British Food: Classic or Dud (S&D too)

Both of these are due of fanatical minorities who will need a lot of quelling, including extensive legislation. But there is one point on which public opinion could bring about a rapid change for the better: I mean cooking.

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.’

Now that is simply not true, as anyone who has lived long abroad will know, there is a whole host of delicacies which it is quite impossible to obtain outside the English-speaking countries. No doubt the list could be added to, but here are some of the things that I myself have sought for in foreign countries and failed to find.

First of all, kippers, Yorkshire pudding, Devonshire cream, muffins and crumpets. Then a list of puddings that would be interminable if I gave it in full: I will pick out for special mention Christmas pudding, treacle tart and apple dumplings. Then an almost equally long list of cakes: for instance, dark plum cake (such as you used to get at Buzzard’s before the war), short-bread and saffron buns. Also innumerable kinds of biscuit, which exist, of course, elsewhere, but are generally admitted to be better and crisper in England.

Then there are the various ways of cooking potatoes that are peculiar to our own country. Where else do you see potatoes roasted under the joint, which is far and away the best way of cooking them? Or the delicious potato cakes that you get in the north of England? And it is far better to cook new potatoes in the English way — that is, boiled with mint and then served with a little melted butter or margarine — than to fry them as is done in most countries.

Then there are the various sauces peculiar to England. For instance, bread sauce, horse-radish sauce, mint sauce and apple sauce; not to mention redcurrant jelly, which is excellent with mutton as well as with hare, and various kinds of sweet pickle, which we seem to have in greater profusion than most countries.

What else? Outside these islands I have never seen a haggis, except one that came out of a tin, nor Dublin prawns, nor Oxford marmalade, nor several other kinds of jam (marrow jam and bramble jelly, for instance), nor sausages of quite the same kind as ours.

Then there are the English cheeses. There are not many of them but I fancy Stilton is the best cheese of its type in the world, with Wensleydale not far behind. English apples are also outstandingly good, particularly the Cox’s Orange Pippin.

And finally, I would like to put in a word for English bread. All the bread is good, from the enormous Jewish loaves flavoured with caraway seeds to the Russian rye bread which is the colour of black treacle. Still, if there is anything quite as good as the soft part of the crust from an English cottage loaf (how soon shall we be seeing cottage loaves again?) I do not know of it.

No doubt some of the things I have named above could be obtained in continental Europe, just as it is possible in London to obtain vodka or bird’s nest soup. But they are all native to our shores, and over huge areas they are literally unheard of.

South of, say, Brussels, I do not imagine that you would succeed in getting hold of a suet pudding. In French there is not even a word that exactly translates ‘suet’. The French, also, never use mint in cookery and do not use black currants except as a basis of a drink.

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.

It is a fact that restaurants which are distinctively English and which also sell good food are very hard to find. Pubs, as a rule, sell no food at all, other than potato crisps and tasteless sandwiches. The expensive restaurants and hotels almost all imitate French cookery and write their menus in French, while if you want a good cheap meal you gravitate naturally towards a Greek, Italian or Chinese restaurant. We are not likely to succeed in attracting tourists while England is thought of as a country of bad food and unintelligible by-laws. At present one cannot do much about it, but sooner or later rationing will come to an end, and then will be the moment for our national cookery to revive. It is not a law of nature that every restaurant in England should be either foreign or bad, and the first step towards an improvement will be a less long-suffering attitude in the British public itself.

Currently I am preserving and pickling like billy-o. I should have access to a great quantity of apples for making chutneys next week.

Rick Stein goes around cooking amazing looking cassoulets and whatnot but then says his favourite dish is battered fish n' chips, the menk!

I often wonder how popular the 'English breakfast' i.e. big greasy fry-up really is with foreign visitors.

D: Full English Breakfast, Most fast food, poor quality processed food, dodgy versions and poor attempts at above list. Breads and patisserie generally not up to standard on continent, though getting better.

OTM re pork pies too. The ones starry and others got from the great British beer festival tasted superb and quite different to typical shop ones.

Also fruit pudding (white pudding with candied fruit in)is a bizarre but tasty scottish breakfast delicacy.

I find it highly amusing how popular crumble has become in France.

haven't had a pasty (West Cornwall co. or otherwise) for ages now, missing them (much better than patties imo)

Yes, it's because we've all got bad teeth.

This bread mushiness thing is nonsense, I've never had a problem finding nice bread in the UK.

