If the Germans are good at cooking terrible food with the best cutlery, Britain produces the best chefs teaching foreign dishes. From the Great British Bake Off to Italy to Hell’s Kitchen, the country has spawned a host of culinary reality shows, featuring masters who have travelled the world for years to learn their skills. Even hell chef God Gordon Ramsay, is also a fusion of European cuisines developed his own. As for British cuisine, it has long been known as the fighter jet of rubbish.
“British food shows are so popular because they desperately need them.” “The British invaded everywhere throughout history because they feared their disgusting food would exterminate their people.” The netizen clarified the mystery. Search online for British food and the keywords automatically come up with terrible/bad. International Internet users not only lamented the incident, but also wondered whether the modesty and ferocity of the British people were the result of years of bad cooking.
When I infiltrated the British food community, I found a few posts that didn’t get any traction. There were only 217 British subjects on the site dedicated to promoting local cuisine, and only one of them was online, probably myself. British food has a long history of being terrible. It is said that Xu Zhimo once joked about this when he was studying in Britain. The French even said ruthlessly, “We live to eat, and you eat to live.”
Aisling McCrea, a freelance writer in the UK, admits that the most common greeting she gets is “Never tasted so good”. “Many people have an image of British food as dry, wet and like an old granny’s overcooked leggings. I can’t defend them because they don’t look very beautiful.”
When it comes to traditional British food, the famous Full breakfast can start the day off markedly before going to bed at night. It’s the name of a dish of poached eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, black pudding toast and baked beans. Many cafes and bars serve this meal at any time of day, not just early in the morning, and the classic lives on.
According to Keith Bull, president of the English Breakfast Association, the dish can be traced back to a 13th century gentleman’s country house. In the old Anglo-Saxon tradition of hospitality, families would provide a hearty breakfast to visit friends, relatives and neighbours. “It serves as a prelude to a day of hunting or shooting, and gives the owner the opportunity to show off all the outstanding products of his estate.” It means to show off, all the good stuff is here, eat the top of the meal. Who thinks they can handle that at breakfast? Baked beans are the soul of the dish. Originally invented by American Indians, soy sauce was popularized by British colonists. It can be used as a condiment or as a snack or staple food. No meat, no beans.
Every day 2.3 million Britons are said to start the day by tucking into baked beans as part of their belief that no bean can’t make breakfast. Heinz baked beans, created in 1886, is a greater invention than instant noodles, and where it is, it is a proper British dish.
When it comes to fish and chips, Sunday roast, sausages and mashed potatoes, they have little in common. It’s like the locals claiming curry as their invention. More broadly, ingredients and ideas from North America, my country and India absorbed by immigrants during the British Empire and the postwar era count as British cuisine. All of this is ignored here.
And the amazing dishes you’ve never seen anywhere else are deeply English. It’s Pork pies wrapped in mooncakes.
A large bundle of powdered haggis wrapped in lamb intestines
Scotch eggs wrapped in sausage meat and breadcrumbs
The Stargazy pie, which claims to bring joy to children, once topped the list of British dark dishes.
Legend has it that the village of Mausil faced a famine in the 16th century, and the heroic Tom Bowcock managed to catch enough fish during a storm to feed the whole village. People stuck the fish into pies and showed the heads to show off their wealth. It seems to share a beautiful meaning with our “every year there are fish”.
But outside England, no one can afford to be so lucky. Not to mention the odd combination of dry pies and large amounts of fish, the sheer intensity and density of its scary shape can evoke viruses and bacteria pulsating within the body at a glance.
Jellied Eels are also quite formidable. Put chopped eel in water, add spices like vinegar, cardamom and lemon juice, boil, cool and solidified to form jelly, and eat cold.
When it comes to eel, look no further than Japanese ingredients, and even loyal Japanese are good at making it hot. The British, with their genius, do this to exploit the eel’s properties, releasing its gelatinous collagen as it cooks, and it must be able to taste its Q-bullet. To make it easier to swallow, they suggest pairing it with mashed potatoes and wine to neutralize the taste. If you have to, maybe you can choose to add light soy sauce Sichuan pepper and chili.
Why is British food so discredited? According to Aisling McCrea, a British writer, the answer can be found in historical reasons and national character.
“There is nothing wrong with British food production — it has some of the world’s most popular cheeses, high quality meat and fine chocolate — but its culinary capabilities were severely constrained by the Second World War.” “Wartime austerity forced British families into decades of food rationing. A limited supply of crude food, lacking in seasoning, has led to an entire generation habitually drifting in the sea of cuisine created by Satan.”
A Quora user lists what Grandma’s kitchen looks like, and not even the hand of God could make a flower out of it.
“All the places with the best culinary traditions see food as an expression of love. If you read cookbooks from the food capitals of Europe or Asia, you’ll notice that one of the overarching themes is care, generosity and love.” “And that doesn’t exist in mainstream Anglo culture. We don’t like a lot of people cooking together, and we’re not good at being warm to each other. Food is not emotional, and people can’t make art out of it.” This is Aisling McCrea’s understanding. “Perhaps the shared bad reviews from around the world are also weighing on an already gloomy Britain. As long as you let go of your prejudices and take a few chances, the ingredients will reach their full potential.” Aisling McCrea makes a heartfelt appeal.
