British cooking/Britain's food history and reputation

[macrosan]

Sometimes I wonder if these posts are nothing more than a series of objections in order to make the poster keep refining their language so people can act like the basic point of the post isn't clear. It's as if the gist is mired in the the muck of vocabulary. Mind you, the requirement imposed by the objectors to offer language that is of the highest specificty seems to be in direct corrolation to how much they don't want to admit to the basic premise of the post. Now having gotten that off of my chest, let's see, one at a time.

What a great way to absolve oneself from the responsibility of :-

a) having to state an argument in clear language ;

b) having to respond to debate ;

c) having to admit that one has changed one's position in the course of debate.

[macrosan]

So far nobidy has responded to my statement that in France and Italy, the government viewed good food as a social benefit and in the U.K. and in the States it is viewed merely as an industry. Do the Israelis have great fruit and vegetables because the government made a concerted effort? Absolutely. And does the food suck in Egypt because nobody has ever made the effort? Again, absolutely.

Did the Israeli's do it because historically Jews have eaten well? Not at all. They did it because they want people to enjoy living there.

OK, I'll respond (again) to that statement.

It is nonsense to suggest that in France and Italy, the government viewed good food as a social benefit. It may or may not be true that in the UK and in the States it is viewed merely as an industry, but I am inclined to accept this premise.

Do the Israelis have great fruit and vegetables because the government made a concerted effort? Absolutely not. Did the Israeli's do it because historically Jews have eaten well? Absolutely

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Sometimes I wonder if these posts are nothing more than a series of objections in order to make the poster keep refining their language so people can act like the basic point of the post isn't clear. It's as if the gist is mired in the the muck of vocabulary. Mind you, the requirement imposed by the objectors to offer language that is of the highest specificty seems to be in direct corrolation to how much they don't want to admit to the basic premise of the post. Now having gotten that off of my chest, let's see, one at a time.

I think this is more a case of a flustered Plotniki being mired in a discussion he knows nothing about save what he's read in one book and his own anecdotage. The putrid rhetoric above heralds the welcome death of a poor argument.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Adam Lawrence-Thank you for correcting me on the reasons behind enclosure. But in correcting me, you have answered the question that I have groping to find an answer for, and which all the Brits on the board have been desperately avoiding. You said,

"And enclosure was seen as a way to generate more food in time of war. War is a huge cause of social change."

So the answer was that the moneyed classes (or the landowning classes if you will) opted for quantity and efficiency over quality. Still in line with my thesis I might add. Now if only someone else offered the answer to the question as to why the population stood for it.

As for the rest, I find it odd that there is such difficulty admitting that the reason you have been eating crap was not due to external forces in the world, but a result of choices made in England by the moneyed or landowning classes (along with governmental support) as well as the lowers classes tacit agreement to accept it. Did external forces like war exacerbate the situation? Of course it did, No one has said it didn't. But France was at war too and it didn't impact what they ate to the same extent.

Yvvone is on track when she says it is cultural. And it is obvious that the French and Italians have a tradition of fine dining. Why? The food tastes good. But that still leaves the unanswered question of why food in Britain didn't taste good (and I know this is a point of contention that others don't agree with and is the subargument here,) for nearly 200 years when it tastes good now? Some people have made arguments that people were protesting things more important than food like living and working conditions. But that seems to support the socio-economic argument bysaying that wealth distribution was so poor that food was too far down the pecking order to be dealt with by the masses, i.e. socio-economic. And that would seem to lead to a conclusion that culture is a phenomenon created by socio-economic trends and traditions (I will sign on for that one being a media-marketing type myself.)

Anyway I think I'm done here because through this thread I have certainly learned the history of England from the late 1700's until the present. And I must say that much of what has been posted has reinforced my feelings as to why it all happened. Even if there is disagreement as whether it ever happened or not. Unless of course someone has something to add. But I will try and get my hands on Smith's book and post the passage about this. It's just that it's at a different location.

[Wilfrid]

Well, I'm not sure how we all managed to convince Steve that he was right all along (imagine a smiley shrugging with despair).  I plan to pipe down today - I have said more than my fair share, and I thought the posts from other contributors were considerably more interesting than anything I can add.  My British history is a little better than Steve's (ahem), but not as good as some of you other guys.

I would still be interested in other people's view on when the improvement in British gastronomy (dining out and eating at home) originated.  I know 1995 is wrong - but how early can we trace it back.

