The Dutch and British just took home the natives of their colonies as immigrants who opened restaurants. Why try to emulate when you can get the real deal?
If I hear that an Indian restaurant locally has been busted by immigration, I immediately head round.
Also, the reason most British food is bland is because of rationing during WW2. People who grew up back then ate food which was made with limited resources and that was the food they felt nostalgic for and made for their children, who then went on to make it for their own children.
France is (mostly) not an island and they weren’t besieged during WWII.
I’ve also heard that Britain rolling early with the Industrial Revolution meant that they got the big cities quicker and fed them with bland canned goods before they worked out the fresh goods logistics.
Cheese eating surrender monkeys. Created a state of the art defence system but didn’t extend it across the gap where ‘the Germans will never invade through such rough terrain’ although they did before during WWI.
Not just during but long after (well into the 1950s). People generally don’t understand that Britain literally bankrupted herself holding out against Germany, then got to watch as the former Axis powers rebounded faster than they did.
Less we bankrupted ourselves and more the Americans bankrupted us. America put a lot of effort in the early 20th century to undermining the influence of the BE and was far more concerned with building up west Germany as a barrier to the Soviets than they did with building back up allies like the UK and France.
This is a subjective, but would be pretty universally laughed at in the culinary world especially when compared to France, Italy, Tokyo, or any American city.
restaurants weren’t even prevalent until the early 1900s, way past the introduction of spices.
Outside of London the UK has a very low presence of Michelin rated restaurants compared to Europe, the US, and Japan. Not the best metric, but there’s no reason why Britain’s restaurants, who would stand to benefit from such rating, is being unfairly treated.
Btw I actually like British food, and have spent a lot of time in the UK. Just think your comment is funny, and the upvotes are funnier.
I get your point number one, but any American city better restaurants than London? You cannot seriously believe that. Sure, NY, Chicago, etc but common.
That weirdly applies to museums as well. The best museums in the world are in London. Of course, they don’t serve English stuff. The Brits just knew to bring the best stuff home.
Also, what do you call English food in other countries? Prison food.
Fucks me up as a German, too. Globalization gave us all kinds of tasty spices, but go to any public event and you’d be convinced our greatest culinary achievement is sausage with tomato ketchup and curry powder.
Also wenn du mich so fragst, hätte ich gerne so Döner-style Fladenbrot mit Kümmel, Schwarzkümmel und Senfkörnern im Teig. Das dann von innen bestrichen mit etwas Erdnussmus. Dann das übliche Döner-Grünzeug rein, aber kurz scharf in einem Wok angebraten und in Soja-Sauce getaucht. Darüber frisch gemalener bunter Pfeffer und ein guter Esslöffel kaltgepresstes Rapsöl. Und dann Champignons geschnetzelt + ordentlich angebraten und mit Gyros-Gewürzen mariniert noch darin einbetten.
Ich denke, das sollte man gut in so einem Imbisswagen zubereiten können. 🙃
Also habe jetzt natürlich übertrieben. Keine Ahnung, ob das noch gut ist. Aber habe tatsächlich schonmal so Champignon-Geschnetzeltes in einem Fladenbrot gemacht und das war extrem geil. Seither hätte ich tatsächlich gerne mal einen vollwertigen Döner damit…
But “Currywurst” (curry sausage) was invented in Berlin. Indian wouldn’t use curry powder without vegetables in this way, or currypower at all (correct me if I’m wrong)
I’m no expert either, but yeah, I believe the lazy method of making the curry dish (Indian, Thai etc.) is to use curry paste. Our curry powder barely resembles the taste of the curry dish. In particular, it’s lacking tons of chili. 🫠
I was once explained that curry in the Indian sense is a rice vegetable dish with a lot of spices. To make it easier for the Brits, the powder was developed so that you don’t need all the fresh spices.
Curry in India is usually a side-dish served with rice or chapathi (flatbread). It contains a lot of vegetables, various herbs and spices, and optionally fish or meat. But the rice itself is not a part of the curry. Also we do use curry powder, mainly when we don’t have time or space to mix the spices properly.
As an American, going to any German-themed public event (read: Oktoberfest and uhh… that’s about it) convinces me that your greatest culinary achievement is sausage with mustard and sauerkraut. Not too shabby, TBH.
we also had schupfnudeln with sauerkraut, but with chopped bacon added.
asside from that, i also know mashed potatos with kassler (cured pork),
Leberwurst(loose sausage that is usualy used as a spread)
and blutwurst(blood sausage)
boiled in sauerkraut, as a Christmas classic.
