British cooking/Britain's food history and reputation

[Steve Klc]

(As an aside--Yvonne did you happen to see the hilarious Chef! episode where Gareth gets nabbed by the cheese police?)

[yvonne johnson]

Steve, I've seen many episodes of Chef, but that one doesn't ring a bell. Pity.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yvonne-But France's offerings *are* superior to almost any place else, especally England. That is why my mind is made up. I've tasted them both and in general France trounces England. Does it surprise you to hear me say that only English people feel differently? I do not know of a single person who isn't English who would say that the food in England is better. In fact, I don't know of a single person who isn't English who thinks the food in England is any good! It might sound strange for you to hear me say this but, I'm one of the biggest supporters for British dining around because at least I can sift out the good from the junk. Most people make a face when you talk about eating in England.

That you might have good bakeries that bake bread in a certain style seems to be more about acquiring a taste for that bread as opposed to holding it up to the light and saying that the bread stands up to a comparison with the bread from countries that actually do make good bread. Does anyone in England bake good bread? Sure, if the standard we use is the same standard as describing NY rye bread as good or NYC bagels as good. Maybe that's the best example. NYC bagels are great. But they are not world class bread. In general, bread in America is horrible, in spite of the fact that you can find a good bagel in NYC. But in general, bread in France and Italy is good. I don't know how else to explain it.

I'm sorry if I keep picking on English food but it is "generally not delicious." I know that people who grew up there feel differently about it. But one's affection for mushy peas is cultural. An objective view of mushy peas is that they are horrible. There are so many things in the States that I eat day in and day out that I like, but which are in reality truly horrible. And if you were with me for lunch at any of the coffee shops that abound in Manhattan, and asked me if my chef's salad was any good, I might easily tell you it was "delicious." But it isn't really. It is really horrible. It is just that I have lowered the standard of what I call delicious to compensate for the poor quality of what is available for lunch so I can still feel that I am enjoying myself.

Now is there any real ethnic food that originates from within the British Isles? I would hardly call Scottish or Welsh food ethnic.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

I do not know of a single person who isn't English who would say that the food in England is better.

Now is there any real ethnic food that originates from within the British Isles? I would hardly call Scottish or Welsh food ethnic.

Plotinki,

Is that important? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Could you seriously argue that your wife is better than mine?

Why isn't Welsh, Scottish, English or even French food ethnic?

Also somewhere in this thread you concede that good food has always been available at the top end. So how many people need to avail themselves of it to represent a national cuisine of excellence?

Lastly, are you Jim Leff?

[yvonne johnson]

Steve (Plotnicki): You’re not willing to concede one inch are you? What’s interesting is that you have not addressed any of my points. I was separating the general from the specific. And, you’ve got me wrong on a major point. At no time did I say that France did not trounce England across the board.

Your argument now appears to be: all things French are superior to everything else produced by almost all other countries on the planet.

This is plainly preposterous. There is no French equivalent to English Stilton, no French equivalent to Arbroath smokies and so the list goes on (Look at “Delicious British Delicacies” thread for other examples)

Your statement “I don't know of a single person who isn't English who thinks the food in England is any good” says a lot, maybe, about your circle. I’ve eaten out in New York for 14 years, and a lot of the restaurants here I like, but I’d question someone’s sanity if they said they could not find restaurants in London of comparable quality to those here.

Now for the cheap shot: The claim that I’ve acquired a “taste for that [uK]bread as opposed to holding it up to the light and saying that the bread stands up to a comparison with the bread from countries that actually do make good bread”. Steve, can’t you not see how holding the French baguette up as the gold standard is a little limiting?  Yes, of course I like a good baguette, but I also like Aberdeen rolls, baps, country brown loaves from some Uk bakeries. I also like Indian naan--I must compare it to the baguette!? To compare all breads with the baguette would be insane. (And an aside, the bread in NY is not horrible, despite being outside France.)

Now the one you present as your clincher  which is very telling.  “An objective view of mushy peas is that they are horrible.”    Objective because you say so? And your rejoinder  to those who like them: “Well, it’s because you’ve been brought up to like them, and are trapped in your backward culture where you must lower your standards so that you can pretend to enjoy yourself. Really, you’re unable to assess the food impartially”.  And you have appointed yourself to be the judge in these culinary matters? Can’t you see how this might come across as a tiny bit condescending?  Please take anything I post on Craft with a grain of oatmeal.

As for Scottish food being ethnic, of course it is. “Ethnic” refers to people who are, or things pertaining to, heathen. I think that means that means you won’t like it.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Hear, hear Yvonne!

