To think that Len Goodman was stating a fact about his Nan, not insulting anything or anyone?

[Notjustanymum]

Just that, really. He (at the age of 78) was saying that his Nan had a bigoted view (commonly held in the 1950’s), that any food vaguely “foreign” - including pasta, in the 1970’s, according to my own DF - was muck, which had, in truth, put him off trying it.
He also said that the Coronation Chicken his wife had made was delicious. Why would people complain about that? He was actually disproving his Nan’s statement and saying she was wrong.
I think that too many people try to cancel the views of the past, but it’s totally true that many people of that generation held views that are not acceptable today, and we shouldn’t forget that, as we learn from mistakes.
I really object to the BBC apologising for his statement, as it makes it seem as if he was in the wrong.
So - what do you think?
YABU - we shouldn’t mention past intolerances for fear of offending someone now
YANBU - we should accept that there were intolerances and be happy that people find ways of overcoming these

"I’d like to think that people understand why referring to “foreign food” as muck is offensive, therefore regardless of the original time and context it shouldn’t be repeated."

I don't understand why it's offensive. Nobody has to like foreign food. It's not offensive to have a preference (for food, not people!)

For goodness sake, are we not allowed to dislike certain foods now in case we offend people? What about countries where they eat dogs and insects, we all have a line that we don't want to cross about what we eat. And some of those people would be disgusted I'm sure if you presented them with a shepherds pie for example...which they're perfectly entitled to be.

We, unusually for the time (due to my parents pre-marriage travel all over the world) ate lots of "foreign muck" in the late 60s early 70s (when i was a small kid) and whenever any of my friends came over for tea they were surprised if it was "fancy foreign stuff" (lol, spag bol, nasi goreng, chinese, indian...) and often asked me if we ever ate "normal" food (yep, just like everyone else in the 70s we ate boil in the bag cod in parsley sauce, but only about once a year, to be fair)

When we were based in Hong Kong lots of families wouldn't try the local food at all, whereas we ate nearly nothing else. It's just a matter of what you are used to and if you are ready to try the things you are exposed to.

My grandad worked with a chap whose family had come originally from India . On nights they'd go to the break room for food, cheeses sarnie for grandad, lovely Somosas and things for the colleague. And one day, who knows why, after offering my grandad food nearly every day, my grandad decided to try it. He was a bit racist as lots of people were in respect of slightly wary of anyone who looked different. That first somosa completely changed him - revolutionised what my grandma and grandad ate at home (occasional chinese takeaway, making their own somosas and so on). But you have to have the exposure and the will to try it.

Mine called it foreign muck as well. To her, it was a completely foreign food for her. Pasta, pizza, curry, Chinese.
basically anything that wasn’t bread (white /wholemeal), meat, potato. she wasn’t racist, it was an odd food she didn’t know what to do with.

something like that can snowball and cause harm to an already fatigued group on receipt of such comments

In the current climate in certain circles, the group that must be probably feeling most 'fatigued' are those who are white and British (even worse if you happen to be male)

Len ticks all the boxes, so perhaps you could cut the man some slack (especially as he was only quoting someone who would now be 120+ years old FFS!)

My parents hated American food. anything deep fried or came in a box or a kebab was viewed with suspicion! It was a generation thing in their case. Very traditional with it came to food ( meat and two veg)
I didn't have spag bol until I was 12 ! Only because my brother cooked it from scratch after buying an Italian cookbook. I loved it.
Pasta was seen as a bit odd.

Why is it your Google account on his phone and I assume tablet too?
He is a child. it should be a child's Google account, linked to yours using Google Family Link. Then whenever he tries to download things or pay for things, he needs you to come over and approve it with your password.

Giving him access to a phone set up for an adult is why the fingerprint overrode the password. It was an adult Google account, so when a fingerprint is set up, it replaces the passwords.

Why did you set it up with an adult Google account?

I'm just soo thankful I wasn't alive in England then and come from a culture where seasoning is the norm

I'm just...not interested in what deranged people are shouting on Twitter. (I feel badly for them that that's their life, of course.)