(both sausages were loose and squeezed out of the casing)
i also remember grandpa snacking on cold raw plain sauerkraut for dinner.
but he was the only person i know that ate it like that.
but i dont remember any other dishes ive eaten with sauerkraut in it.
Well, yeah, to some degree these are just very easy to prepare. To some degree, they’re just the lowest common denominator, though, which is what I’m mainly annoyed by. Lots of these simpler foods could be easily improved by adding some spices, or we could even adopt some of the many street foods in Eastern Asia, to bring in more variety…
Legitimately, though: I listened to my sister tell her 4-year about “yummy spices” at Thanksgiving. The example she used was “like salt!” I was horrified.
She also made & brought the absolute worst green bean casserole I have ever tasted in my life. It was like wet, crunchy green beans covered in French-fried onions (which came from a can, which is why it’s pretty much the only thing she got right).
She used “no added salt/sodium” cream-of-mushroom soup, the green beans, and the canned fried onions, and added nothing else.
I love green bean casserole, as it’s one of my favorite Thanksgiving foods. Even offered to make it for everyone this year! But she insisted that she wanted to do it.
The only thing that was salty this Thanksgiving was me.
Salt is just a major part of their cuisine/flavouring
It’s not exclusive to Japan if you’re worried about stereotypes but they tend to celebrate it more than other countries that look to burn your mouth off
I wish someone would’ve told me this earlier. I got into it just wanting to make a little cash by selling that salt rock. Now look at me; I can’t even enjoy some chicken if doesn’t have at least 9 different herbs and spices.
Bay leaves contain several different fatty acids which, when cooked, are transferred into your food. Fatty acids have a large effect on the flavour and nutrition of food. Next time to cook plain rice, add a few bay leaves to the pot and you will notice the change in flavour.
True, as a native English speaker, English sucks lol. There are a bunch of similar words but their meaning is different and they’re only to be used in certain contexts.
I recently discovered #16 black pepper. It truly can make things spicey. But table ground? Ha!
I know someone allergic to capsaicin. I’ve seen him eat the mildest salsa and turn red. He also sweats to black pepper. Maybe your father has a similar allergy.
What is “#16 black pepper?” Isn’t that just a grind size?
I didn’t know people used preground at home. Not any cheaper and tastes like actual dust. With a regular old pepper mill you can change that grind size easily. And no matter the grind size it doesn’t have the ability to make food “spicy” as in “hot.”
I grind my own pepper too, but #16 aka coarse ground is much larger pieces of ground pepper. #16 is the die size. You technically could grind it coarse yourself, but you’d have to sift it and only keep the bigger pieces. Here’s an example: Amazon Brand - Happy Belly Black Pepper, Coarse Ground, 18 Oz a.co/d/8e7AWHT But you should be able to find it at any big grocery store. I get it at Costco. It’s great for rubs and spicing up stuff just a bit. I think it’s the oil that remains in the course pieces as opposed to the smaller grind that allows the oil tooxidize quickly, which mutes the heat in the oil. I learned about it when I got into smoking meat. It’s used to crust a smoked brisket.
Except it isn’t though. You have shitty fast food like the rest of the world, but we also have Michelin star restaurants too. This is just yet another excuse for people to be xenophobic to the British.
And there are loads of excuses already. No need to manufacture an extra one! I wonder how many Michelin star restaurants in the UK claim to serve traditional British food though.
But genuinely, does the rest of the world dislike fish and chips, roast dinners, fried breakfasts, and pies? I know the stereotype has been around forever but I always had trouble believing that most non British people wouldn’t really like those foods.
My understanding is a lot of them. The majority of restaurants in the Michelin guide certaintly are British cuisine. The stars, I’m not so sure. I would say there isn’t really any reason to be xenophobic or racist to anyone.
No, it isn’t. I have dined exceptionally well in the UK. Our Christmas dinner is based on an a recipe from an English cook. We have a Scottish cafe/diner in town which serves excellent food.
