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?

Isn't it because so much of our staple diet has been imported? We can't even claim fish and chips as being British as Jewish immigrants introduced them centuries ago. I eat a lot of Italian food but love a roast dinner with Yorkshire puds, a steak and ale pie, a fish pie and a full English breakfast especially in the winter when it's cold, wet and miserable.

YABU because it's acknowledged as pretty bad everywhere you go, so it's not overrated at all.
Personally I think the problem is not with the concept of the food itself, but that the average person has very low cooking skills and spends very little time thinking about, sourcing and preparing food. Ready meals are too available so it's too easy not to eat well.

Crab sandwich?
Cream tea?
Cottage pie?
Chicken and leek pie?
Cornish pasties?
Crumble?

One random letter of the alphabet and so many delicious things. If you think British food is shit then learn to fucking cook.

My ds would agree with you, everything he eats has to be spicy and he loathes things like casseroles and cottage pie. I don’t agree - I adore very spicy food and love every cuisine I have tried, but I do also love traditional British food. For sheer savoury, warm, satisfying delight you can’t beat a proper shepherds pie with seasonal vegetables, a rich brown gravy, sausages with creamy mash and garden peas, a really good steak pie…and old-school puddings with custard.

I think there’s often a poseur dimension to anti-British food attitudes, people want to appear adventurous and sophisticated. But it’s perfectly possible to love Asian/Mediterranean/African cuisine and still get excited about beef stew with dumplings and jam roly-poly.

I do like some English food, but as cuisines go, we don’t have the best! also very meat/ fish heavy. There aren’t many super interesting things done with veg/ carbs- mainly roast or boiled veg.

Best food I’ve eaten is Thai/ Vietnamese. Such a good balance of flavours when done well. Also eating like a king off £2 makes it taste better somehow!!!

I often wonder what born and bred southeast Asians must think when they visit the UK… 😂😂😂

Totally agree with you. My idea of a nightmare is a Toby Carvery.

Nothing can beat the taste of the first fresh English strawberries grown in the Garden of England.

Or Stilton cheese, Bramley apples, Cumberland sausage, pork pie, Quince jelly, wild garlic, asparagus, cherries from Kent...

You might want to read some of Gary Rhodes' books on British cookery. Brit food is not dull.

It's foul if you can't cook it. If you have it done well it's great.

Basically the same for any food, anywhere. Do it right, it's nice (taste subjective of course) do it badly, foul.

British food is fabulous in the hands of a good cook.

George Orwell wrote a really good essay on English food. It’s pretty short and easy to read but very interesting. He vigorously defends it. But it’s more things like cheese and beer and pickles. If anyone is interested, I’d also recommend his essay on the perfect British pub and the perfect cup of tea.

It's not good food that's why.

A good roast is a beautiful thing. Toby Carvery is not that.

What has a Toby Carvery got to do with anything? That’s cheap British food. Go have a roast dinner at Hawksmoor in London.

I love traditional British food but also love other cuisines. A great thing about Britain is we embrace food from other cultures. If you visit Italy e.g. (yes I love their food, it's sublime) and fancy a change one night, say Indian or Chinese, it would be very difficult to find.

This is true 👏🏼

Pie mash and liquor

How can it be over rated if you hear everyone say it is bland? It’s either rated highly or called bland. Make your mind up.

Roast meals, pies, fish and chips, baked potatoes, ham joint, Balti (created in Birmingham I believe), salmon fillets, sausage and mash, (or toad in the hole), Cornish pasties, fresh vegetables can all be fantastic if done well.

I think we all need a bit of variety though. I wouldn’t ever want to have to stick to just one type of cuisine - nor would I ever want to give up traditional English food.

I think French food is over rated though.

Another one laughing at the thought that Toby is good English food. The best roasts are often in a local independent pub. If it has an open fire, even better.

Roast dinner, sausage and mash with thick onion gravy and pie/fish and chips are my favourite meals.

A lot of English food requires cooking skills and time. A good Roast is the food of the gods. If however the chef over cooks the meat, with soggy cabbage, half an anemic roast potato - well, it’s beyond shit.

A good casserole/stew takes time and care. Browning the meat, adding the right balance of ingredients to get a tasty meal. Throw some unbrowned beef into a powdered ‘casserole’ mix will not be nearly as nice. It needs time to cook - not thrown together for 30mins with crossed fingers.

Our drive for speed and convenience has taken the skill out of cooking - and a lot of the taste!

British food is indeed amazing when cooked well. Some of the issues:

quality of produce, especially ‘cheap’ meat eg beef, does not produce the flavour. People are convinced the fat is bad - the fat and the bones give the flavour, gravy not made from good quality meat but cubes and granules 🤮. How many people save their chicken carcasses to make (stock) appreciate people are time poor.

However the key one (or two) for me are:

overprocessed food kills taste buds. The sugar and salt is highly addictive and changes the palate

spicy food also does this to an extent as it’s often full of additives etc.

A good example the English like Indian food. If it’s quick ie ‘made for the uk’ it’s full of sugar and salt. If it’s cooked authentically it’s slow and deeply spiced.

One of the best fast foods ever comes from Stoke-On-Trent, in the heart of England. The Staffordshire Oatcake. It's the King of Foods. Especially filled with bacon and mushroom.

My Mum always cooked very tasty food. Her 'English' food was definitely not bland. Mine is even more European in its influences. My shepherds or cottage pie is practically a bolognese sauce with mash and cheese on top. My roast chicken has lots of garlic around it and lime inside. Like my Mum I can do fancy egg dishes. I'd say the English food we have was evolved both by the influences European ancestors and modern cookery.

I'm not against potatoes, but not keen on dull ways of cooking them. I actually prefer fish with potatoes of some sort though as I'm not keen on rice

The other important factor is that, because of the climate in this country, before the advent of technology such as artificial refrigeration, we didn’t need to use spices to hide the unpleasantness of food that has degraded in a hot, humid environment. So, the flavours that we have are of the actual foodstuffs - the meat, the potatoes, the vegetables, and these all have very mild flavour profiles. Compared to the vibrant herbs and spices typically used in Southern Europe and Middle and East Asia, I understand the perception of “blandness”. It takes as much getting used to adopting those cuisines that we have taken to our hearts in this country.

What about a fry up OP? Nowhere does a fry up like the UK, sausages in most of the rest of the world are a very different and often very poor imitation. Bacon is rarely as good. I love English food but like anything if it's done on the cheap and badly then it's shite. There's plenty of shite Italian food around for example too - looking at you ASK.
There's nothing like a roast dinner in the middle of winter, or fish and chips on the beach or a fry up when you have a hangover. I love other cuisines but I wouldn't be without British grub.

My grandfather used to eat cockles in vinegar as a snack, jellied eels were also popular with him . And pie n mash with a parsley sauce, tripe an onions. Liver and bacon. neck of lamb and spring greens, bread and dripping, jam.

I don't think many eat traditional food anymore