I look at it the other way around. The food was so horrible, England sent entire fleets of ships just to get takeout from India. It didn’t matter that it took months on end and people lost their lives along the way, it was still worth it.
The taste of their food and the beauty of their women made the British the best sailors in the world.
Chicken Tikka Masala entered the chat.
I’m happy Great Britain was able to make one interesting dish 50 years ago, but the cuisine could use a couple more seasoned recipes.
I will not argue against that.
Indian food?
Origin is Scotland I believe…Glasgow.
It was popularised by cooks from India living in Great Britain, but I don’t believe that makes it any less Indian. Just as the chimichanga wasn’t invented in Mexico, but is still considered Mexican food.
Chicken Tikka Masala is a British national dish and that is common knowledge.
If by common knowledge, you mean that a significant portion of the population believes it, I’m not sure how reliable that evidence that is. People will believe a whole lot of strange stuff.
On topic, even the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page states that it was “popularized by cooks from India living in Great Britain”. Regardless of where it was first created, this is clearly the product of Indian immigrants. I don’t believe their heritage should be ignored just because they moved. Although, I don’t want it to sound like I believe in a 100% black and white distinction here. It’s clearly a fusion dish with British influences. The original chicken tikka was a lot dryer and the “masala” sauce was added to make the dish creamier to appeal to British tastes.
However, I don’t go around claiming General Tso’s chicken isn’t Chinese food, just because it was first made in New York; or that the chimichanga isn’t Mexican food, just because it was originally made in Arizona; or that a Cuban sandwich isn’t Cuban, just because it was first made in Florida. These dishes wouldn’t exist without the immigrants who modified their cultural recipes to adapt to a new environment.
To me, chicken tikka malala is an Indian dish with British influences.
E: Tao to Tso.
Go to China and tell them that General Tso’s is Chinese cuisine, I dare you.
“I dare you”
How could you think this possibly warrants a dare? Do you really think people are this confrontational in real life? When traveling in other countries, I have only had positive interactions when attempting to find any common ground with locals. In this case, the worst thing that could happen is you share a laugh and they offer for you to try real local cuisine.
Kind of related, the duck tongue and chicken’s foot I had earlier this year in Malaysia wasn’t that bad.
So let’s agree that it’s neither Indian nor British, but a fusion of the two, created in Britain by immigrants or their descendants and becoming a national dish loved by people in Britain regardless of their cultural background.
The meme is funny :)
That being said, the only UK foods I’ve had were made by expats here in the states. None of it was bland, with the exception of breakfast beans, “because they’re meant to be mild to start your day” as I was told by a lovely liverpudlian.
She would do fish and chips, and the batter was well seasoned. Not heavily seasoned, but some pepper, a little paprika, and a bit of onion powder to give it some aromatic kick. Well balanced, and imo, as good as any of the southern fried fish recipes I’ve had.
The chips were obviously just salted and vinegar used per person.
But when we did pot luck at work, she would bring in what she called “good english food”, which included some curry a few times.
But her shepherd’s pie? Holy hell, that was some great stuff. She said it was really cottage pie because it was beef usually. But it had the usual pepper, onion, garlic, and herbs.
And the other expats I ate with were similar. Maybe different amounts of a given herb or spice, but it was in there.
I think the UK food thing is a meme in itself, and likely arose the way things usually do, with the majority of cooks just being bad cooks, rather than representative of a cuisine or the way things are done properly in that country.
Case proven, all the good cooks left.
I think the issue is mostly in the visuals. When you look for traditional English food, it is usually a plate full of beige stuff, sometimes paired with really unappetizing boiled carrots and beans. The gravy being on the side instead of part of the dish doesn’t do it any favors either.
Also I’d argue England has pretty low standards for what counts as “food”. I’ve had to work in England for a month, and finding something fresh, healthy and tasty to eat was a real challenge. I’ve never been as fat as when I came home.
The epitome of the wasted potential of English cuisine is the fact that it’s an island full of the best fishes in the world, yet the only fish you can find is battered cod. Why is it so hard to get a salmon fillet? You have Scottish salmon ffs!
Shepard’s pie is Irish btw. Not a surprise a scouser would be able to make a good one when Liverpool has a large Irish community.
Common myth, not true.
First recorded recipe for Shepherds Pie is from a Scottish cookbook from 1849. First recorded use of Cottage Pie is 1791 by an English clergyman.
Cottage Pie was used for both lamb and beef varieties until recently and was a way of eating leftover meats.
My favourite “traditional” English meal is a good Steak and Kidney pie, made with an ale sauce. Seasoned with lots of pepper, Worcestershire sauce (anchovy sauce), onion and stock. Absolutely delicious.