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yvonne-You are way off. What I am saying is that in general, the French approach food in a way that makes the result better than almost anywhere else. And part of the reason is that they demand top quality ingredients to start with. Unfortuntely English Stilton, Arbroath Smokies (which I ate when in London 3 weeks ago) and whatever else you might list including Mrs. Lovett's pies just don't cut it. It isn't enough to overcome all of the bad. You say Stilton and I say that you need to point to 100 Stiltons to make up for that wretched pub food that is served everywhere in the country.Have you ever had a banger in a pub? To call that delicious is to not know what delicious is. For god's sake it's more cereal than meat.

So point to as many specifics as you can. It won't change anything. England just doesn't have a "food culture" that rivals

the other European countries that do. And what is the craziest thing, is that it is so easy to import the stuff from the other countries so it is available in the U.K. But for some reason the Brits are just as happy eating boiled ham as they are Serrano Ham. And what makes it even worse is that someone then comes along to defend how good the boiled ham is. And not only isn't it good, it sucks. And that it is the "people's choice" when San Danielle, Prosciutto, Serrano and Bayone ham are just a few hundred miles away, not to mention the dozens of other styles of artisinal hams available by same day truck, speaks volumes. You know there's a reason that people put there cars on the ferry or Eurostar, go to the French supermarkets in Calais, load up their cars and drive back to Britain the same day. How come nobody ever opened a French market in Dover? None of it makes any sense.

[Jim Dixon]

Whew...

As I mentioned to stellabella, I'm wasting more time than usual here today, so I've been visiting boards I typically pass up. I'll have to come here more often.

I've just started Eating in America by Waverly Root (and some other guy whose name I don't recall), and from the first few chapters it looks like he blames America's bad taste on the English colonists. Seems the Pilgrims and the Virginia colonists either didn't know how to grow, gather, or hunt for food or were too busy growing cash crops like tobacco.

I can't speak to the whole English food history thing, but I think the primary reason so much of what we eat here in the USA sucks is that we put so much faith in the corporate state. The crap that Americans eat is incredibly profitable, and if something is making money, it must be a good thing.

Jim

[Jinmyo]

But France's offerings *are* superior to almost any place else, especally England.

Um. Sigh.

[yvonne johnson]

Steve Plotnicki: I reiterate. You’re not willing to concede one crumb? Now, I’ve to produce 100 stilton reasons for justifying the superiority of a couple of things that the French do not even DO?

You say

“So point to as many specifics as you can. It won't change anything.”

Hmm. I thought you’d be a man and go for some sort of evidence. Then again, Descartes didn’t allow for real evidence did he?

Now I can see why so many people have stopped debating, having seen the light of the supposed superiority of the baguette and how it reins over the entire planetary system including my fave Pluto (who’d have known, they prefer baguette with honey over.. whatnot). I’ve been so s-l-o-w. Sorry everyone who bore with me. Over and out for one day.

[Jinmyo]

Have you ever had a banger in a pub? To call that delicious is to not know what delicious is. For god's sake it's more cereal than meat.

A point. That's the whole point of bangers and why they bang. The difference in densities causes staged heating, friction, bang: pops out the ends of the casing. Bangers.

Not a German sausage, granted. Which are great. But it's not a German sausage. It's a banger.

As Mario Batali points out over and over, American meat balls are tough and nasty because they're all meat, no cereal because Americans could afford all meat. Italian meat balls are tender because they're at least 1/3rd bread.

Don't ye go be rude to me bangers, now Mr. P.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yvonne-You know I have been to England possibly 75 times. Maybe more. It isn't like I haven't had enough meals there to form an opinion. And while I haven't lived there and cooked for myself, I am a good student of what I see in butcher's and other types of purveyer's windows and I get a general sense of what the quality of food is like. So I do not understand what inch it is exactly that you want me to budge on? What concession to my opinion that you want me to make? Do you want me to admit that Stilton is a good cheese? Or that Devon cream is a special product? Or that the berries in June are unsurpassed by berries anywhere else (except fraise des bois and fragola) in the world? I would gladly admit that all those things are superb and maybe even superior over like things from other countries. But none of that changes anything for me. Countries either taste good or they don't. They either have a good smell in the air or they don't.

A good baguette is a marvel. But if it comes with perfect cheese, salami and mustard (not to mention the wine,) in my book the country that does all those things perfectly, and balances them perfectly wins.

Jim Dixon-Unfortunately our food tradition is based on English tradition. That is why we do not have a wine culture here. Wine was brought to the U.S. by Roman Catholic immigrants from Italy and Germany and that our basic culture was shaped by anglo-saxon tradition meant that it has taken us almost 200 years to figure out that we can grow, and want to drink wine.

Jinmyo-When you start praising the virtues of bangers, I know we have nothing to discuss anymore. On the totem pole of sausages, they are a milimeter above frozen breakfast sausages that they sell in U.S. supermarkets. As for American meatballs, I don't know where Mario got that from because every meatball I've ever seen on these shores has bread crumbs in it. And I know this for a fact because I have an intolerance for wheat gluten and everywhere I go where they have meatballs I ask about the contents. Well in 12 years of having this condition, I haven't found a single meatball in the entire U.S. that doesn' have bread crumbs as an ingredient. So Mario is molto wrongo.

