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?

Overrated by who exactly? All I ever hear is people saying it’s shite! I absolutely love cuisines from all around the world. But frankly if you think traditional English food is awful, you must be a bad cook.

Because Toby Carvery is shit food.

This.
My DM cooked pasta, curry, cordon bleu, the lot. She was a fabulous cook, and her beef stew, roasts, flans and pies were just as tasty as anything else she produced.

English food is bad . I still remeber 25 years on arriving to live here and a friend took me for a very good looking carvery lunch and the meat ….. 🤢 so bland , lacked salt , flavour and anything really .
I’ve been here 25 years now and I’m yet to find a dish I think it’s amazing , some are ok as, Cullen skink that I live to eat but nothing amazing . All the good restaurants simply offer international variations with a British twist but for the most British food is plain bad.

I’m sure I must have been Mediterranean in a different life. Nothing worse than all this stodgy rubbish.

I am also a Mediterranean at heart, but I object to English food being labelled 'rubbish'.

90% of the food I cook/eat is Middle Eastern or Italian....... or Indian or South East Asian. But I do love a good roast and all the other delicious, albeit slightly stodgy, English dishes. At least once a week month....

Again, a carvery?!? Have you actually been to a good British restaurant?

English food can be fantastic, there’s so much variety across the regions and seasons. Apple pies, lamb chops, leek and potato soup, Whitby lemon buns, Yorkshire Parkin, home cooked ham, Norfolk plough pudding, oven bottom muffins and clotted cream are a few of my favourites.
The mince, sausage and fried dishes tend to be the ones people first think of when asked about English food as those have been the staple recipes of the latter half of the 20th century.

Love leek & potato soup 😋

Banoffee Pie

Yes I’ve been to plenty but none had good British food , they had good food from other places . What exactly is good British food for you ? Most things you call British are not but simply taken from other cultures

Since reading this thread - I’m starting to realise that I have eaten extremely well in my life. I was born in this country and yet I’m mixed race having been born to Indian and Italian parents (very lucky food wise). Yet we loved cooking British staples in our home. One of my favs has got to be toad in the hole, or a good roast dinner with duck fat potatoes and proper Yorkshire puds. Not only that but my partner and I have eaten at some fantastic country pubs in the English countryside and even a couple of Michelin star - the hand & flowers in Marlowe being one of them!

I will not have people say that it’s bland - it just sounds as though you’ve eaten poorly cooked food, and you can get that amongst any international cuisine.

Most of the stuff mentioned is ok now and again. But I much prefer a bit more spice in my food.

Sunday roasts, FEB and afternoon tea are all English.

That's a pretty good showing.

Maybe you need to research the best recipes for each dish?

Well it's not overrated because I don't know if it is highly rated but I love roast beef with Yorkshire puddings, bangers and mash, pie and mash, fish and chips

English food - amazing roast dinners with all the things is total perfection.

And, proper seaside town Fish & Chips with mushy peas 😋

Followed by a plethora of pudding choices, what more do you need?

(P.S I'm not English, but don't do haggis, whisky or cullen skink 🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤫)

It's just batter. I don't get the way some people rave over them. Quite bland unless you have gravy on it.

I have listed quite a few earlier, and many other people have too. I don’t know where exactly you’ve dined, but they don’t sound like the best places so I feel like your opinion might be somewhat skewed. I have eaten at toby carvery, harvesters (do they still exist?) to proper lovely gastropubs and fine dining. Check out the Michelin guide for example, or watch Masterchef the professionals.

I love multicultural food, but something doesn’t sit right with me about someone having moved to this country 25 years ago bashing British food.

I totally agree that any menu can be abysmal in the hands of a terrible cook. However, “Traditional English” meals feel like they are purely substantial plates made to make your tummy feel full. Other cuisines feel like an adventure on your tongue.

A good plate of fresh fish and chips is delicious in its own right and on the odd occasion. However, I would feel terrible and unhealthy if I ate this kind of food regularly.

My grandad was a butcher and I still dream about the rib eye steak he used to bring back, gran cooked it to perfection with thick chips cooked in beef dripping and fresh veg from their allotment.
Whenever I go to an Italian restaurant and order rib eye I always think "ah English food with a tomato garlic sauce on".
Don't even get me started on the liver, onions and bacon, fresh lamb cutlets with crispy roasties, pork chops with homemade apple sauce, pigeon pie with leeks, rabbit stew, steak and kidney pie, proper good English food.
We've just forgot to cook properly and happily stick a handful of chilli into some noodles to think we're being clever or reinvent cheese on toast as a pizza.

All carb heavy - that's another C word lol

Fish pie. I bloody love fish pie. One of the nicest of traditional british foods.

I could happily live off Italian food for 95% of the time, but sometimes I just fancy bangers and mash with onion gravy, welsh rarebit, a slice tea bread or a lovely light scone with cream.

I love a good roast, english breakfast or meat pie. Apart from that I don't eat much traditional English food. I prefer Asian cuisine so mostly eat that.

British desserts are nice. But we hardly ever have "traditional" British food now. It's boring. I do like a good roast dinner but a lot that you get out are not as good as decent home cooked stuff.

British desserts are elite.

Agree 100%.

Unless the ingredients are absolutely top of the range, it all tastes like slop.

The Italians know a thing or two about food IMHO, but pretty much the food of any country is better than the rib sticking, artery clogging rot gut we come up with.