If they were shouting this stuff outside ASDA it wouldn't be in the papers.

What is being cancelled you absolute muppet? Len Goodman is on tv all the time and I am sure as shit still will be. What are you on about a country they seem to hate? You have determined that to be the case from a one sentence post? Idiot.

Merci, Kermit! Your comprehension clearly needs work deary.

Yet the British still demand fry ups and Yorkshire tea on holiday in Spain and nobody co.me to on that
Obviously it is absurd to be offended by his words, I don't think that much has changed however thanks to the likes of Tui and other gutter packages.

No idea about this but my grandmother is in her late 90s and very much averse to "foreign muck" as she calls it. Imagine my shock and amusement when she randomly ordered a starter of chicken nachos during a family dinner! She wolfed it down too!

I love that! 😆

For many years my mum referred to all foreign food as 'foreign muck'. She is absolutely not a racist, just unadventurous in her dietary tastes.

The point is, they hadn't tried it and decided it was "muck".

It was simply because it was foreign. Therefore it was all "muck". Because it was foreign. That's called being racist.

There are plenty of British foods that I would call muck, Angel's delight comes to mind, but I'm not saying it's muck because it is British. I'm saying it is just an awful foodstuff.

Deciding something is much purely because it is foreign is not OK and not something to joke about.

to put a different spin on it: i live in Germany (land of sausage and cabbage) and they constantly refer to horrible English food (mostly joking, sometimes serious) - do i get offended? i laugh because if they don't want to try the delights of some of our lovely dishes, all the more for me.

No. She is racist. I'm sure there are lots of british dishes she won't eat but they're not included in her descriptor. It's foreign muck. Purely because it is foreign. She says that in public and everyone listening will think what a fucking racist because she is.

Totally fine to dislike some foods. Not OK to decide you dislike them purely because they're foreign.

I'm surprised at all the comments about the lack of "foreign" food in the 70s. Not my experience at all. In the late 50s I lived nextdoor to a Jewish delicatessen and my best friend at primary school was from a Polish family and her mother ran a deli just round the corner. We had a gurdwara at the top of the road and in the early 60s a Jamaican cafe opened. All these places had wonderful smells and a wide variety of food.

My big search in the early 70s was for coucous which was hard to find but pasta/rice/pizza/curries etc were common. I guess it depends on where you lived.

Was it one that needed repeating, though?

I doubt if you were one of the people looked down on & discriminated against, you'd be quite so willing to engage in debates about something our society certainly hasn't, in reality, overcome yet.

My lovely DF was born in 1927 and always refused to eat 'foreign muck'. He hated anything with garlic in and thought curry was made to disguise the taste of rotting meat! He survived perfectly well for 86 years without eating anything other than what he would consider good old fashioned British food.
The first time I ever had Spag Bol (or indeed pasta) was aged 14 when my DB went off to Uni and returned home in the holidays and cooked it.
I don't think DF ever meant to be offensive to 'foreigners' - it was just an expression he used to describe his food preferences.

good grief was that what the apology was about? I bet there were/are older people of every single ethnicity in the world who have said that about unfamiliar food....and aren't there bars and cafes all over southern europe who make their money out of selling english food to brits?

but they weren't even his food preferences, they were his grandmother's

I meant Len Goodman's, not your DF's

The French and Italians aren't a different race to the British so why would calling their food muck be racist. I think xenophobic would be more accurate.

My dad wouldn't touch pasta but he wouldn't call it muck. He wasn't white British, he was brought up on a diet of chicken curry and rice. So to him any food which wasn't spicey wasn't proper food. He used to regard eating English food similar to eating boiled newspapers. That was his personal preference.

I don't know if Germans call British food 'muck' but I agree they're often extremely scathing about it.
A German couple I invited for dinner expressed their surprise at having enjoyed the meal I cooked for them as they knew how awful British food is and were dreading having to eat when they came over for a short visit (for a particular reason, not a holiday).
And that was only a few years ago.