2024/03/17 The Oft-Maligned British Cuisine
The British have always liked to put down the qualities they have as an act of humble bragging; but when cultures from around the world see British cuisine as a punching bag, and frivolously insult our cooking as flavourless and wanting, there is clearly a crisis. Among the British, this has aggravated our natural inclination for Orientalism and exogamy, promoting a genuine dislike for the food on which many of us were weened. This is a sad state of affairs, since British food can be exceptional - however British cuisine is a cuisine of kings, a cuisine for each Englishman's castle - one that is now too expensive for many to afford. Our food accentuates the quality of fresh flavourful ingredients, which mass society, large cities, and chilled Maersk containers have for many made unfeasible.
This is one of my favourite paintings: Hogarth's The Gates of Calais. This single painting can explain a lot about Anglo-French relations, but we'll first discuss cuisine. We see a British man carrying a large hunk of beef past starving Frenchmen, who are holding pitiful bowls of soup, ogling the Englishman's food. British cuisine is based on good food. If you walk into Tesco today, a small beef roasting joint will cost you a small fortune. Many of the staple British dishes involve beef and lamb - and good, flavourful, local beef and lamb - cuts which most people can no longer afford. And our quality food has always been downstream of the freedom of an Englishman. When the British chant in patriotic songs they are free, they are comparing themselves to their enemies, the French, who certainly were not a free people. Democracy as a British institution pre-dates in many respects even the Norman invasions; the British have always had freedom, whilst the French have for most of their history been subjugated by absolute monarchs. The British peasant for almost all of history has been better off than the French peasant, the British soldier better fed than the French soldier; and this is the well-spring of British cooking. High-quality local ingredients available not only to the nobility, but also often to the common man.
Given the wealth of British cuisine, it was inevitable that with the fall of Britain's titanic power and wealth came a fall in the quality of food. The war years and the resulting rationing made much of British cuisine, with its reliance on butter and meats, harder to cook. And the sixties and seventies saw the advent of the TV Dinner and ready meals, all of which are pumped with preservatives, losing all the flavour freshness confers. British cuisine survives, however, in the country pub. Not the large chain pubs - however good they are for cheap British grub - but in the less accessible pubs powered by home-cooking. One of the best meals out I've ever had was having a proper steak and ale pie in a tiny village in the Isle of Wight. And good butchers will sell their own selection of splendid pies, which will be a mile better than anything Lord Sainsbury can sell you. You won't find good British food in the big shops, only in local places. It is a parochial cuisine of the individual.
On a separate note, to say that British food is 'bland' is simply a lie. These past couple weeks, I've discovered that Stilton is delicious. And to say that Stilton is bland is nonsensical; to most, it's far too flavourful. Similar even with many traditional vegetables used in English cooking, like the Swede, which many find a little too sweet and vegetably, preferring the more flavourless potato as a substitute. It isn't the case that British food is in of itself bland; but rather that we've made it bland. The flavours British cuisine has always championed have become a little too much for many, who have come to prefer the far less complex spices of the east. I'll count myself in that camp - I too have been many times swayed by that same Orientalism present in the British psyche - but no longer can I claim the mixtures of spices in an Indian curry or a Chinese dish (Japan is different) are stronger than British food, or more complex. Herbs can provide just as complex a flavour profile as spices, but they don't overpower the other flavours like spices do. Herbs serve to accentuate the flavours of meat, whilst spices serve to hide them. Spices are expert in hiding the flavours of food on the verge of going off, or replacing the flavourlessness of their meat and vegetables.
British cuisine, I shall declare, is the ultimate test. While the skills to make British food are very few - for it is a cuisine of the people, not of the elite like in France - it is the ultimate test of ingredients to see if they can succeed through the most naked of trials. The quality of British cuisine is a kind of litmus test for whether good quality ingredients are affordable and readily available to the public; and currently, they are not. The insults casually slung at British food are a sign that quality food, and perhaps a tongue to notice quality food, are now lacking in the UK. But, as anyone who has had a good roast dinner can tell you, British food is the best in the world.
This is one of my favourite paintings: Hogarth's The Gates of Calais. This single painting can explain a lot about Anglo-French relations, but we'll first discuss cuisine. We see a British man carrying a large hunk of beef past starving Frenchmen, who are holding pitiful bowls of soup, ogling the Englishman's food. British cuisine is based on good food. If you walk into Tesco today, a small beef roasting joint will cost you a small fortune. Many of the staple British dishes involve beef and lamb - and good, flavourful, local beef and lamb - cuts which most people can no longer afford. And our quality food has always been downstream of the freedom of an Englishman. When the British chant in patriotic songs they are free, they are comparing themselves to their enemies, the French, who certainly were not a free people. Democracy as a British institution pre-dates in many respects even the Norman invasions; the British have always had freedom, whilst the French have for most of their history been subjugated by absolute monarchs. The British peasant for almost all of history has been better off than the French peasant, the British soldier better fed than the French soldier; and this is the well-spring of British cooking. High-quality local ingredients available not only to the nobility, but also often to the common man.
Given the wealth of British cuisine, it was inevitable that with the fall of Britain's titanic power and wealth came a fall in the quality of food. The war years and the resulting rationing made much of British cuisine, with its reliance on butter and meats, harder to cook. And the sixties and seventies saw the advent of the TV Dinner and ready meals, all of which are pumped with preservatives, losing all the flavour freshness confers. British cuisine survives, however, in the country pub. Not the large chain pubs - however good they are for cheap British grub - but in the less accessible pubs powered by home-cooking. One of the best meals out I've ever had was having a proper steak and ale pie in a tiny village in the Isle of Wight. And good butchers will sell their own selection of splendid pies, which will be a mile better than anything Lord Sainsbury can sell you. You won't find good British food in the big shops, only in local places. It is a parochial cuisine of the individual.
On a separate note, to say that British food is 'bland' is simply a lie. These past couple weeks, I've discovered that Stilton is delicious. And to say that Stilton is bland is nonsensical; to most, it's far too flavourful. Similar even with many traditional vegetables used in English cooking, like the Swede, which many find a little too sweet and vegetably, preferring the more flavourless potato as a substitute. It isn't the case that British food is in of itself bland; but rather that we've made it bland. The flavours British cuisine has always championed have become a little too much for many, who have come to prefer the far less complex spices of the east. I'll count myself in that camp - I too have been many times swayed by that same Orientalism present in the British psyche - but no longer can I claim the mixtures of spices in an Indian curry or a Chinese dish (Japan is different) are stronger than British food, or more complex. Herbs can provide just as complex a flavour profile as spices, but they don't overpower the other flavours like spices do. Herbs serve to accentuate the flavours of meat, whilst spices serve to hide them. Spices are expert in hiding the flavours of food on the verge of going off, or replacing the flavourlessness of their meat and vegetables.
British cuisine, I shall declare, is the ultimate test. While the skills to make British food are very few - for it is a cuisine of the people, not of the elite like in France - it is the ultimate test of ingredients to see if they can succeed through the most naked of trials. The quality of British cuisine is a kind of litmus test for whether good quality ingredients are affordable and readily available to the public; and currently, they are not. The insults casually slung at British food are a sign that quality food, and perhaps a tongue to notice quality food, are now lacking in the UK. But, as anyone who has had a good roast dinner can tell you, British food is the best in the world.