Finally, it is tiresome to be repeatedly told that "you have been eating crap", but if Steve won't believe me or Yvonne or Macrosan or Michael Lewis, that's up to him.

By the way, Jason, I am with you on German food.  Much underrated.  But, of course, Britain and Germany should not be compared on their wines but on their beers.  That would be another interesting thread.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"Finally, it is tiresome to be repeatedly told that "you have been eating crap", but if Steve won't believe me or Yvonne or Macrosan or Michael Lewis, that's up to him."

Wilfrid-But that's the nub of it all. None of my statements make any sense if you don't start from the point of view that it tasted bad, and now it tastes better. If you haven't noticed, there is a world full of people who happen to think the food there tasted awful. In fact, even with the improvement of today, they still think it's awful. If you don't see that you are in denial about it. To me there is no better evidence than Macrosan's opinion about bread in England vs bread in France. It is an opinion, but it is so far away from what the commonly held opinion would be about the quality of bread in the two countries and how they compare that it precludes having a sensible discussion.  

You know I have had this same discussion at least 50 times when visiting there. I find that people are slow to admit that they have been eating junk for so long. And I find that when faced with a similar proposition, Americans are more than happy to admit it that they eat junk but fess up that they like the way it tastes anyway.

[Wilfrid]

This is me being in denial:

"British cooking and British eating habits have had their failings over the years.  I am a Londoner by birth, but I am not going to dispute that fact" (Wilfrid, March5).

I am happy to respond, but I want to discuss a clear and finite historical period, so we don't end up going around in circles.  I am not now talking about what the British ate between 1760 and 1960.  If that's what you mean when you talk about "eating junk for so long" then we are at cross purposes.  I am now addressing only 1960 to 1994 (the Plotnicki watershed year   ).

Fact is, a whole lot of us have not been eating crap for twenty years or so.  Like Rebecca Mead, you are not so much wrong as just way out of date and out of touch.

It would be interesting to have some specific stats about food consumption in the UK, about obesity, about the rise of supermarket chains, and so on, but sadly I don't see an offer of an eGullet grant to the detailed research.  There is no question in my mind that during this period a lot of British people ate of a lot of very bad food indeed - usually without realising how bad it was (why they "stood for it").  Both at home, and even more so in restaurants.  Restaurants in Britain were appallingly bad through the 1960s and much of the 1970s.  There is clear evidence of an improvement in standards of dining out thereafter (see other thread).  Also, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a dramatic increase in the range and quality of produce available in stores and supermarkets, in the level of discussion of food in the media.

I was lucky as a child.  My family - an ordinary family, and there were millions like them - didn't have a freezer, were suspicious of pre-cooked food, and prepared two or three good home-cooked meals every day.  Incidentally, there wasn't any junk food in those days, in the sense of burger/pizza/fried chicken chains.  The US exported those to us later.  Did we eat anything a French or Italian family would recognise?  Of course not.  We scarcely knew what that would be.

In my teens I ate loads of junk.  That's teens for you.

Over the last twenty years or so, there has been no reason to eat junk.  Many people still do of course.  But a lot of us, and not just food geeks, have been eating very well, thanks.  There's nothing I can do to prove that to you, short of describing ingredients and meals I remember with fondness from those years.

But let me turn that around.  What do you think about the quality of British meat (pre-BSE)?  British game?  British cheeses?  British fish?  We know you don't like our bread.  Oh, well.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Let's see. British fish is good but it is hard to get it really fresh. And the varieties of fish available seem awfully limited. You can get a good piece of sole in many places but quite often not much else. British game is reportedly superior but I'm not much of a game eater so I can't help you. I don't find the meat to be very good, not even at the high end. It has a taste to it that I find distinctively British. The French have much better meat and so does America. Some British cheese is really good, especially hard cheeses. French soft cheese can't be beat. British bread is more like American bread, generally awful. French and Italian bread are far superior.

As for what you remember with fondness, there are many things from my youth I remember with fondess that if served to me now I would consider awful. I mean did people really know good from bad? And how much of it is relative? The British Macaroni & Cheese, with some mustard, Worcestershire sauce and crumbs atop, that is the type of thing that someone can remember fondly from their youth. But if you grew up in Lyon, and the macaroni & cheese was flavored with a little gravy from a beef stew that was simmering for a half a day, could you objectively say that the British version is any good?

[Jason Perlow]

This site is getting way too cerebral for my taste. I can't follow this freakin conversation anymore! I quit!

[A Balic]

I have only been here for two years, have only a few things to day on the subject of British food.