The reputation comes from the US military being stationed in the UK during the height of WW2 rationing when there was an extremely limited list of ingredients to cook with. They were unable to associate a country under an attempted siege from U-boats with a reduced supply of food.
We do have a love of beige food at times, but it’s essentially our version of chicken tendies.
Ahhh, that makes sense. Kinda rough that the rep hasn’t gone away yet, though.
It’s the same with English beer. On the continent, people keep saying that Brits drink their beer lukewarm. When I was there, they actually had temperature displays at the tap in most pubs that usually showed something around 4°C (~39°F). For reference, that was in the Huddersfield area (between Leeds and Manchester) around 15 years ago.
Well in this case the reputation for “warm beer” is true and I’m willing to die on this particular hill.
Proper cask ale should be served at between 8 and 12C, AKA cellar temperature, cool but not cold. Nothing beats a traditional pint of ‘best bitter’ in an old pub!
Plenty of people in the UK drink lager and other styles of beer that are more nightly carbonated, stronger ABV, and served colder. Personally I’m not a fan but each to their own.
I live about an hour from London in a rural area with loads of great pubs but I find it difficult to find a nice beer in most parts of London. It’s much easier to keep a keg of carbonated beer under pressure than a cask ale that you have to finish within a few days of tapping, which is why when a certain proportion of a pub’s clientele start drinking other styles it just isn’t worth it for the pub to keep real ale. Hopefully it won’t become a niche thing.
I’ve home brewed a lot of English ales and I agree that those ales should be served warmer. If you don’t, the cold mutes and kills the subtle and rich flavors.
Lagers are good, but a good British Ale is something to savory with good friends.
That’s because of a lot Englishales are drunk at room temp/ slightly below though not as cold as refrigerated.
True and thats because they were invented before refrigerators.
It hasn’t gone away because countless students from across the globe have moved there and found it to be largely true. While there is good food available in the UK it seems as if the average Brit is content to eat very badly and then supplement what is largely a terrible diet with copious amounts of alcohol.
What else would you supplement a terrible diet with?
Coffee? Tea? Illicit drugs.
(They do all the above).
We also had rationing for a good while longer than other countries after the wars (right into the mid-50s), so we have a whole generation who were pretty much raised with limited food options. That kind of national trauma sticks around and took a while to shake off.
Boomers made that bland war time food linger. They were children during and just after WW2 so it was part of their childhood nostalgia and they fed it to their own kids. Also we’ve had Indian/ Chinese restaurants in the UK for a while but they were mostly just in major cities at first so the average person still had little exposure to foreign or exotic food until the late 1970s/ early 1980s.
My ex mother in law and her mom both can’t eat any food that’s not a certain level of bland. Too much of any spice at all and they set it aside like an autistic kid with arfid. Which… come to think of it…
Yep, this sums up everyone I know over 60 that is descended from British -immigrants- sorry expats.
Actual British people coming over now that still sound British seem to have much more refined taste. BIR-style curries are indeed very popular vs bland British “stew” / casserole
man if you make stew right it’s the most flavourful thing out there. half a bottle of red wine, couple cans crushed tomatos, chop up half your intended vegetables( Carrot, potato, onion, green onion stems, parsnips and celery for me), brown the beef, dump it all in except the other half of your vegetables, bring the level up with strong beef broth till everything is covered, and simmer covered till it all except the beef dissolves into a brown gravy, then add the other half of your vegetables and serve when they are cooked. Bay leaves and rosemary and thyme and pepper of course too. Garlic. Usually enough salt from the beef broth.
Literally by definition boomers would have been born after WW2.
Yeah this one was the silent generation
Also as an American we don’t really have room to talk. Yes there’s the iconic southern foods but even then, grits are bland and meh. But for the most part a lot of traditional American food needed to have spices rediscovered. It seems like for a long time our attitude was to use sugar, pre ground pepper, and maybe salt as seasoning for something that had any good texture cooked out of it.
Boomers weren’t children during WWII. Boomer means baby boomer, as in someone born during the baby boom. The baby boom happened after the war ended.
Good point. But rationing continued in the UK until 1954 so it did affect them.
I went to the the UK when I was a teenager pre 9/11 and I remember the food being amazing imo.
But honestly I love savory food that just needs a pinch of salt to make it pop so maybe I’m the problem too.
I don’t think I’d recommend chilli peppers with your user name.
It’s probably cause his spoon is too big.
I’ve heard that food in the US is generally bad, so maybe not the best comparison 😜 😂
They clearly never had soul food or Gullah/Geechee food.
Lmao!
A lot of people everywhere don’t know how to cook. They don’t even bother to try and learn, so they rely on corporate packaged foods and restaurants. That’s a separate thing from the cuisine of a given place, or the cooking of people that do know how to.
