I sympathize with the plight of english people living with the Bad Food stereotype bc I suspect that it’s a product of post WWII austerity when like all of Europe got blown up and everyone had to adjust to using shitty cheap shortcuts to cook. For example you can look at Polish cookbooks from the 60s-80s and you can often see signs of that like rather than instructing readers on how to make a tomato or mushroom sauce to go with gołąbki it’ll say use a can of tomato soup or something. Hard to make a simple roux or consommé if flour, fat, vegetables etc are tough to come by. So my theory is that this is what happened in the UK and people obviously visited London much more often than they would Warsaw or Budapest. Polish cuisine was able to regenerate un-judged by tourists, there but by the grace of god etc. That’s my perspective anyway
I think people get attached to “bad” food too in those conditions which helps those practices persist and seem overrated to outsiders. For example hikers tend to develop an attachment to those powdered eggs that in civilian life you’d probably avoid. Like food stockholm syndrome
Scoffholm syndrome
I’ve always felt the infamy related to the food from the England comes down to four things:
- The attitude towards food
- Landscape and wildstock, combined with being an island
- Introduction of different cuisines over the years
- Global evolution of how we eat
As you can imagine I get asked this (and made fun of here in France) a lot because the reputation of food from England is worldwide, so I can speak with some conviction on the subject.
The first point, the attitude towards food is really important. This post
is insanely true. The French take lunch seriously, it’s the most important meal of the day. Usually it’s a small breakfast, BIG lunch, smaller dinner. They take all meals seriously as food should be enjoyed. And that’s a big difference in England, eating is for energy and needs to be done, not enjoyed as much. I’m not saying they don’t enjoy the food, but the experience of eating as a whole (with exceptions, such as a Sunday roast or Christmas/Easter lunches) is more “well we need to eat” than “we should eat”. When I lived and worked in England, I would usually take lunch on the go, while working or going somewhere else to work, it saves time. This isn’t an exclusively English thing, as I know it happens a lot in America. Since coming to France and having American or English colleagues visit, the French shock of seeing them have a sandwich at their desk always results in a «oh la vache» (literally, the cow!) because it’s just not in the mentality to not stop for lunch, have a break in the day and enjoy eating with people. Again, I’m not saying the English don’t enjoy food, I’m saying they don’t see the experience of a meal as importantly as other cultures do, especially in the middle of working.
Being an island is a factor too. If you look at the history of English cuisine (I bet you all have), it’s very much based on what was available. In recent years that’s changed a lot as pretty much everything is available but to think of English cuisine you think of classic dishes, which were pretty … how can I put this nicely… bland. They contained a meat, vegetables and a sauce, which was usually based on said meat and vegetables and whatever herbs were around. Stews and their varients of were common and most parts of the UK have their own regional varient of it because of, again, what was around at the time. The first and second points are quite linked in this respect. Until new ingredients were introduced not a lot changed for a very long time.
Quick interjection: I haven’t really mentioned anything about the upper classes in the UK, mostly because I’m not one of them (I just speak proper like what the King does) but also because I think they’re excluded from the overall mentality of the country. When you’re rich you can get pretty much anything you want and looking over how the upper classes lived they could eat very well. But they were not farmers in Yorkshire so they could. Having read up on how the rich ate, it was many things from all over the world and probably had an influence on how food tastes have changed over the years and especially what new foods appeared. Interjection over, but this relates to point three.
I’m not going into history about what England owned or tried to take over (it’s way too many, the actual number will shock you) but those things did influence the food, tastes, spices, herbs, meats, pretty much everything that people now eat. One thing I do love about food in England is how varied it is and how many different kinds of dishes you can enjoy. BUT that has in turn meant English cuisine has been lost over time to all the new things that have been introduced. If you ask most English people their favourite dish, most people will not say a traditional English dish, but then have to be asked that specific question to get an answer. I LOVE curry and to many people, that’s seen as the most English dish there is, which is a strange one but it’s the case. People often, myself included would go out for a curry once a week with friends. Or a pizza or pasta or kebab or… it goes on and on. You generally don’t go out for fish and chips as an event. Some do, I have, but most don’t. So the influence by different cultures, which is awesome, has changed the habits on how people eat.
Yeso you also raised a very good point about post second world war habits and how people ate then. I’ve seen my parents and grandparents ration books and the food they had available at the time and it’s scary. My mum told me for dessert sometimes they had sugar sandwiches, which is literally what it is but they needed some stodge and sugar. But that was a tough time for everyone and I think while it influences, it’s not the biggest influence on food in England as the habits that people have and had go back a lot longer than that. We all now live in a time where most of the western world can get any kind of ingredient you could imagine and thanks to the internet you can find how to make pretty much any kind of a dish you want. But if you ask someone “What’s a traditional English dish” there’s not many answers to it, just the usual ones and they haven’t changed in a long time. Which is probably why people eat them less than the newer ones they can now enjoy.
