Dinners - are Brits only ones that make international food for dinner

[o9yhke89]

Was chatting with an Italian and Spanish friend about kids dinners - and mostly they just make whatever they grew up with i.e. Italian and Spanish food and really treasure their family recipes. Most of my English friends always try to have food from different cultures and this is seen as much more sophisticated and worldly. I've lived all over but was wondering whether the Brits just don't value their own cuisine especially when it comes to family meals.

Traditional British food does include Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish food too.

Scottish food / local produce is amazing - beef, shellfish, salmon. All over the UK you get brilliant local cheeses, huge array of vegetables, soft fruits, apples, pears. Lots of fish in the waters around the UK as well as lobster, mussels, scallops, prawns etc etc etc.

It's so lazy and hard of thinking to brand all British food as "rubbish" because your own mother/grandmother wasn't a good cook.

Curry is British
Stirfry is British
Fajitas are British at this point!

We're an international island and over the past 40 ish years, we've made this stuff our own.
Other cultures haven't seen that, it isn't less sophisticated, it's just different, and what they can cook, they know extremely well. And in general can, as standard cook far better than your average Brit!

Yes, yes, yes

Also I wonder how many people on here use tradition flavourings, Worcestershire sauce and English mustard are world famous. Do people cooking British food have mace blades in their spice cupboard? Do they have Pontac sauce? We have mislaid quite a bit of or heritage.

It used to be illegal to feed your apprentice salmon more than 5 days a week.

@Redebs "Are there many traditional British meals that are meat-free?"
Jacket potato? ...although I remember an Italian exchange student having a meltdown as her host family are her this one dinner, she was so shocked!!

No , not true , my family is from all over , Spain , Portugal, Italy , Netherlands , Canada , Angola etc . We all try things from different places , even the odd british one , although and that is probably why you don’t see it in many places is not amazing, sorry if it’s not what you want to ear but British cuisine is not good . I’ve lived here 24 years and I’m yet to find an amazing dish to serve to friends when they visit

Pease pudding, mushy peas and a raft of other traditional British pea recipes can be vegan or done with the ham stock.

Meh, my mother cooked a lot of traditional British food when I was growing up. Casseroles, stews, liver, and hotpot. Her roasts were wonderful. Saying that, she always seasoned whatever meat she was using. The meals were never bland tasting.

@GulesMeansRed "It's so lazy and hard of thinking to brand all British food as "rubbish" because your own mother/grandmother wasn't a good cook"
Well yes that's also part of the problem, our food culture is poor in terms of inherited skills too. Many grannies maybe were bad cooks, but why?
Erosion of time, not respecting ingredients, not respecting it as being important, industrialisation of food?
Genuinely interested.

When I was a child we used to forage mushrooms puff balls and chicken of the wood. Found a lovely chicken of the woods last year and made nuggets.

I'm British. Love British desserts. But I find British food quite bland (thank you, Victorians). I like spice and flavour so prefer cooking Indian, Italian and Mexican. I also like learning about other countries and their cultures and as a foodie, learning about their food. I cook British food and I'm not really learning anything.

😂 you are assuming I’m British or have British parents because I don’t like British food 🙄 fyi I’m not and didn’t grow up on British food and wouldn’t cook it because it’s not my thing.

I would bet money you don't actually really know what British food is. Many don't.

British cuisine went through a significant bottleneck with rationing. This also affected other European countries, but post rationing the UK undertook a massive programme of agricultural and food "improvement" and modernisation which saw a rapid and steady decline in the varieties of produce available and a rapid and steady increase in the quantity of processed and factory produced food manufactured on an industrial scale. A very large part of regional and national cuisine was lost.

By contrast, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc. retained a much greater degree of national identity, including in their cuisine.

The UK has started a slow and steady resurgence of quality and variety of food. But from a very low base, and the culinary nadir of 1960s and 1970s Britain.

Yawn again I’m not the only one who said they find it bland

Here is a meal planner for British only food (mainly veggie)

1. Sunday roast and pud
2. Jacket potatoes and salad
3. Stew and dumplings
4. Cheese Ploughman's and pud

5 Some kind of pie + veg

1. Bangers and mash

7.Fish and chips.

It can be done without hideous amounts of meat and stodge.

Spices aren't the only way to put flavour into food. Leaving aside the natural flavour of the food, what about herbs? Parsley, mint, thyme, bay, sage, sorrel, lovage, lemon balm, to mention just a few.

I have to say as a foreigner who lived here 60% of my life ( I’m 41) British food lacks flavour . I still remember my first few months here 24 years ago everyone spoke about a British roast so we went to a carvery ( a well know one vem now ) and omg 😳 the meat had no flavour , the potatoes had no salt , I remember thinking omg they don’t know how to cook meat , I actually spat my food on a napkin and pushed potato’s around for 30 m before leaving .
The funny thing is british and where I live in the Scottish seaside specially have wonderful food , from sea food , fish and wonderful meat , I mean Angus meat is known worldwide , the eggs are great , the local butcher has amazing cuts , but most don’t know how to cook it . I went to get 2 lobsters last week from my local seafood shop and he tells me 97% of his catch is exported as far as Japan as nobody here knows how to cook it. I visited a friend in Cyprus not long ago and the crab he served me was Scottish .

Then its your palate thats the issue. Or you don't understand the word stodgy. Because proper pasta is not that.

Sorry but this. It was all very beige.

But no, Scandinavians also cook all kinds of foods in my experience.

@DogInATent amd @GulesMeansRed on tje granny theme, both my grannies thought they had better things to do than cook. They were half decent cooks both of them bit it wasn't one if the main things in their lives by unlike in some other cultures.

Yes but its a foreign beige carb so its stylish, sophisticated and tasty.

See also huge chunks of bread served with everything in other cultures where bread is king

Watercress used to be so popular that a railway line was named after it.

Watercress soup is the best.

This is lazy rubbish. There is good British regional cookery, people just don't know it and resort to these stereotypes instead of looking into it properly

@bellac11 bread used to be king here until the Chorley wood process was invented.

Soused herring needs a big chunk of brown bread and butter.
Ditto fried mackerel plus some sort of gooseberry or rhubarb salsa type thingy.

I think part of the reputation for ‘bland’ British foods partly comes from a couple of generations cooking habits heavily influenced by rationing (most people learn to cook in their families after all) and the type of weather we have lending itself to a reliance on pickles and condiments with log shelf lives to add stronger flavours to meals.

you might find a steak pie on the blander side or sausage and mash but put some horseradish or English mustard with it and it completely changes the dish. I defy anyone to eat a teaspoon of horseradish and not instantly feel their sinuses clear