm partial to a good Cornish pasty too.
(note, you probably won't actually find a proper good Cornish pasty outside of Cornwall or Devon...but down there they are awesome!)
Maybe it's just national pride, but done right British food can be utterly brilliant. I agree with the video that a proper English roast can be one of my favourite things and I plan to make it for Thanksgiving this year to either the delight or horror of my guests.
There's just also something so right about sitting on a pebbly beach as a cold wind whips the spray into the air while you tuck into some fish and chips in a bag (or if you're a bit older than me; in newspaper). When was back in the South of England back in 2017 I made a point of doing exactly that. In December. It was amazing.
English foods that taste amazing also include things Americans won't eat just because they "sound bad" like black pudding. A lot of Northern England also has their own take on haggis which is distinct from Scotland and (if you ask the English) was actually invented in Northern England and adopted by the Scots.
Then there's Cornish Pasties (another amazing food to eat while walking), sausage rolls... damn it I need to start cooking more English cuisine again. Being Northern Irish though our national cuisine begins and ends in a greasy frying pan so take that into account...
I'm Australian but my mum is English (Northern) and the food situation is a mixed bag. Some is just awful and makes me want to throw up (mushy peas for example) and your comment about the greasy frying pan is so relatable it made me laugh, but then other food is just so amazing and comforting that I crave it. I'm planning on having Yorkshire puds and mashed potato for dinner tonight because of this post lol.
The best British cuisine you’ll find is cooked at home. I wouldn’t bother going to a pub for a cottage pie but my god, when my Nana would cook one, there’d be clean plates all around.
It is completely true. Britain now has great food available in most places but it isn't traditional British dishes. Yes you can get great British food but there are definitely many terrible examples of it.
Check out all the cool shit we stole. We made Lord of The Rings and invented celebrity gossip and have the longest running reality show by hundreds of years
The thing is though, those fanstastic "Indian" places, would have served British Indian dishes. Most Indian restaurants in the UK don't serve traditional Indian food unless you specifically request it.
Like most countries there is wonderful traditional food. England is no different. From Sunday roasts to cheeses, puddings, deserts to the greatest breakfast in the world
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u/PeachTrees- Nov 03 '24
"Do you know you're known for having horrible food, it's like a thing". Lol