What’s counts as ‘British’ food?

[Walker1178]

DP has been away for the last two weeks visiting family abroad, it’s a very Persian style diet. Think meat, rice, buckwheat, breads. I drove to pick him up from the airport which is a 3 hour round trip so I prepped a home made lasagne beforehand ready to finish in the oven when we got back. Served it up with some shop bought garlic ciabatta and a dressed salad, it was proper tasty.

My ask comes from him saying he was so happy to be eating proper British food again. I’m not Italian but I do follow a fairly traditional recipe so found it quite amusing that he considers it British!

After that, my granddad would light up his pipe, then snooze until tea time.

Spag Bol. Nobody combines spaghettis and bolognese in Italy, it is actually a way to identify a tourist trap.

this is my British food

Mince and Tatties
Steak pie
Haggis Neeps and Tatties
Square sausage in a roll
Scoth broth
Fish Supper
Chicken Tikka Masala
Pakora
Roast dinner
tablet

there’s food listed on the thread as British I’ve never eaten and I bet there’s a few in my list some of you’ve never had

British means lots of things

I think once a food/dish is something made in most homes it becomes British.

As a country we have been invaded numerous times, each time food has come with the invaders.

We have also imported from various places.

And those imports have become 'ours' and have mixed with more traditional ingredients.

Rice pudding springs to mind, rice is not grown here but rice pudding is fairly standard British food.

Not exactly, no. An Asian colleague from Birningham told me that it started with one customer in one restaurant. He ordered chicken tikka which he liked, but asked for it not to be too dry, so the chef plonked on a bit of whatever sauce he happened to have handy in the kitchen. Chef decided to put it on the menu. Turned out a winner.

It is usually cited as an example of how Britain has been enriched by multi culturism.

My mum cooked a roast, every Sunday. Monday was cold meat and chips, or egg and chips if we’d eaten all the meat. She cooked meat and potato pie, hot pot, cottage pie, steak and kidney pie, braising steak and chips, sausages and mash, smoked haddock and mash, beef stew and dumplings, egg and bacon.

After I got married, I cooked spaghetti bolognaise for my parents and my mother wouldn’t eat it.

My dad was a bit like that. He couldn't stand the smell of curry. When he worked away my mum would have a curry on Monday night, on Friday when he came home his first comment (according to my mother) was, "You've had bloody curry again". It was probably a Vesta.

But my dad survived 10 years after my mother passed away so when he visited I had to be careful what I cooked.

The things he went on about liking were a) limoncello pudding from the supermarket and b) chicken that I cooked in mushroom soup. Basically throw some chicken pieces and sliced mushrooms in a slow cooker, add a tin of condensed soup and leave it for 6 hours.

Comedy Goodness Gracious me
"Going for an English"
Absolute genius.

Shepherd’s pie, cottage pie, proper roasts, Lancashire hot pot, Cornish pasties,
kippers, full English breakfast, sausage and mash
Apple/any fruit crumbles, lots of other puds.

I think traditionally there was a lot of pastry, but we have now gone off that for a main meal. Different types of meat and fruit pies.
my auntie is really good at and proud of making pastry. I’m not good at it and also don’t want to eat it, except maybe in a sausage roll or Cornish pasty every now and then.
and suet etc… my dad sometimes goes on a bit longingly about a jam roly poly, I think his mum used to make it (he is nearly 80).
No one I know has ever cooked that and I’ve never seen it sold anywhere.
Maybe it’s a lot of work and long oven times and it doesn’t fit our 9-5 lifestyles anymore.
my mum (also around 80) remembers seeing yoghurt in the UK in fancy health stores, not in the fridge 😂 which sounds crazy because it is a very familiar breakfast and dessert for me and my kids, now made in the UK.

Stew, hotpot etc.

Mince n mealie pie
Mince,bean ,tattie pie
Butteries/rowies
Ne Scotland.

I consider British food to be

Cottage Pie
Roast Dinner
Pie and Mash
Casserole with dumplings
Ham, Egg, Chips
Liver, bacon, mash
Fish and Chips
Toad in the Hole