That may seem like sophistry, but it is an important point to remember when talking about cooking when not joking around for fun. You can’t really use people that aren’t actually doing a thing, or have never learned how to do it as an representative example of what a country’s core is. It’s like athletics, you can’t say that Ethiopians are bad ice skaters if the average person can’t access time and equipment to ice skate in the first place. (Not picking on Ethiopia, it was just the first country that came to mind as not being very present in the world ice skating stage).
It’s legit to say that the US has a major food education problem, as does the UK from what I’ve heard, but that is a different issue than the national cuisine.
I like the safety third crew but they’ve also ate dog food and didn’t find much issue with it.
That’s a really good point 😂
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
heard that food in the US is generally bad,
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
He’s Canadian.
You cant trust those frozen tree suckers
How rude (although it was a clever insult and I literally laughed. I needed that. Thanks)!
Are the trees frozen or the suckers?
Depending on the time of year, yes.
Well we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and several others while drone-bombing a few others 24 hours a day to spread democracy and not for their resources.
And then purposefully mispronounce almost every foreign food.
“Never dip into your own supply”
- brits, probably
The only British person who actually knows how to use spices is Gordon Ramsey, and he gets a pass on not using them cause he actually knows how to cook good food.
He can’t handle spice. His 2 appearances on Hot Ones are their top-watched episodes. They’re also the best. He’s so funny. He had so much fun during his first appearance, he came back for their Holiday episode. It was awesome.
I highly recommend the watch.
Desensitization based on routine is all there is to “handling spice”. It is neither an achievement nor an ability. Anyone can get used to it by starting from small amounts and slowly increasing the spice level. Also, there are many spices, chili is only one of them.
It was a joke, mark. A Christmas joke.
It’s great for stomach troubles, arthritis though.
I love chili, I just don´t like the glorification of desensitizing ones taste.
Tbf, I’ve rarely had a chili that wasn’t mild, unless I or a neighbor who likes it hot made it. You may want to avoid certain salsas (red or green) at restaurants and bodegas where actual ethnic Latin Americans eat, if you’re not into spicy, though.
Then he goes off and tells me to do something stupid like put cinnamon sticks in my chili, the Brits can’t help themselves.
I may try that. Why not? Nutmeg is amazing in Alfredo, so I’m willing to try it. More toward fall, though. It’s too hot in spring fur such heaviness
I’ve never watched Ramsey, and I’m not British, but a hint of cinnamon in ground meats is great. Cinnamon in savory foods is underrated in general, imo
Cinnamon, good. Chili, good. I can see where he’s coming from.
Clearly you’ve never had rich friends, they’re notorious for having everything and never using it.
“Oh man, I didn’t know you play guitar. That’s a beautiful Orange double stack and Thunderverb.”
“I bought that when I tried to learn guitar, haven’t used it since.”
After some trips to GB and eating there, I am happy to live in Spain
If this is what a country’s cuisine looks like to you, I think it says more about your choice in food than what is available from that country’s cuisine.
What British meals do you recommend?
!remind me to see any answer to this lol
It depends if you are looking for traditional or contemporary cuisine.
Traditional:
Can’t get much more traditional than a Sunday roast. Perhaps not the most spiced dish, but relies on a complexity of ingredients cooked just right, and served with a combo of rich gravy and various sauces (mint, cranberry, redcurrant, horseradish, mustard etc are all common). Certainly a flavourful dish when done right.
Pies and pasties are historically very popular. These days sometimes mistakenly viewed as plain food due to the availability of simpler fast food offerings, but there are a huge variety of styles, flavours and complexities around. Pies as a category cover those made with different types of pastries, as well as those topped with potato (cottage pie, shepherds pie, fish pie etc).
There are a huge variety of other traditional dishes from across the UK to explore which Google can list out a load of, but truth is historically much of British cuisine was based on what was locally or seasonally available; seasonal veg, seafood, cheeses, breads and cakes.
Local knowledge and variety is also huge. I’m Welsh and could name dozens of Welsh dishes others in the UK won’t have even heard of, and you won’t find much mention of even online and know what you’re looking for.
Contemporary:
…per the meme, Britain’s imperial past does mean a multicultural present, and the reality is that that has influenced common cuisine in a big way - what many British people are eating on a regular basis are based in fusion.
Curries are incredibly popular, and it is worth noting that written British curry recipes predate the founding of the USA, and imported recipes predate that by hundreds more years - it isn’t a particularly recent or novel thing. British curries are as unique to Indian curries as eg Chinese or Japanese curry is. Not only that, each country within the UK has unique variations of curry attributed to them.