LML-If beauty was in the eye of the beholder, then they would just pick any person off the street and tell them that they get to choose the paintings that are to be hung in the Louvre. So there is a definition of beuaty. The definition of beauty is one that is commonly held among people who have the expertise to know what beauty is. So yes indeed there are people who are expert in these things, and people who aren't. And there is a way to construct an order to these things,  a way to construct a hierarchy. So I am perfectly comfortable saying that a bowl of porridge (something that I love to eat by the way,) is an inferior concoction to a bowl of congee. If you need me to explain why that is, I don't think that the rest of our conversation will be fruitful.

It seems we are going to have to analyze the proper way to use the term ethnic.  Do they consider the Dutch or Belgians ethnic? Not at all. And it would be the same in the U.S. But Italians are, and so are Germans. And the Irish definitely are. And all people from Asia are "ethnic" but not Japanese. Hmmm. I guess we are going to have to say that the term ethnic connotated that people were from another country and poor. I think poor is the key to the way the phrase is used.

As for me being Jim Leff, nah, you're not going to be that lucky. But I do know Jim, we had diner once. We went to Tindo right after they opened and it was terrific. But my subsequent visits didn't yield as good a result.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

There is no connection between beauty and the man on the street thing and anyway hierarchical commitees are more incapable of resolving these kind of questions than this thread could ever be.

Your argument, like these books which I haven't read, starts with the pre-fabricated, and discreditable premise that British food has always been bad or at least well inferior to French. And, magpie-like, you're picking and choosing what is admissible and what isn't to suit this dearly held opinion of yours. So, as well not being in the slightest bit objective you're not even being descriptive. Proscriptive, to use a linguistic term, is the way that you're examining data, if it doesn't support your rigid framework you discard it as wrong. I would also add that this rigid framework is wrought from thin air and your own prejudice and known only to you. So it is very frustrating to debate with you because you're stubborn to the point of stupid and insist on definining and redefining the terms of engagement to suit your agenda and to rubbish everyone else. As I think I mentioned somewhere else, with you it's no the taking part but the vanquishing that attracts.

You may well, as do many, feel, think and believe that British food is inferior to French, but there are also many who don't. And their opinions carry as much weight as yours even if they aren't so dogmatically expressed.

[Tonyfinch]

I'm not going to get into how Steve P argues or why he argues,but it's hard to disagree with his basic premise.

Every two-bit town you go through in France has charcuteries,boucheries,boulangeries all with wonderful window displays and merry service.Every town,or so it seems,has one of those central market areas selling local meat,fish,cheese wines to local people.Yvonne mentioned Steve Hatt-one decent fishmonger in North London?! Some of these one-horse places have five or six fish stalls in the market.

Every village of any size in France has at least one auberge or restaurant of decent quality catering mainly to locals and you're never far away from a more upscale place if you want one.

Of course you can get great foodstuffs,and there are fine restaurants, in Britain.But good food is imbued into the daily lives of ordinary French people in a way that is patently not the case here.

WHY this is has been debated by myself and others above and on different threads and there are lots of reasons for it.Britain is tasting better now than at any time in the recent past,but the truth is that it still doesn't taste anywhere near as good as France.

[Jinmyo]

Ha ha ha ha.

[Steve Plotnicki]

LML-Sorry that once again, when you are lost as to how to argue on the merits you need to personalize everything. Your last response makes all types of personal accusations, accuses me of "picking and choosing," yet fails to address what is clear as a bell, and which I've repeated in numerous responses in this thread and others. You then set up a straw man argument that says I have said that British food has always been bad and I use that as my starting point. So now to set you straight once and for all, as well as anyone else who might not have understood me up until this point.

I have come to this conclusion from my own personal experience of eating there. As I've said earlier, I probably have visted 75 times. I must have eaten between 300-400 meals there. I think that experiencing that many meals gives me some level of expertise about the subject. I then say that I have personal knowledge that almost everyone I know (except non-Brits) feesl the same way about it. Not that I wouldn't feel confident basing it on my own palate. But I do gain some comfort in numbers. And those who do like it are sort of similar in the way they assess the changes that have taken place over the years. Good now, but still predominantly bad outside of places and markets that serve the "upper middle." Got better somewhere in the last 5-10 years. Prior to that, generally horrible except at the highest end. Unfortunately, too much of that horribleness still exists today, especially outside of London and especially when it comes to eating "common" food. No working class equivelants of the simple "plats" served at French wine bars or trattorias who make amazingly cheap yet delicious things like Penne w Mozzarella, Fresh Tomato and Basil.

