To think traditional English food is overrated?

God yes. That’s boring and bland as hell. Salad cream…

It felt like it.

And you were wrong.

It's interesting that a lot of the non Brits on this thread say otherwise.

When I was a student my best friend was Chinese. She used to cook traditional Chinese food for us at her house. I used to cook traditional English food for her at mine. She loved my roast beef with all the trimmings.

Yorkshire puddings are bland and boring

I'm not sure why you felt it necessary to preface using "Er." Don't know why you got your shorts in a knot. I was just pointing out some info in a geeky way which was why I used the emoji. I guess you took it as a jab? It wasn't. 🙂

Yes but they don't scare me.

He's really know as a classical French chef though (not that he does much cheffing these days).

I only ever heard people insulting English food. It's a pretty common opinion and joke.

Then I moved here and encountered my MIL's traditional cooking. Sunday roast with all the trimmings, pies, casseroles, and the puddings. I love how everything is home made from scratch with fresh ingredients.

I would now DIE to uphold the honour of that woman's crumble.

It's funny to me that the British who tend to insult their own cuisine often hold up my nation as the bastion of adventurous culinary delight... when even I have to admit it all just tastes of lime and coconut 🤣

🤔Wonder if OP will ever come back.

Having just watched the banquet at Blenheim palace for great British menu I can’t say anything negative about our cuisine I was blown away with the skill and artistry of it all man me very proud

Or Tom Kerridge, Mary Berry, Rick Stein, Delia Smith, Si King and all the other chefs and TV chefs that cook fabulous British food. Even Raymond Blanc praises great British food.

OK just for the sake of argument British food is crap....

Who is going to tell Gordon Ramsey?

Why the F don't you learn to cook then?

Have you never watched Great British Menu?

It's obvious nonsense, this country has the most incredible produce available, if you can't make wonderful food from it that's entirely down to your poor cooking skills.

I hosted a lunch to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday recently and cooked using local, seasonal ingredients.

We started with canapés of mackerel tatre on sourdough toasts, English asparagus with a watercress mayonnaise, goat's curd tarts with spring herbs and crispy stuffed Jerusalem artichokes.

For starter we had clams and mussels in cider and wild garlic with sourdough made by a local bakery.

Then a small cup of sorrel soup.

Main was slow roast shoulder of lamb from the butcher and about as local as it gets, cooked in wine, chicken stock, a couple of bulbs of garlic, whole shallots and finished with peas and fresh mint. Just served really simply with some buttered local potatoes.

Little palate cleanser of blood orange sorbet (and yes, I know they're imported, but they are in season!).

Then lemon and rhubarb posset with a little rhubarb and gin cocktail and brown butter shortbread.

A spring cheese plate with goat's and ewe's cheese and local honey with Neil's Yard crackers.

Some homemade ganache and honey caramels.

We had some really good English fizz and white wine ( went French for the red as I don't think we're quite there yet with our red wine production).

Somerset brandy or various single malts as digestif.

With the exception of the citrus fruit, peppercorns, capers in the tatare, sugar, vanilla pods and chocolate that was all UK produce and pretty traditional British food.

What's not to like?

Not even one of the many Michelin starred restaurants we have?

There are a lot of unimaginative, narrow minded lazy cooks on here.

Bad English food is food made with poor quality ingredients cooked badly. The food at a Toby carvery is not representative of a good roast dinner. The food at Simpson's in the Strand is worlds away from a Toby carvery.

Dismissing an entire country's cuisine as "crap" is lazy. Saying that it isn't to your taste is fine, but saying that everything British you have ever eaten is rubbish says more about you than the food.

We eat all around the world in our house, including good quality British food. I buy my meat from the local butcher and know the provenance of where it comes from. The beautiful free range chicken we had the other day was reared in a farm half a mile away from where we live.

There are clearly people on here who simply don't know how to cook. Throwing a curry or stir fry together is easier than getting the timings right for all the elements of a good roast dinner.

Also, British food needn't be stodgy. We eat a lot of vegetables. It takes us ages to get through a bag of potatoes.

World renowned chefs recognise that the Brits make outstanding cakes and desserts. Anyone lucky enough to have eaten at Tommy Banks' restaurant in Oldstead would have eaten British food at it's finest.

Er South America is still America.

Er and Mexico is in North America, which is where tomatoes were first cultivated.

English pubs and pub grub seems to be a thing in a lot of places. They just opened a new one and people are cery excited. That being said, no, British cuisine is not the go to all over the world like Italian. But neither is majority of the cuisines in the world. At least Brits have some world famous dishes unlike majority of other countries. I'm not British so haven't grown up with the food, but it is totally fine comfort food and gets a bad rap.

English food is great if cooked properly. Using herbs and spices and enough salt.

I think you'll find plenty of 'fish and chips' and 'full English' on the Costas though

Not "America." Both tomatoes, and potates, orginated in South America and were brought to europe by the Spanish in the 16c. 🤓

Agreed. British restaurants are never 'the' restaurant to get into around the world. At least not in the cities I've travelled to.

Anyway OP, even if there isn't a single thing on a typical British menu you like, aren't we lucky that we have a whole world of other cuisines to choose from every single day. You could have croissants for breakfast, pad thai for lunch and spaghetti for dinner

How to tell us you can’t cook without telling us you can’t cook..we have fabulous local producers, great fresh ingredients, fascinating regional variations, wonderful cheese.
creative chefs and food writers promoting these ingredients and recipes …Tom Kerridge, Nigel Slater, Ferguson Henderson.
Have a read of Jane Grigson’s English Food (or any of her excellent books)
And definitely the best puddings, cakes and buns in the world.
Im as likely to cook a tajine, a curry or a ramen as I am a game casserole, stew with fluffy, herby dumplings or a fragrant chicken pie but I would never dismiss an entire nations cuisine. And we have one of the most varied and interesting.

Because peoples palettes are wrecked plus it's hard to get decent quality meat etc for a reasonable price now. A decent cut shouldn't need lots of seasoning to not taste bland, but it does nowadays.

I find French and British food totally underwhelming. Beige stodge with no spices and very little flavour. There's a reason there are fewer British restauarants in London than other cuisines.