Haha what is a bit of fun in the UK for Americans, going off subject for a second, is getting things that are readily available in the US but are completely different in the UK. Ex: sushi, ketchup, Coca-cola (for the record our sushi restaurants beat yours but your ketchup and coke is 10x more palatable)

This bread mushiness thing is nonsense, I've never had a problem finding nice bread in the UK.

while its getting better in the UK, bread quality runs like this:

FRENCH BREAD>UK BREAD>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>US BREAD

Haha what is a bit of fun in the UK for Americans, going off subject for a second, is getting things that are readily available in the US but are completely different in the UK. Ex: sushi, ketchup, Coca-cola (for the record our sushi restaurants beat yours but your ketchup and coke is 10x more palatable)

my friend aaron from LA cannot stand british coca-cola (and is a straight-edge musician often touring the UK), though to be honest most convenience stores now sell coke that's bottled all over the place (cheaply imported i guess). there was a time i could tell the difference between coke bottled in the uk and in eire.

The lardy cake turned out amazing, regardless.

And yeah, the things that contain copious amounts of high fructose corn syrup in the US tend not to in other countries, leading to a pretty noticable difference in taste.

you're right, of course - i've had some delicious sourdough in the states before. but the difference is you can find ace bread in UK supermarkets, which i haven't seen in the US supermarkets i've been to (but the last i visited tbh would be austin 2004). american bread i've eaten from supermarkets has been insanely nasty, airy, weirdly-textured stuff.

my point for myself was maybe i failed to sufficiently appreciate the flavors of what i was eating because i was first experiencing it through a less-familiar textural lens. (and i shouldn't have passed up the epicerie at orrery.)

http://www.blackfriarsbakery.co.uk/product_pics%5CFlapjacks.jpg

Not to be confused with the US pancake style flapjacks.

bah xpost

yeah, indian food is good here, and people seem permitted to be enthusiastic about it without any stupid hedging filter of health/class/tradition, there might be a good sociological essay in this somewhere.

i like tons of brit food by default bc a lot of it is part of Australian food culture (obv).

gimme all that fried dough & assorted meats encased in pastry *chef’s kiss*

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jan/23/taking-the-hake-nottingham-chippy-voted-best-in-uk?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

i refuse to believe this chippy is better than my local one that is run by a master chef who used to the personal chef of Prince Andrew... but still lots of the old boys who go in there are always telling him there aren't chippies as good as his even in Scarborough or Whitby .. and that is a big compliment. Well apparently it is though - i've not been to either places in decades!

"The Cod’s Scallops"

wtf - fuck off hipsters!

our two local chippies are awful, not sure if there is a decent one in Cambridge at all, nearest good one I know is in Ely

most chippies are bad ime.

whereas a good chippy is sublime. my favourites I've ever been to are the Anstruther Fish Bar (in Anstruther, Fife, prosaically enough) and Colman's in South Shields are the best i've been to

oof, my posts

There was briefly another good quality one down the road in Savile Town that was set up by someone who had a shop in Hudds with a really good rep as well near the old tech college site. And if you ever went past after Friday mosque there would be queues of people and groups eating outside and it always seemed to be more busy and thriving than all the lousy fast-food fleapit dives offering cheap fried chicken and pizzas. And then someone had the bright idea of buying it up and turning it into another bad fast-food fleapit with hygiene score written on with a sharpie. So yeah good chippies are definitely the exception!

i like tons of brit food by default bc a lot of it is part of Australian food culture (obv).

gimme all that fried dough & assorted meats encased in pastry *chef’s kiss*

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl),

An Australian expat just opened a bar in Tupelo and he has meat pies and rissoles on the menu, looking forward to trying it out.

oooh yum

He found a basement space and called it Downunder, so props there.

my two great chippies of last year were in milford on sea and sheerness. unsurprisingly being by the sea is an advantage

although actually saying that there's an incredible one in hackney central now, with superb vegan options too

yeah being by the sea is only an advantage if they have a clue what they are doing. And loads of by the sea are probably paying sky high rents and pushed to squeeze the business end harder rather than put out quality food.

Most of the chippies I went to in Newquay were shite tbh.

milford on sea one was good because the place is pretty posh (albeit quiet and out of the way), sheerness one was good because it was in a fucking backstreet in a derelict industrial wasteland in one of england's least fashionable towns

both knew what they were doing but maybe the place either has to be eerily picture-perfect or long-destroyed for the magic to take hold

maybe lack of tourism either way is key

although actually saying that there's an incredible one in hackney central now, with superb vegan options too

Where’s the sheerness one?

tbh I haven't had a bad one in Hastings. but while I usually go to one that's near the fishing harbour, no idea if the fish actually come from there or if they just get them from a wholesaler somewhere else

been to that one (I think - bit posh, feels like a gastropub inside) and yes, it was very good

It's been 16 months since I left the UK and I'm over most of my cravings now but occasionally I'll see a picture of a bag of British chippy chips on Instagram or Twitter and I want it so bad I could die. Greasy, soggy, undercooked and soaked in vinegar but amazing.