Basic food stuff can be mind blowing, fantastic. Raspberries, Un-pasteurised cheeses, heirloom apples, game, pork (yes, it is a poor mans meat, but it is good), pork pies (nice local terrines), preserved fish (finnan haddocks, Arbroath smokies, Kippers, Smoked Salmon, eels). British fresh seafood is great (wild Scottish salmon and salmon-trout are amazingly good and cheap), but it is easier (and cheaper) to buy it in France then it is in the UK. My local fish monger sells Canadian lobster, not the Eurpean species. Beef and lamb can be good, but again a large proportion of what is avalible is not British. There's the rub.

At the level of the lower-middle-class (I think that's what I am here), the everyday food of the people is not very good. Cheap and avalible, seems to be more important then good quality and tasty. Every meal I make has ingredients from at least three different countries (rarely from the UK though). It is always of the same quality. The UK has excellent produce, but who eats it and who appreciates its quality? In my social group, mostly me and a few French friends, most I my British work mates would rather eat battered haddock the year round then eat seasonal wild Salmon-trout.

I don't think that this a British thing alone, I have seen it in Australia and in the US (where BTW, I have had the worse bread I have ever eaten, it was sweet (not in a good way) for gods sake). Considering the what happened in the 20th C  to the UK, I would say that it is doing amazingly well, food wise, and will hopefully continue to improve. I just hope there is a trickle down effect to the lower, non-fine dining Brits. :confused:

[Fat Guy]

the whole class thing never really took off until the C19.

Well, sure, if you're talking about the class system as redefined by the Industrial Revolution -- which basically created classes that weren't there before -- I agree. But before then, what do you think all those people with the crowns and robes and titles were? A different kind of class consciousness, sure, I can buy that -- but no class consciousness prior to the 19th Century? Maybe this is just a question of semantics, but you'd have to define class consciousness in a counterintuitive way to support the proposition that it sprung up out of nowhere less than 200 years ago.

[AdamLawrence]

Fatus (I like that name) said:

"But before then, what do you think all those people with the crowns and robes and titles were? A different kind of class consciousness, sure, I can buy that -- but no class consciousness prior to the 19th Century? Maybe this is just a question of semantics, but you'd have to define class consciousness in a counterintuitive way to support the proposition that it sprung up out of nowhere less than 200 years ago."

I don't think it's a question of semantics at all. Class-consciousness can't - for me - relate to anything other than socio-economic circumstances. I think Jon T's point (and I agree with him, though on much less evidence, 'cause I read PPE) is that social bonds pre the C19th were about other things. Sure the folks with crowns and robes and titles existed but existence and consciousness are two very different things.

My impression is that (except for groups such as craft guilds, and they were urban so not reflective of society as a whole, which was largely rural) British society pre the Industrial Revolution was more about local ties - peasants to lord, and vice versa. This isn't to say that the lords were all paternalistic caring sharing types who defended their tenants' interests against those of their own class (far from it), but certainly there was a situation where rural peasants identified more with their local 'betters' than with their apparent peers from the next estate/county/whatever.

There remains a strong undercurrent of localise deference in this country, especially in rural areas. It's much less strong that it was, but it's still there.

Adam

[Fat Guy]

certainly there was a situation where rural peasants identified more with their local 'betters' than with their apparent peers from the next estate/county/whatever.

They didn't identify with their local betters in terms of class, though. Whatever the unit -- be it the community, the nation, or the world -- the classes were defined with extreme rigidity. People knew exactly what class they were members of. So I do think it is a semantic argument to say there was no class consciousness. To make that argument, you have to define it in terms of itself, i.e, that class consciousness equals the kind of class consciousness that arose post-Industrial revolution and does not equal the kind of class consciousness that existed for the previous umpteen centuries.

If you read American Revolutionary documents, from the 18th Century of course, you will find a tremendous number of references to exactly the kind of rigid class structure we're talking about here. It was one of the founding principles of our republic that we would have no titles of nobility or anything of the sort. Of course, we have our own class system of sorts here -- I'm not saying this in an attempt to minimize the shortcomings of American society -- but people were talking about the rigid class system in England long before the 19th Century. If you go back farther, to the 17th Century, John Locke, the British gentleman responsible for much of the theoretical underpinnings of American democracy, was firmly situated in the dialog regarding class and culture. Locke's political philosophy is all about the compromise between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy.

[Jinmyo]

Cheap and avalible, seems to be more important then good quality and tasty.

