What is your favourite British food?

[Frosty66612]

Got into a heated debate with someone at work this morning who isn’t from the UK and he was saying how revolting all the food is.

Some of my favourites:

Really good fish & chips
Scones with clotted cream & Jam
Sticky toffee pudding

We also have some of the best seafood

We’re pretty excellent at enjoying foods at their basic levels so roast dinners are a national institution.

We’re also good at cheeses, sausages, pies and pasties, jams and deserts. No fear of commendering a spice or two from around the world though.

Plus we do alcohol pretty well - ales, ciders, gin!

I think a cream tea is quintessentially English.

We’re basically the poncy chef of the world banging on about letting the quality of the ingredients speak for themselves

Britain is a funny climate to manage food from. We get a relatively short window for growing things before we had to work out the best ways to store and preserve in a really changable climate. So for instance the need for dried meats wasn’t as great as say italy’s so salamis weren’t that high on our list of priorities.

I don’t think French food is that much different to be honest. More refined but the basics are similar.

""Stodgy carbs and animal fat, mmmm.""

Every Country, who has long Winters, lots of rainfall etc has carbs and fat in it's history. You can't work the land/mines in minus conditions and survive without them.

English dishes had so much seasonal variation, that other Countries didn't. Our range of Fruit/Veg is impressive. Unlike a lot of other Countries, they wasn't introduced. As wasn't 'eating' animals.

A lot of our traditional ingredients have fell out of fashion, until recent years. Elderflower and Rose being two.

Tea came from around the World, but it was the English love of it, that caused the variations and mass cultivation.

People don't cook with the range of Herbs and Spices that we used to. Or use the range of Carbs, as much as they used to. Our local market used to have fresh rabbits and game in, they used to sell Barley etc, as well. Those Butchers have long gone.

Before I gave up eating meat. It would have been Stews and Pies, all with carrots and swede and peas. The list for puddings and custard would be too long to list.

I think we should also appreciate Asia and the middle East for what was introduced to around the World. My favourite Vegetable is Spinach.

Victoria plums, white heart cherries, bramleys, English asparagus (sprue), clotted cream (has to be Rodda's or Trewithen), Stilton, Shropshire Blue, Montgomery Cheddar, Cornish new potatoes, decent baking potatoes (have to go back to UK to get those).

Cornish crab, River Fowey mussels, venison, game (pheasant in particular), shoulders of pork with crackling for long slow roasting, a decent joint of beef. Chickens that are bigger than 1.5kg and that don't cost €17, and have their giblets. Cornish smoked streaky bacon, and sausages from my local butcher. Fudge, tablet, a victoria sandwich, Tiptree jams (Little Scarlet is the best strawberry jam on the planet). Scrumpy and real ale.

Having lived in Belgium since 2006, the food gets very samey. We have so much more variety in UK supermarkets. I drool my way round Waitrose when I'm home.

The fish and seafood are great in the UK, but you have to know where to source them from.

OftenHangry Forget spotted dick, you need to try boiled baby (suet rolled pudding) with jam sauce, or Suffolk Pond Pudding.

Is cauliflower cheese really a British food? Because my mum, who has never even been close to Britain, cooks it as well, also rhubarb fool and rhubarb and custard are standard fare where I come from.

My favourites are probably hot cross buns and mince pies.

Got my counties mixed up there! It's Sussex Pond Pudding of course.

Cawl
Welsh Cakes
Welsh Rarebit
Barabrith
Shepherd's Pie
Gower Salt Marsh Lamb

How can you ruin a good piece of fish by not seasoning and then coating it in batter?? I wonder if people had to eat it without mayo, ketchup, tartare sauce if it would be as popular...

I'm a huge fan or British food but I do agree with this. There's a weird squeamishness about proper fish in this country!

Fish Finger sandwiches.