Anglo-Chinese and Italian food are also particularly popular - most towns across the UK that are big enough to have a couple of restaurants will have a minimum of a fish and chip shop, a Chinese, an Indian/curry house, kebab shop, and an Italian restaurant. Most cities have places serving foods from dozens of countries available. In big cities, London in particular, it is probably easier to name countries that there isn’t food from than there is.
Growing up, a typical week of 7 home cooked dinners looked like Pasta bake or lasagne, curry, stir fry, jacket potato and/or soup, fish & chips, fajitas, Sunday roast.
… That turned into a bigger answer than intended 😂
Disclaimer: All of the below comes with the obvious caveat that it has to be made by someone who knows what they’re doing. Any country’s cuisine is shit if you’re eating at a shit restaurant. That’s not about your choice of meal, that’s your choice of venue.
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Pies. Britain has basically perfected the savory pie. Steak and kidney, steak and onion, scotch pie, shepherd’s pie, cottage pie, fisherman’s pie… British savory pies are an explosion of flavour. Pair with a good stout or porter; the kind of beer that still looks black even when you hold it up to a light.
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Good fish & chips is one of the most perfect meals ever created. Keep in mind that the condiments matter; you need the acidity and richness of a good malt vinegar to cut through that fattiness. Never get fish & chips in a pub or restaurant. Go to a proper chippy, preferably in a coastal town.
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Stews are a British classic. Try a real Lancashire hotpot sometime, with pickled red cabbage and mashed potatoes. Absolutely stunning.
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Get your ass down to a high quality carvery and try a roast dinner. Lamb or beef are the best bet, but chicken and pork are good too. The true test of a roast dinner is the quality of the gravy. It should be not too thick, and full of savory meaty flavour, not doughy or floury in taste. Also look for vegetables that have some colour on them, not just boiled. Roast lamb leg with a good mint sauce is a thing of beauty. Pair with red wine for lamb or beef, white for pork or chicken.
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Haggis is a flavour explosion. The real thing, no plastic wrapped forgeries, served with the traditional sides of tatties and neeps, and a glass of really good single malt whisky.
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Straight up, one of the best meals I’ve ever had was bangers and mash. I was at a high end London restaurant - I forget the name, but John Lennon used to eat there pretty regularly - and it was incredible. The potatoes were the perfect texture with just the right amount of salt and butter. The sausages were made in house, beautifully seasoned and cooked to perfection, and the gravy was stunning. It’s a very simple meal, but simple done right isn’t easy. In a simple meal there’s nothing to hide behind. Every part has to be perfect.
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Desserts. British desserts are phenomenal. Eton mess, spotted dick, and the absolute king of desserts, sticky toffee pudding served with thick cream. Unbelievably decadent.
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Britain conquered India, many other parts of Asia and much of the Americas and yet they still eat Marmite. Willingly.
bovril too, huuurk
It’s not even that they don’t use spices they just haven’t even tried to evolve their cuisine. They still eat the same bland boring shit from 100 years ago. Meanwhile the rest of Europe thriving. It’s like they opened the books once 50 years ago to let chicken Tikka in and then immediately closed the books again. They can always point to that one dish and be like see.
Sounds like a cope to me.
Which parts of Europe is that?
Is it Germany where you can only buy shnitzel, sausage and cabbage in various different forms?
Or Italy, where they’re so proud of their food it’s basically illegal to serve anything that isn’t Italian?
Or France where spice and chilli is outlawed, only garlic and herbs allowed?
It’s true that a lot of traditional British food is bland, but there are way more Chinese, Indian, Thai, mexican, Italian restaurants in any town in England than you’ll find anywhere in Europe.
Myself: douse the fries with chilli sauce. 🌶😋
The fish recipes I have seen use Turmeric
I heard once that when spices became so cheap that even the commoners could afford it, the upper class in Britain started to claim that really good food doesn’t need any spices to taste good and that bland food is the best. This supposedly made the British cuisine way blander.
I thought it was cuz they lost a bunch of ships during wwii and then they had the rationing of foods, and hadn’t recovered their flavor palate since then.
I don’t think flavor palates degenerate that quickly. Especially with that many Indian residents.
A lot of the “bland” food is just food that was made during the world wars that has evolved over time after the fact.
But to say British food has no spices completely disregards the whole curry scene over here. It’s not just curry from India. A lot of “Indian” dishes were invented in the UK.
Aye like a lot of time that people are making fun of English cuisine they’re usually just making fun of meals that poorer families would make or that no one regularly makes in their right mind.
I mean it’s usually just cheap, lazy food. I like a good beans on toast every once and a while. Sometimes you just want a no effort meal.