I think this is widely true. I have noticed that when people try to "economize", one of the first things to suffer is the grocery basket. I don't understand this. It's one thing if you can only afford to eat dry ramen out of the packet because you have no bowl and nothing to heat water with. But when people prefer to spend their money on renting videos or going to sports events and such than to eat devently, I'm confused.  :confused:

[A Balic]

Well, that brings us back to Britain V France. France food = life; Britain = fuel.

I mean fine dining is all very well, but it's only one part of the food culture of a country. In the cultures/countries that have a celebrated cuisine, it is seems to be based very firmly on peasant/lower middle class home cooking. Britain had a strong tradition of middle class cooking, but not so much from the urban poor. British country cooking? Well it's was there but it just didn't seem to be incorporated into the mainstream.

At the end of the 18th C. there wasn't much between France and Britain. Then France got Boulanger and his "restaurant" for the lower middle classes, while Britain stayed with its chop shops etc to feed the masses. Has Britain ever had an environment that encouraged food for pleasure, rather then fuel, for the urban poor? Maybe not until after rationing ended. Take away the dining of the more well heeled in Britain and there just wasn't that much food culture left. When things got tough, that's what seemed to happen.

Still, things are on the move now. I would love to see British ethnic cooking to be brought more to the fore, though. "Hindles wake" in a smart setting in London, I wonder how many people would guess that it was a native dish?

[Jinmyo]

But damn, a ploughman's lunch is good. Great stuff. Excellent hard cheeses. Sure, a bageutte would be nice but the bread works with the cheese. Some pickled onions and such. I'm sure it was pretty tasty to the ploughman back whenever. And the pies have always been bloody great.

In the Renaissance, the Italians and then the French had much better culinary arts. But the basic English food was basically good. Industrialization brought great disruptions to the land and the folk and many Londoners had drippings and bread for tea.

And then American Spam and Marmite (which I like on toast) and all that. I've seen the cookbooks my mother had from the War and it was indeed pathetic rationing stuff. And I had more organ meats with sproingy bits sticking up from the gravy than I care to think of. (Primarily because of how I would prepare them now.) But there wasn't much about. She impressed on me how pigs saved English lives ande made me eat every gristly bit and suck marrow throughout the 1950s.

Now the strikes and riots of the 1930s occur to me.

Just a mess, that 20th C.

But a ploughman's lunch has always been a good meal. And always good pies.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Adam-You are just saying the flip side of the coin I spoke of on the "crappy" thread. The reason that the food wasn't all that good for so long was that the population didn't have enough money to care about doing the things that improve the quality of their lives. Now that they have it, and the equivelent of a strong middles class, especially a strong upper middle class exists, they are starting to use it in ways that make a difference. So that leaves at least these two questions to be answered. One, was the fact that Britain's socio-economic system managed to not create an upper middle class for so long one of design, or one of coincidence? And second, how do you explain that France and Italy had acute interest in food without a middle class existing in neither of those countries. Or is that second statement incorrect?

[Steve Klc]

I've mentioned this to Steve privately already, but I'd like to let everyone in on a great book pertinent to this thread--"All Manners of Food" by Stephen Mennell--it concerns "Eating and taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the present" and is much more relevant than the Drew Smith book. The Mennell was originally published in the UK in 1985 and later reprinted in paperback in the US.

(Mennell's bibliography is deep, too.)

After laying the groundwork for the similarity of Medieval cooking throughout Europe--Mennell writes well and knowingly, especially in Chapter 4--From Renaissance to Revolution:  Court and Country Food; Chapter 5--France and England--Some possible explanations (for the rather different courses of development observed in the taste in food of the two countries) and the seminal Chapter 6--The Calling of Cooking:  Chefs and their Publics since the Revolution.

The more time I spend with this book, the more I realize how far-reaching it is.

And if I could most respectfully disagree with Adam on one point--he wrote that "At the end of the 18th C. there wasn't much between France and Britain" meaning not that much difference in cooking techniques and ingredients or dining style, I suspect. From Mennell, and my reading of primary sources, many of which have been translated and published in folio version, there was already huge differences technically, culturally, professionally with respect to both fine dining and home cooking. (Sorry Adam.)

[Fat Guy]

Steve, can you give us the two-sentence idiot version of the book's thesis?

[Jinmyo]

"All Manners of Food" by Stephen Mennell. Just ordered it from Amazon. Thanks.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Steve Klc-A copy of the Mennel book is being held for me at KA&L and I'm going to pick it up this afternoon. But do you have a copy of the Smith book on hand? And if you do, can you post an excerpt of the section I have been paraphrasing if you have a chance? I won't have access to my copy for nearly a month.

