To think traditional English food is overrated?

[ThatJoyousCyanReader]

I’ve always heard people say English food is bland or uncreative, and to be honest, I kind of see their point. Apart from a good roast dinner or fish and chips, what actually stands out? AIBU to think that other cuisines just do it better?

I think lots of English people value cheapness and convenience over good food and traditional English food often needs time, skill and effort.

I think you have hit the nail on the head @Arseynal

I often see posts on MN from posters who say they "can't cook" as a badge of honour, when in reality they CBA to cook.

I was reading not so long ago that there's this new trend in the US for British food. Think it was called something like tavern but it wasn't. Think pub but inspired by the hobbit and harry potter in a olde worlde type idea with barmaids in god awful buxom tops. And it's all comfort food like shepherds pie.

So there's a growing appreciation from others for things we perhaps take for granted and think of as ordinary.

Summer pudding in March??

You are being V unreasonable.

It's April 😁💐

😅

True!

Still stands though!

Eloquently put, I couldn’t agree more.

The 13th century cookbook didn’t have several pasta recipes including macaroni and lasagne. It had makerouns which was in layers like lasagne. It’s a single pasta like dish similar to mac and cheese. So even with a product similar to pasta the English managed to make the least inspired dish. Mac and cheese. Pretty much sums it up really.

Haha DH said the same thing when I got home and told him about the summer pudding! But it's possible to buy frozen berries I guess. I've never made one myself.

I tried a summer pudding last night Downright disgusting

It had two. Written in something midway between Norman French and English, so yes, the words have evolved a little over the last 700 years. The lasagna equivalent (pre tomatoes, but recognisable as the direct ancestor of lasagna today because it was layered pasta with cheese and meat broth) was spelled loseyn and said lasan. The macaroni equivalent was, as you say, spelled makerouns and was recognisably like macaroni cheese today. Standardised spellings didn’t come about until the 18th century with Samuel Johnson.

When I was a teenager I had a weekend job working for a wedding caterer. She made individual summer puddings in trimmed MacDonald’s coke cups - bigger than standard disposable cups but smaller than a pudding bowl. It’s just the right size. I’d recommend it over making a big one.

Harry Potter food like treacle tart is basically 1970s/80s British school food. The only thing isn’t is the Halloween celebration with pumpkins. Halloween festivities were frowned on back then.

It can be bland but doesn't have to be. I use loads of fresh herbs, garlic and spices in trad English dishes.

But I think our pies, cottage pies, hot pots, sausages, roasts and pot roasts, soups etc are all delicious if well made. So are fruit crumbles, fools, steamed puddings etc.

So many bland & boring foodstuffs, ham & mustard, beef & horseradish, garlicky lamb with anchovies, kedgeree, Parkin, treacle tart, Bakewell tart, salmon, new potatoes, asparagus, strawberries, rhubarb, raspberries, 3,000 varieties of apples, Jacket potatoes, mature chedder, Stilton, pickled onions, sausage rolls, chutneys…

@CarefulN0w ,all bland, tasteless and beige.

Lots of Scandinavians eat some boring bland stuff on an everyday basis as well. Or some weird odd fish pastes. Not everyone's cup of tea for sure.

Who said that? You did. I don’t eat organic veg, but I still love the taste of vegetables.

If you’re talking about ‘majorities’ I’d imagine they’re mostly eating UPFs - ready meals, frozen freezer food, pizza or takeaways. None of which are typically English cuisine so it’s a bit of a moot point.

Mustard. That well known bland, tasteless, beige condiment.

And horseradish is even blander 😁

Might as well eat soap.

The British have some cracking cuisine and we have good food standards unlike in America where they add chemicals banned in Europe for health reasons, add copious amounts of sugar to everything, wash chicken in chlorine, cheese in an aerosol and so on.

Personally I feel if the Americans decide to go civil war on Trump for his tariff nonsense they should add their food industry to the revamp list while they’re at it.

I’m fine with the British cuisine.

and we have good food standards

And better animal welfare standards than many other countries.

Definitely not overrated as everyone slags it off. I’d get very bored of it if that’s all I had. yet I’d get bored of pizza and pasta too. The great thing about living here is the different cuisines you have access to! Probably because English food isn’t all that great (although some is).

And that stuff watercress!

And radishes and strong onions.