OK, I’ve dined horribly, too, but it is definitely not the norm - I made the mistake of ordering half a chicken in a fish and chips shop. My recommendation: Don’t repeat my mistake.
to be honest, I dont know a single fellow american that thinks that “american food” (whatever that even means) is better than just about any other variety. Yet what you said is true nonetheless lmao
If we’re to insist on it being a specific country’s food, it really should be Indian no? It was invented by Indian diaspora in the UK as (IIRC) a take on traditional Indian food using ingredients that are easier to obtain in the UK.
IMO saying tikka masala is British food is like saying General Tso’s Chicken, which was invented by Chinese diaspora in the US for similar reasons, is somehow American food. I don’t think the country it was invented in can really claim credit in either case.
Tikka Masala is an Indian-Inspired dish which was invented in the UK by people with Indian cultural heritage. That’s about as concise a description as you can get without running into difficulties of definition - there’s no consistent way of defining what “being a dish” means without running into contradictions.
In fact General Tso’s is the perfect counter-example: Multiple Chinese people have told me they enthusiastically disown General Tso’s Chicken and explicitly call it American food. So if we say “a dish belongs to a country if it’s invented there”, then Tikka Masala is British (which I agree “feels” wrong); but if we say “a dish belongs to a country if it was inspired by the cuisine of that country”, then General Tso’s is Chinese, which, apparently not!
And that’s without even considering the question of how far “back” you should go with inspiration - what if a dish was inspired by how the Indians used food they got from the Persians who traded it with the Chinese - is it Indian food or Chinese food? (Idk if that’s historically nonsense, but you get my point) Why is the most-recent ancestor more important than the environment of creation?
I respectfully disagree with one major caveat. I’ll get that out of the way first; I think there should be a name for these foods that recognize the creators (e.g. Italian American food is American food that comes from Italian immigrants). We’ve traditionally been bad at giving credit or, worse, using names to mark a cuisine as “other” and weird.
The thing is that there really isn’t a food of a place. People use ingredients that are available and use techniques from the people around them. When cultures interact, they create remixes of cuisine that take unfamiliar ingredients and techniques and create something new.
Let me use the food of my own home, New Mexico, as an example. The food of the region is a mixture of Spanish colonizers, later Mexican immigrants, and Native American foods using a crazy combination of techniques and ingredients from all three. It isn’t Spanish food. It isn’t Mexican food. It isn’t Native American food. It is New Mexican food, a thing that arose from a place and its history. Now, with Asian immigrants moving in, the food has started to incorporate stuff from those cultures too.
Careful, that’s like saying that the guy who made it, who was born in the UK isn’t really British either.
Umm what so you mean by ‘the guy who made it’? Curry has existed in Indian subcontinent, in various varieties, for hundreds of years. It wasn’t first concocted in UK in 1960s.
What I mean is the man who cooked the curry and served it to me and my two companions. He’s of Asian heritage but was born and raised in the UK.
Does that mean that he’s not really British?
What if he sees himself as British. Is he then culturally appropriating Asian food?
Because that’s the argument being used about the food too. That dish was cooked in a kitchen in Birmingham. It has Asian heritage too. But is it not the British food?
I’m making a point about the international nature of food, and the way in which it relates to identity, and you seem determined to take it in bad faith to truss up your own weak argument.
Ok, here, have a win. You’re right. You are so totally right. Well done. Enjoy the glory.
Mate, we’ve been making gravys and thick sauces before the Brits came along. Especially people in coastal regions who use coconut in nearly everything.
I think British people have a very different definition of gravy - more like meat juice thickened with flour and optionally some other stuff like caramel and onions. As I understand, they don’t put vegetables, herbs or spices.
We are talking about importing spices to use them in the country. It doesn’t even matter where the cook is from. Even the most Indian guy can’t prepare an Indian meal without the ingredients
It’s almost like, in such a huge country, there exist people with different tastes.
I, an American, went to India once. The hotel restaurant had a breakfast buffet. On one side was a glorious Indian spread. The other was some nauseating English breakfast spread, with like baked beans (that’s for summer BBQs not breakfast!).
Anyway me and my buddy head straight to the good side, when the hotel staff woman came running over to warn us that it was too spicy. She gently walked us to the gross English food. We confirmed with her, numerous times, that the Indian food was very spicy. We then dug in on the eatible food (the Indian side) and made a friend with the hotel staff lady.
It was somewhat spicy, but amazing.
Some Americans think black pepper is too spicy, some eat ghost peppers as a light snack, I am in between.
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