[Steve Klc]

Steve, my copy is on loan.  Why don't you ask Nach if he'd mind if you copied it down longhand? And Steven--there is alot to this book.  I am not understating things to say that it would keep Plotnicki, if not the rest of us, busy for a year.

My "idiot's version" is that the differences which have developed between English and French cookery and culinary tastes are more subtle and difficult to pin down than many realize--and that French and English cooking are not entirely separate things.  Mennell writes that "they have been in mutual contact and influenced each other over a very long period.  Since they are not wholly independent, the differences and similarities between them can only be understood in developmental perspective."  And he sets out to weave domestic, low and high end cooking in both countries together, essentially chronologically, and refers extensively to the printed record--he names names and the cookbooks of the times.

From Middle Ages to Pre-French revolution--Mennell argues that there "emerged the main outlines of distinctive English and French cookery and attitudes towards food." Simplistically "French aesthetic" vs. "English nutritional and economic."

Mennell continues "In discussing these national differences it is easy to overstate them, and to lose sight of the fact that then, as later, the same social forces were at work in both countries even if the timing was different.  Timing is important though.  It was important that French haute cuisine continued to develop in a specifically courtly context for a century and a half longer than in England.  It was important too that the English women cooks, and perhaps the male tavern cooks, played a part in the development of a simplified and more socially homogeneous style of cookery" and that "the beginnings of the same process can certainly be seen in France...though the supremacy of courtly models remained unchallenged.  That was to have important consequences for the development of French professional cuisine after the Revolution, which in turn had important consequences for English cuisine in the next century."

There is some ethereal obtuse mumbo-jumbo of the sort you could just imagine the Gastronomica advisory board creaming over--if you like that sort of thing; however, it's also easy to read past the few bits of "I'm-an-academic-speaking-to-another-academic-tone"--and get to clear, concise take home writing that everyone can understand and argue over.

The book is interdisciplinary and idiot-proof.  I'll pull some passages out of the book if anyone is impatient, but 4 and 6--Mennell's best--could be read pretty quickly to get the gist.  I want to avoid becoming the go-to source for quotes and am genuinely interested in others' reading of the text.

[Adam Balic]

Steve (Plotnicki) I have now read your latest Crappy thread . First I should say that I am by no means an expert on this subject, so feel free to disregard anything I say.

"The reason that the food wasn't all that good for so long was that the population didn't have enough money to care about doing the things that improve the quality of their lives."

First, I would disagree that British food was always crappy or compared poorly to other countries (let's say "France", to make it easy). Actually, from the comparative recipes of have seen from the 16-18th C., Britain hold's it own.

Forget about the money/class issue, when has that ever stopped a group of people from appreciating food and developing a food culture? Only under conditions of extreme poverty, which was not the case in the UK, or indifference. Food culture seems to come from different sources in different times and places. The "Now" of food culture in the UK does seem to be largely about an increasingly affluent middle class, with increased leisure time on their hands.

Food culture isn't always about the upper-middle class. My family is working class, but they have a keen interest in food. In this context, it's about food as a celebration of the family and the re-enforcement of social bonds. When family visited, we killed a pig and it would be spit roasted by the men of the family (hand turned) for about six hours. There would be lots of grappa etc, you get the picture. Did that ever happen in the UK? Most likely, but in a differnt way. Much of what my family gets out of the pig-killing-cooking can be gained  in different ways. Look at the pub culture in the UK, it doesn't exist in Italy, so does that mean that the Italians don't have a developed a social life?

To answer you first question. Hmmm, don't really know, but I think that idea of what "class" is tends to be pretty dynamic. It sounds like a post-modernism cop-out, but the just because there wasn't a recognisible upper-middle class, does not mean that there weren't other social obligations/constraints that were just as important at the time.

Bottom line: Food in Britain was crappy because of a shitty 20th C. and because it wasn't important to the Brits under those conditions. Social bonds, celebration of your friends all that good stuff, doesn't require a food culture as it does say Italy or France.

A very interesting topic. I never though I would defend British food. Must be a growth experience.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Adam-Well aside from the subjective discussion if it is crappy or not, and you seem to say that since the onset of the 18C it has declined, which also happens to be the period we are discussing. But you are saying it is mainly a matter of culture and not economics. But the inference of your statement was that a tradition of dining is stronger among certain cultures than others. So if you don't mind me asking, are you Catholic or Protestant? And was/is food culture a function of religious upbringing.

