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.

As long as they're not overcooked and soggy, and if they were decent quality to start with, I like plain boiled or steamed veg. If you're having a dish with gravy it would be too rich to have veg cooked in butter or oil as well.

If the vegetables are going to be the stars of the meal, it's a different matter, and I like that too.

I think that's just my kids skewing the statistics.

We also have tons of Thai food and beyond weird pizzas (banana, peanut, curry sauce and chips pizza anyone?).

Or you’re a shit cook?

This is funny i don't cook British food you are assuming I am referring to my own food! 🤣

I'm confused, stews aren't faffy?

You cut up meat and veg and put in some stock....and leave it...

Only on MN do people never eat out or at friends / families houses 🤭

I roast a lot of my green veg - beans, asparagus etc. I don't use a lot of butter / oil.

Agree that butter / oil with gravy is too much.

@ILikeDinosaurs when the British empire was trading spices, the very rich ate very spiced foods and showed off the meals their speciality chefs could make.

However as more middle class and working class people because to afford and use spices, it because less elite and fashionable so the upper classes abandoned very spiced food in favour of “pure” high quality ingredients, like heritage meats or vegetables prepared in speciality ways, or desserts that needed new methods and equipment to create. Speciality alcohols, teas, coffees etc… also went through this process.

So yes there’s still some spice around, authentic or made up, but they’ve also been replaced with the next most fashionable thing and will continue to be, as the next new scarce thing comes along and the rich fight to show they can obtain it. Then 5 years later us plebs will get the new truffle crisps or açai or whatever in the supermarket and think we’re classy, rinse and repeat.

I've seen a change in Finland over the 15ish years I've been here, more and more international options in the shops and the school menus are including a bit more variety (though they could probably do with not including kebab stroganoff...)
People still really love their traditional Finnish foods though.

"I live on salad"

Mumsnet at its finest

🙄@ at the idea that British people are the only ones who make multi-cultural food. I have lived in 7 countries and have not considered that a particularly british trend.

That said, different cultures have different approaches to food. They will prefer and be used to different tradiions, compositions and meal structures which will of course impact the type of food they cook and how.

I'm dribbling at the thought of slow roasted lamb shanks with mash thanks to this thread.

Reading comprehension? I said 3 things, not just faffy. But you provide a perfect illustration.

'Fish and boiled potatoes' - how is that a dish? All you did was state the ingredient and cooking method.
Same with 'sausages and mash' - two ingredients.
And beef casserole.

The rest of Europe has similar things but wonderful gravies/sauces whatever. I've been to both Prague and Brussels recently for work. The menu was not just 'sausages and mash' it was a specific TYPE, and you could clearly taste the difference in the seasonings. Not just onion gravy and 'well that's it'.

Again, I'm not meaning to put down British cuisine, it may simply be a case of not promoting it enough as opposed to other countries. What makes a dish English (or Irish or Scottish) as opposed to French, or Belgian (of course I know Belgians are made up of many different people! Dutch, Flemish, etc.)

Surely that's too much faff???😁

Far more faff than a lasagne.... cooking a Ragu for hours, and then transferring that to a layered dish and adding another sauce and covering it in cheese and baking it for an hour or so..
🙄

Belgium and all their fancy chips eh

Or were just more open to trying foods from different cultures.

NoraBattysCurlers · Today 16:43
We used to have hot pot/ roast lamb/ shepherds pie for school dinners- yum.

: yuck

Not yuck. I loved them. Different to the authentic home cooking at home.

On trips to Prague and Eastern Europe I loved the stews, dumplings and pickled veg. Full of flavour and hearty.

The 'faff' team don't make lasagne though.
Boil pasta, dump sauce , sprinkle cheese. The end.

Same with stir fries, buy sauce, dump, cook, the end.

I'd agree with this. I also think there are a lot of traditional fruit/herb and meat pairings that arent plain. Whether its beef and horshradish, ham and mustard, venison, redcurrants and thyme in a stew. Pork, sage and apple, trout and watercress, Even mint and peas or minted potatoes, lamb and rosemary.
I think our flavour comes from what grows not just imported spices which i agree has featured for centuries.

More traditional British foods that use spices - chutney, pickles, ketchup (yes, ketchup - there have been recipes in British cookery books for ketchup for over 300 years, often using mushrooms, but then the tomato as that became common and affordable). These have all been used for a long time to preserve fruit and veg for the winter and as a way to pep up plainly cooked cold meat or a bit of bread and cheese.

Would it be fair to say that people from different countries living in London would of course cook food from home because that's what they grow up with, miss it and makes them feel close to home? Whereas British people living in London would have access to British food or even 'regional' food easily and are more likely to explore other menus? I don't think it is a reflection on British food as they can be delicious if done right. Just my two cents.

Modern British food, as eaten by families from diverse cultural backgrounds, is as completely polyglot as the dictionary. We travelled, tasted and added the bits we liked to the recipe books. Good ingredients, cooked well, are not the exclusive preserve of any nation, though I agree that the quality of UK produce is superb at its best.

There's quite a lot of evidence that French food (regarded by some as the pinnacle of the culinary arts) is largely based on the techniques learned from the Italian chefs that Catherine de Medici brought with her to the French court on her marriage.

It would be for me. I'd have to get on plane back to the UK, hire a car, and drive to the country pub I know that serves it. So frozen lasagne it is then.

I'm confused, stews aren't faffy?

You cut up meat and veg and put in some stock....and leave it...

@00100001

Isn’t there more to it though?

eg I’ve made a lamb and cider stew before. And that needed mace (which I don’t use), flour, pepper, and decent stock. Which one is hard to find or a bit of a faff to make yourself and I have never done that.

I love the taste tho of stews.

The European people I know cook a variety of foods. Certainly not just recipes from their home country. My daughter in law is Spanish and she doesn't cook many traditional Spanish dishes. Also when I have travelled in Europe there have been as many Indian, Chinese, Italian restaurants as here in the UK.