Champ
Irish stew
Lamb (done anyway at all, all delicious)
Apple tart

Scottish seafood - crab, mussels, langoustines
Scones with jam and clotted cream
Shortbread
Haggis, neeps and tatties
Roasted haunch of venison
A roast dinner with homemade Yorkshire puddings
Fish and chips

So many things. Anyone who writes off the cuisine of ANY country as "shit" or "revolting" is either an idiot, or one of those "gammon" people who won't touch "any of that foreign muck" and has the palate of a screwdriver.

good steak and kidney pie and chips
chippy fish and chips
shepherds pie home made
rustic (dry not stew type) corned beef hash
a decent bacon butty
a full cooked english breakfast
cornish clotted cream and strawberry jam on scones
that list will do me for starters

a Polish friend of mine once said to me the reason that british food isnt full of herbs and spices is because the quality of it, dosent need enhancing to cover the taste of poorer quality food

LOL my friend brought her French MIL to Anstruther and treated her to award winning fish and chips... the MIL lifted the battered fish with one (perfectly manicured) fingernail and asked «do people actually eat this?» .., it totally spoiled my friend’s annual fish supper treat ;-)

Marmalade (and salted butter on toast)

Apple crumble and custard

Welsh cakes

Steak and ale pie.

Christmas pudding

Full English breakfast, don't think there's anything quite like it elsewhere, and (providing you don't have it too often) a sublime way to start the day.

Roast dinner with a proper home made roast potatoes (par-boiled then roasted) (and, not a popular choice these days perhaps, but roast lamb hearts stuffed with sage and onion stuffing...sounds horrible, tastes divine).

A good pork pie...not a supermarket bought one, but one made by an independent baker who does it right.

A lovely Cornish pasty.

And last, and BEST! Pie and mash with liquor (the green parsley sauce that's ideally made with the stewed-eel water) all liberally sprinkled with white pepper and malt vinegar. No finer food in the entire world.

Venison
Marmite
Twiglets
Bread & Butter pudding (and custard)
Rhubarb crumble
Roast dinner- beef and yorkshires especially

Again, Cheddar. Especially m&s Cornish CCruncher

LaCerb Norfolk and Suffolk oysters are the best in the world - and the cleanest. Try a Brancaster oyster. Have just come back from a holiday near one of the biggest oyster beds in France - lovely, but even a 1 didn't match the size and sweetness of a Brancaster. Cromer crab, whelks, clams, mussels -, lobsters, crayfish, Morecambe Bay shrimp..

Unfortunately we export the majority of the fish we catch to Europe - and alas, decimated our eel population along the way with the Spanish adoration for small eel (not the only reason).

Welsh or Kent salt lamb, Arbroath smokies, Scottish smoked salmon, cock a leekie, Athol Brose, porridge, pork pies, rhubarb fool, Eton mess, shepherd's pie, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, Caerphilly, Wensleydale, Stilton ... and now our world beating white wines. Elderflower syrup (amazed not to find it easily in France) - Yorkshire rhubarb. Crumble. Clotted cream. Cornish pasty. Eel and mash, yes. Venison. I'm a vegetarian but I don't eat badly (and sadly miss most of the above).

Where are you eating, LaCerb?

Asparagus in season is lovely. Jersey Royal/Ayrshire potatoes.

Soft fruits from Perthshire.

Foraged herbs and wild greens, especially samphire from the Jurassic coast.

Heritage apples from the orchards of Kent.

Winter veg, especially turnip and kale, from Lanarkshire.

Another vote for a good roast beef dinner.

I buy meat from Farmisons and get better variety as well as quality from the supermarkets where I live, although a roast joint is only for when family visit.

quality than from; not wot I rote. [smsile

Oh shit... and this .

I blame the cat on the keyboard.

Victoria sponge ....
Gingerbread
Shortbread
Derbyshire oatcakes
Own grown strawberries, cherry, raspberries.... I am dribbling at the thought of them.
Asparagus
Broccoli
Whiskey
Bakewell tart
Smoked trout
Yorkshire puddings
Double cream
Savoury puddings... Steak and ale, lamb, game
Dumplings
Chutneys
Russet apples
And everything said up thread except fish and chips - they are rank.

Britain has amazing food - it just needs respect and hunting out

Salt & vinegar crisps