[yvonne johnson]

Me too, I find this thread interesting. I would like to come back to some comments you made yesterday, Steve P.

I fear your mind is made up: France’s offerings are, in general, superior to those of anywhere else. To drive your point home, however, you create a straw man, in this case, portray British food to be much worse than it is (and was), and then attack it treating the stereotype as fact

Added to the dismissal of British food is the romanticization of all things French. You write: “The British Macaroni & Cheese, with some mustard, Worcestershire sauce and crumbs atop, that is the type of thing that someone can remember fondly from their youth. But if you grew up in Lyon, and the macaroni & cheese was flavored with a little gravy from a beef stew that was simmering for a half a day, could you objectively say that the British version is any good?”

See what I mean? The British version is no good at all because you favor the French one. But hang on, what if I tell you that stodge with gravy from a simmering pot is part of my fond memories? This also counters your use of Spam and Marmite as the foods of choice for all British people.

Citing Jane Grigson here seems appropriate:

“Suet Pudding with Gravy: Smart readers, who think nothing of eating polenta with hare sauce or spaghetti al sugo, may well sneer at the old north country way of eating suet pudding with gravy. I remember staying on a farm as a child of seven, and feeling thoroughly superior and disgusted by the whole idea. The sight of Billy…, the handsome young farmer for whom I had a secret passion, tucking into his meant that I had to tuck in too. And how good it was—the gravy was made with the rich juices of the roast beef that came next. On the days following, we had suet pudding with the sauce left from jugged hare….”

More specifically, I question your other depictions.

1. “British fish is good but it is hard to get it really fresh. And the varieties of fish available seem awfully limited. You can get a good piece of sole in many places but quite often not much else.”

Let's stick to London for ease of argument. Your point has some truth if we keep to generalities. But, the broad view overlooks the important fact that London is the home of Steve Hatt, who in my humble opinion, is possibly the finest fishmonger in the UK and I’ve yet to find a NY fishmonger that comes anywhere close. (Hatt has been discussed elsewhere on this board--sorry to go over old ground--but I’m not alone in my views).  Egulletarians will travel quite some distance (as I used to) to get his fish in Islington. Hatt offers a huge variety. As for supermarkets, I can vouch that Marks & Spencer's fish is very fresh and of the highest quality. I know this for sure because I worked in a factory that supplied M&S, and more recent family contacts in the fish world report that M&S still gets top of the line, and I believe them.

2. “British game is reportedly superior but I'm not much of a game eater so I can't help you.”

I agree, British game is very good, because it is wild, and not farmed as it is in the US.

[3. As for American meat being superior, my husband for one would agree with you that beef in the US is superior to British. Steaks taste better here. So some agreement here. Yeahh]

4. “French soft cheese can't be beat.” OK. Interestingly, (all?) French soft are placed on a pedestal. Now you go on to say,  

“Some British cheese is really good, especially hard cheeses.” Why not say British  hard cheeses are hard to beat? What about blue cheeses, can you beat a Stilton, or the newish one, the Blue Shropshire?

5. “British bread is more like American bread, generally awful. French and Italian bread are far superior”.

Again, in going for the general you overlook the terrific bakeries that do exist in the UK. Maybe you've not been exposed to the spectacular unsweetened brown, wholewheat breads available. My husband, like Adam, I see, almost puke at the idea of sweet bread. On my last visit, I tasted the best white rolls ever at the Peat Inn, near St Andrews. And there are no poor French baguettes, I suppose?

I’ll end with a few tangential musings. Adam hopes for a revival of the British “ethnic” cuisine, as I do, and I hope it doesn’t get lost. I guess places like St John (never been) is promoting this food. But where do a lot of the traditional recipes come from? Not the middle, upper classes (if I understand Plotnicki, he suggests they determine what we eat). A lot of the good British food comes from the lower to middle classes, no? And if we stick with the 1960s onwards, the pity was that the middle to upper classes wanted to dress up the traditional, and make a right mess of it too. Putting sherry in a decent soup and utterly spoiling it, serving everything with doilies etc. I think Wilfrid was getting at this yesterday (if it was his birthday yesterday, then I guess he’s well hung over and out of operation today). Now, if we bring back the culture argument, I’d like to suggest that we lost our pride in British good old traditional cuisine. Thank goodness for Grigson and Sue Lawrence who are putting the pride back into the regional winners.

Now my posts are getting longer than Plotnicki's. Oh, boy.