English food to the rest of the world is not what English people eat, as in the style of cuisine, because I don’t think there’s an English cuisine like there was. Food habits change over time which is a good thing, it lets everyone try something new. But if you think we all eat stews and toad in the hole and roast beef and all the other cliches, yes, yes we do! We just don’t eat them the same way as people did before but those updated versions haven’t made it out of England. If someone goes to England they want to try all those dishes they’ve heard about because they’re there, which makes sense, but when you grow up on them you want to try something new. My kids love fish and chips in England because it’s fish & chips and I get that, I just want to try something new because I like a change. I wouldn’t stop anyone from wanting them just as they imagine though.
I am not trying to put down English food at all, just speaking from my perspective on how I see food (I’ve eaten a lot of food over the years) and provide some insight on why people may see it as bland. I think English chefs are doing amazing work and in some ways leading the world in cooking, just not with the dishes people expect or are used to. They’re taking tradional dishes and adding a global twist to them. I’m fortunate enough to have travelled a lot and eaten many different things all over the world to discover new dishes and flavours, which some people haven’t - but every country has people who may not have and if they like what they like, that’s awesome. Food is great! In fact writing this has made me hungry and honestly I am tempted to make something very English for lunch.
Curry!
As an addendum, it’s worth also adding that older generations tended to either boil, roast or bake everything - or pretty much just boil everything in the inter-war and post-war years. I distinctly remember my nan telling me that she used to get an entire chicken posted through the mail from Scotland to Wales, and she would boil the hell out of it. Until the day she died she’d probably only ever fried an English breakfast.
I also wanted to add that British-Indian food has very definitely evolved into its own thing over the years; tending to lean towards sweeter curries with thicker sauces (not that you were debating otherwise - I’m just mentioning this after the fact).
It’s a very valid point - how things were cooked. And yes how curry in the UK is it’s own thing far from the origins of the dishes, much saucier and sweeter. Again it changes as curries in France are so different to England both on sauce and spices.
Addendums are great! This is a huge topic which I only have one side on so appreciate anyone from the UK with perspectives on, please share. I welcome anyone who can add anything to it!
isnt categorizing curry as “English” food about the same as categorizing eg tacos as US food? Idk if you can do that… Because it sounds like the argument is something like: within the geographical borders of england, you can get really good indian food. Which I don’t doubt for a moment. Fwiw I don’t really doubt you can get good english-english food there either I don’t personally subscribe to the stereotype
It’s really calling it English food because it’s one of the most popular styles of food to eat and quite a few curries have been created in the UK. Nowadays I associate curry with England - it really is in the culture for people more than I think people outside understand. A good curry example is a chicken tikka masala, exact location unknown but a lot of people say Glasgow, and is regarded as the nations curry. I know it’s available in many different countries but I’d imagine most people outside of the UK and India wouldn’t assume it’s actually British.
To English people it really seems curry is the national dish, to people outside of England the English national dish, I have no idea but I bet it’s not curry.
Regarding Tacos - are there specific ones that have been invented in America that aren’t Mexican? I have never thought of Tacos as American food. To be honest, and this is a really geniune question - what is the American dish? I would imagine it’s almost impossible to answer just because of the size of the country.
not being facetious when i say a burger. it’s the first thing that comes to mind when i think of american food, and i’d wager that’s what the rest of the world thinks too.
i think you could probably get a bit more variance by region (e.g. chicago has a strong culinary identity), but as for what connects the country, it would have to be the fast, cheap, and greasy burger.
There are a lot of Americanized tacos in circulation in this country that would never be served in Mexico, but I don’t think that makes them an American food. Like pizza isn’t an American food either
idk i’m kinda torn on this considering how much pizza is integrated into american culture and how different “american pizza” ala little caesars etc is from more traditional italian pizza
Valid point. But do people in America think of Tacos as American? As people in England do think of curry as an English dish and probably always will.
Sure I know it’s commonplace and the form has diverged but idk if it can be claimed as an American food though
I think that’s what most of the world thinks and it’s not a bad thing. I myself love a good burger, but has to be good. Simple and not full of loads of extra things and you can taste the beef. That’s not something I always think of with a American burger.
it’s our adopted child
that said, to @Tom 's question, i don’t think anyone would consider tacos american. i guess i’m contradictory in my logic here, but something in my gut tells me pizza is american idk. or at least it’s not not-american.
No, we don’t think of them as American. Idk how English people justify doing that for curry though. Seems a little acquisitive but what do I know
are you saying you think of the over-crowded burger as an american thing? while it’s true there are some restaurants that do that, i think pound for pound it’s more common to see a simple, stripped down burger in america like the type you’d see at a diner. do you know about slider/white castle type burgers? not sure how common those are overseas
I think americans did the british curry kinda apropiation thing by inventing whatever a wrap is
Pretty much yes, but it’s not a bad thing, just not a me thing anymore. I’ve eaten plenty of burgers like that, in America and other places and I used to really like them - now I prefer something simplier.
I’ve been to White Castle and Krystal before and really enjoyed sliders. The only thing I didn’t like was that you didn’t have one of them, you had at least four (maybe six or eight, I used to eat a lot more when I was younger).
I just like a nice burger without a lot of extra things in it now. I want to enjoy the taste of it as is, but I still think of a burger as American - either one with all the extras or beef in a bun.
Probably the same way they took over many things, with a flag!