So I'm not starting with the premise that it was bad then so it is bad now. It is quite the reverse. It is bad now. And my question is, when did that bit start? Was it always bad or did the badness happen as a result of politics, economics, social custom, what was it? And the reason I ask that question is because if it is better now, why didn't they make it better sooner? And it is on the basis of that premise that I have brought up Drew Smith, and that Steve Klc has raised Stephen Mennel. What those authors all say (and so do I) is, it would appear that it might never had to have been bad. Why the heck did that ever happen? Britain has good resources.

Now if we don't agree that it is still bad now, or that it was bad over the last half century, it is difficult to have this discussion. But in light of Tony's last post which so artfully describes what France has available to its populace, and which highlights what the Brits don't have, you are going to have a difficult time convincing me as to your merits. Or as Yvonne would say, make me budge an inch.

Now if you don't agree with this. If you want to believe that those sandwich shops that reside on streets that lead to the tube station serve up a product that is just as good as what a traiteur would serve to you, we will have a difficult time continuing this conversation because the basis for having it is a general understanding of what good quality is, and what qualifies as delicious. And just as a group of ten year olds do not have the ability to determine what art hangs in the Louvre, because it is neccessary for one who makes those type of decisions to understand the difference between good art and bad art, and that it's just not a subjective choice, you and I need to agree on what delicious is. And if you insist on defining it based on local preferences, and not take into account what is generally accepted as good and/or bad food,

and you insist on relying on the empirical evidence that "it tastes good to us," we clearly will never agree and there is no point continuing.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

And if you insist on defining it based on local preferences, and not take into account what is generally accepted as good and/or bad food,

and you insist on relying on the empirical evidence that "it tastes good to us," we clearly will never agree and there is no point continuing.

You're in very deep Plotinki.

I mean; generally accepted by whom? The food intelligentsia?(Not that it makes any difference.)

Generally accepted does not equal true.

You prefer French food. But this is a preference, not proof of superiority. It is arrogant to write off an entire cuisine on the basis of personal preference no matter how widely shared that preference may be and no matter who holds that preference. Food is fundamental and that means we all have a say, not just those who fulfil your nebulous and elitist criteria of being able to hold an opinion.

And yes, there clearly is no point in continuing.

[Jinmyo]

Nope. No point at all.

Ha ha ha ha.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"You prefer French food. But this is a preference, not proof of superiority. It is arrogant to write off an entire cuisine on the basis of personal preference no matter how widely shared that preference may be and no matter who holds that preference. Food is fundamental and that means we all have a say, not just those who fulfil your nebulous and elitist criteria of being able to hold an opinion."

LML-You keep stooping lower and lower. You have invoked the elitest argument as well as the it is unprovable argument all in one post. What next, how this conversation is too boring to continue?

Sorry to tell you this but I am not trying to prove anything. For those of us who feel this way about it, it was proven a long time ago. I am just giving my opinion as to the quality of the cuisine, realitive to others. And I am asking why (for those who feel this way about it) it was poor for so long? If you do not feel that way about it, we have nothing to discuss. And if you want to convince me I am wrong about it(and everybody else who happens to feel that way about it, which happens to be almost the entire rest of the Western world excluding Brits,) than you are not doing a very good job and you need to figure out a different way. But it's fine with me to agree to disagree. I'm perfectly happy with my choucroute and cassoulet. And if it suits you, you can ride off into the sunset with your spam and mushy peas.

[Jinmyo]

 

[macrosan]

I guess the bottom line is that the only objective people in the world are Plotnicki and those who agree with him  

Is that an objective statement ?

[Jason Perlow]

As Mario Batali points out over and over, American meat balls are tough and nasty because they're all meat, no cereal because Americans could afford all meat. Italian meat balls are tender because they're at least 1/3rd bread.

Well... I think that is a generalization. My sister-in-law's mom puts plenty of breadcrumbs in her meat balls. And besides meat balls arent generic, they have different types depending on the region of Italy you come from, they are not just from the Campania region. Theres "polpetti" for soups, meat balls as a main dish, as an appetizer, etc, different ratios of different kinds of meat to breadcrumb content, etc.

Its probably true to say that italian americans use MORE meat to bread crumb ratio as a whole, though.

[Jinmyo]

Jason, that's interesting and could be a new thread. But I don't really care so much. Mario does say that, but I was just kidding around. I don't much like bangers. And didn't actually say I did. Ha ha ha ha.

Uh. Click here.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Jimnyo, Is there any chance you could expand on your more pithy posts. As they stand, I find them not a little irksome.

[SamanthaF]

"How come nobody ever opened a French market in Dover?" (Steve Plotnicki).

Steve, the French regulary hold markets in the South East of England. (Croydon, Tunbridge Wells, Rochester that I know of) about once every couple of months.

Talking of 'bangers' - have you ever tried a Speldhurst sausage?