Sheerness one is on Google Maps as Blue Town Fish Bar but it's actually Bluetown Fish & Chips, on the so-called High Street of Blue Town, which is basically a semi-abandoned dockland area at the tip of the island, not too far from the station. The guy who runs it is...Turkish, I think? Been doing fish and chips in the area for decades apparently. Anyway everything is freshly cooked to order and the chips are amazing. I thoroughly recommend a visit. Check out the ecstatic Google reviews if you're not sure!

Laughing Halibut - that takes me back - think I last went there in my schooldays.

Hackney one is Sutton & Son - v good

Ty, I will check out that one! Wasn’t impressed by Sutton & Sons when I lived in Hackney.

presumably new ownership - it seems very 'recent' idk

sheerness worth a visit regardless - a few v interesting places on the high st

im starvin now ye fuckeds me insides are touchin

I am still very sad I never got to try Guinness Marmite.

I think our best meals on our summer vacation last year were in Newcastle. Considering that any family dining for us has to meet the preferences of A) the sensible pescatarian B) the sausage appetizer with a steak entree hardman C) the eight-year-old young lady who likes some fried things, some green things, and not much else

WRT Australian Food being well grounded in British food, Australia takes the meat pie to new heights. I will rep for the steak pie from the Caltex servo in Penong, SA, (next to the windmill museum) as being one of the best in existence.

My grandma was 100% australian, never been to England & still somehow cooked like a Brit expat every day of her life. Steamed puddings, trifles, kedgereee, every boiled vegetable known to man...

I am still very sad I never got to try Guinness Marmite.
― Yerac, Friday, 24 January 2020 01:09 (twenty hours ago)

It didn't taste different in any way!

I often wonder what the US/whatever tourists in London really think when they have their shite fish and chips in a pub in a bland pub in zone 1. Poor sods. It really is true 90% of fish and chip shops are very ordinary.

Yeah I think they did a champagne Marmite one time and that tasted just like regular Marmite, 😥

Literally the worst thing about Hull is chippies don't do potato scallops

Muswell Hill (of course) has a gourmet fish n' chippy, bit out of the way for the average tourist though

Marmite is still made in Burton-on-Trent, I think, having outlived the brewing industry it is a by-product of there.
Yes, Guinness flavour Marmite was nothing special, but Marmite flavour Guinness is still widely available in corner shops.

There's still a humongous brewery in Burton, one of the multinationals iirc, and yeah they make Marmite there too. We used to go shopping there once a fortnight or so when I was a kid, the whole town stank of yeast

Having just visited there at the weekend I can confirm that Edinburgh still smells of yeast too.

hmmmm... supposedly trying to make homemade marmite is "dangerous and hard to control".

Just found a "recipe" that takes 10 days

I really miss the cheap fishcakes I used to get from the fish and chips shops in Liverpool as a kid.

actually bought my first ever squeezy marmite yesterday, will report back on the consistency.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, January 23, 2020 9:08 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

My report is that it's just regular marmite. The pot is good though, it dispenses the very thin stream which you need.

Cheesy chips at Cheltenham Town (@CTFCofficial)

💷 £3 pic.twitter.com/B3ACM7OCbP

— Footy Scran (@FootyScran) December 26, 2021

This may be an appropriate thread for me to rediscover the enthusiasm expressed by ILX whenever DUMPLINGS! get mentioned.

Muswell Hill (of course) has a gourmet fish n' chippy, bit out of the way for the average tourist though

assuming it's the same one, somewhat impressed it's still going. there was a fancy fish & chips place there when I lived there 2003-6. I only went there a couple of times because the queues were ludicrous but it was pretty good (and didn't cost a fortune either, 17 years ago anyway)

I had some very bland chips at Whaddon Road in 2003 with no not very melty cheese slices. My most notable memory of the day was the house right next to the football ground with a boarded up window where presumably a league two standard defensive hoof had smashed through it at some point.

Pie, peas, gravy and a sausage roll at Barnoldswick Town (@barlickfc)

💷 £5.50 pic.twitter.com/21EWlCWcH6

— Footy Scran (@FootyScran) December 1, 2022