• 🇨🇦 tunetardis@piefed.caEnglish
    91·
    1 hour ago

    I once had a conversation with my boss who was well-travelled. He said the secret to Europe is to eat in the Catholic countries. If you must spend time within a Protestant country, look around for a Catholic enclave within it. Not only will the food be superior, but people will be falling over each other to make sure you are well fed.

    I looked at him incredulously. How can you say that? It’s such a sweeping generalization! And then I went to Europe…

  • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
    4·
    2 hours ago

    I had bangers and mash once because a family member made it. It was super good. She told me she couldn’t get proper bangers and had to substitute with some other sausage. (Don’t remember which) I presume that if she used proper bangers it would have been gross.

  • West_of_West@piefed.socialEnglish
    6·
    4 hours ago

    Dunno man I just roasted a couple sausages, yorkies, sauted mushrooms, butter peas, and gravy. It’s pretty damn good.

    • Zron@lemmy.world
      17·
      4 hours ago

      Yorkies

      My man is so desperate for flavor he’s eating the neighbor’s dog. Blink twice if you need help.

  • JadenSmith@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    171·
    8 hours ago

    Mostly a stereotype perpetuated by cheap or hastily found dining places.
    When you get fish and chips from a good place that handles fresh catches, there is considerable flavour, yet buy from the fast food place in the middle of a high street and you’ll get a soggy representation from the frozen cod.
    Same situation with a good roast, or a cottage/shepherds pie, or pie and mash that isn’t just a casserole with a hat, etc.

    Honestly I’ve stepped foot in 39 US States so far, and it’s a similar thing there. I just think the “British food bad” thing has stuck as humour, there’s plenty of theories about it I won’t get into but it’s just a thing I suppose.

    • cRazi_man@europe.pubEnglish
      215·
      8 hours ago

      I think you’ve unintentionally reinforced how bad British food is.

      In any other country, I don’t need to go looking for gourmet chefs and fine dining luxury ingredients for the food to taste good. In most countries I’ve been to, I could step into a backstreet little “fast food” type restaurant and it still tastes good; whether that’s in Italy, Spain, Thailand, Singapore, Croatia, Austria, America, India, etc etc.

      A gourmet chef with the finest ingredients can make anything taste good. And that’s what it takes to make British food taste good.

      • JadenSmith@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        12·
        7 hours ago

        I find that hard to believe, since I would go to India sometimes twice per year when younger (for over a decade).
        In 2005 we were told to be cautious of I think cabbage containing dishes, because it was making many people sick. It was also common for milk to be sold highly pasteurised and in blue bags within the city.

        I’ve also had questionable and not good food from those little backstreet fast food places whether in Atlanta, Minnesota, Arkansas, and I even had a rather average Chinese dish from near Santa Monica (which I didn’t rate well).

        There’s a good chance you were in the right area for good food, but that also exists here (example: Camden Town, which has been a ‘Foodie’ destination for a while now), or the plethora of food festivals all around London.
        I apologise if I gave the impression that they’re hard to find: they’re really not.

        • Corn@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          33 minutes ago

          I think safety is orthogonal to how good the average food in an area is.

  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.caEnglish
    29·
    9 hours ago

    I think the problem is that after the Second World War, Britain’s economy was so shot to hell that folks had to keep eating like the Luftwaffe was still blitzing London. That kept going on long enough to introduce generational trauma into British cuisine.

    • hraegsvelmir@ani.social
      14·
      8 hours ago

      To me, another be part of it is that the British seem to have an awful penchant for giving delicious things names that sound like Victorian euphemisms for something awful. Spotted dick and toad in the hole sound like they would be ways for Victorians to talk about their STIs, and I’m unsure what exactly Gentleman’s Relish would mean, but it strikes me as some sort of medieval form of punishment on the peasants.

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
          71·
          8 hours ago

          They quite literally did, Britain and France nearly merged their economies it was so bad. While the London blitz is the most well known part of the bombing campaign it was actually the end of it, early on the Germans were specifically bombing factories and agricultural infrastructure like say granaries.

          Reminder Great Britain itself isn’t that big while still having a massive population, even while exploiting their colonies they were still massively hurting. Also converting their economy from a wartime one back to a civil one was slow as dick.

  • Denjin@feddit.uk
    52·
    11 hours ago

    Thanks to successive waves of immigration in the 20th century from India, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Africa, China and others we actually have a pretty diverse and vibrant food culture.

    Sadly a lot is still dominated by roast dinners and meat and two veg (one of those veg is always potato) but go to any major city and you’ll likely find excellent quality restaurants from pretty much every culture on earth.

    • PoopBuffet@lemmy.world
      22·
      10 hours ago

      Sounds like you have had some shit roast dinners. A good roast dinner is amazing. I love all the foreign foods we have access to now as well, but our traditional cooking gets a lot of shit when really it’s just bad cooks. Although we do also have stuff like jellied eels and mushy peas, so I’m not saying it’s all good…

      • Denjin@feddit.uk
        16·
        10 hours ago

        I love a roast, it’s one of my favourite meals, but a shit roast is proper shit.

      • Kushan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        9 hours ago

        Fuck grandma, my roast dinners are an event. Got my roastie game en point, my yorkies are crispy and all the trimmings are standard. Plus the gravy, not to brag, will make you jizz your pants its that good.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
          4·
          8 hours ago

          Totally unrelated, but you made me question if the phrase is supposed to be “en pointe” like ballet or “on point.” after a little research, I’m guessing it’s “on point” but it seems like the etymology could be from ballet potentially, but it sounds like it isn’t likely. At the end of the day, it means exactly the same thing so it doesn’t really matter. I do find it funny you used “en point” instead of “en pointe” though. Halfway between the two I guess. Lol.

          • Kushan@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            8 hours ago

            Honestly, getting it wrong in either sense might be the most British thing I’ve ever done.

          • Kushan@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            9 hours ago

            Honestly, beef wellington isn’t bad or anything but it’s definitely overrated. Don’t bother trying to make one, just find one at a restaurant and wonder what the fuss was about.

        • supamanc@lemmy.world
          2·
          8 hours ago

          See, gravy is so easy - meat juice, stock, bit of balsamic - I think how can you fuck this up? Then you get gravy litteraly in any commercial setting, and… urgh…

    • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.socialEnglish
      15·
      11 hours ago

      I went eating at an Italian restaurant in, I don’t know, somewhere in the Highlands, and I haven’t been aware that it was run by Scottish people, including the kitchen. Our trip had many highlights and was really cool all in all, but that food has to be the deepest trench we had to pass through.

  • Darkard@lemmy.worldEnglish
    603·
    11 hours ago

    British food is still made either like the Luftwaffe is flying overhead or we are celebrating the fact that the war is over and we can cook with butter and oil again. There’s nothing in-between.

  • Baron Von J@lemmy.world
    21·
    11 hours ago

    Shepherd’s Pie (with beef, though, I only like lamb in gyros, and only then when it’s a blend with beef), minced meat pies, good chicken pot pie, and Yorkshire puddings are all great. Bangers and mash with the right sausage is great. Fish and Chips are generally great but the flavor and texture of the batter can vary significantly.