What specifically (no general comments please)dont people like about British food?

Question

If you have visited the uk and your experience was a pub chain or a dodgy fish and chip shop then you deserve to have had a bad meal.

As with every restaurant over the world, you get what you pay for.

Answer 1

The biggest problem with British food, as it is served in restaurants, is that the customers, don't complain when it is bad, and will continue to go back to the same places again and again.

If they voted with their feet, as the Americans and French do, refusing to go back to a place that serves bad food, surely the bad restaurants will go out of business and the good ones will prosper.

But then, we are talking about the British, which means, that they will continue to eat crap food, because they don't complain.

I know you wanted no general comments, but the British restaurant system have been able to take some really good foods and ruin them. While most British restaurants are good, the ones that are not really bring the image of all the other ones down.

For instance, I've had soggy spaghetti, with even soggier sauce and no meatballs in what has been advertised as spaghetti and meat balls.

There are some brilliant fish and chip shops, but others that serve you fish that look grey when opened and taste disgusting.

There are some brilliant pub bars, but others that serve horrible sausages in mouldy buns as hot dogs.

Sad really.

Answer 2

The French say that there is no such thing as an English chef. Well, I'm English, and a chef, and a restauranteur..

The major problem with British food is that it is overcooked. Vegetables need to be crisp, not soggy, meat should be pink inside, not charcoal.

Frying - we fry too much and we do not fry properly. It is necessary to heat the oil to a high temperature before the food is added, otherwise the food absorbs the oil and becomes soggy and greasy.

Produce - by and large, we buy rubbish. Pre-wrapped vegetables from supermarkets, onions like footballs, supermarket meats, again pre-wrapped. We buy jars of industrialised glop that masquerade as 'cook-in sauces'. We have a large population of Indians, Pakistanis and Carribean p[eople, but we do not try to learn from their culinary skils.

Knowledge - how many British domestic cooks know that you can thicken a home-made Bolognaise sauce by the simple expedient of putting a couple of Brussels sprouts into it. (The sprouts release cellulose, which thickens the sauce. The taste of a sprout is sufficently ascerbic to add to the quality of a Bolognaise sauce).

Training - NVQ is feeble compared to City and Guilds. When I qualified, thirty odd years ago, I had to know Ceserani and Kinton, and Kinton and Ceserani (the 2 main textbooks in the cookery world), backwards. I have never stopped learning - I have copies of Larousse Gastronomique and have recently purchased books on Professional cooking by the American chef, Wayne Gisslen, and I have learned from it. I have worked, for nothing, in the kitchens of Tandoori restaurants to get the gen on Indian cooking. I read the works of great chefs - Careme, Escoffier, Michel Roux, Marco Pierro White, Antony Worral Thomson, although I eschew the works of Gordon Ramsay - he teaches not so much Haute Cuisine as Hate Cuisine! (Definitely non-U!!!)

Interest - The British are not encouraged to take an interest in food. School lunchbreaks are cut as short as possible, adults do not 'do lunch' but will instead eat a bought sandwich at their desks. We commute for hours and get home to a microwaved fake meal. We don't talk about food.

I recall once going into a simple, working class bar-cafe in Dieppe, France. I partook of some excellent coffee and some brioche, then I started drinking wine and listening to the conversation of the men clustered around the counter (I speak French quite fluently). They were all talking, volubly and with animation, about food! When Jules, the chef, emerged from the kitchen with (real, not plastic) plates of assiettes anglais (cold cuts), these were pounced upon, examined and consumed with enthusiam. What do we Brits do - eat fast food burgers and fries with our fingers off a plastic disc.

British food, and catering, can be good. We have national dishes well suited to our weather - beef stew with dumplings is superb, if decent meat is used. The Ulster Fry (bacon, sausages, eggs, and fried Irish soda farls) is a breakfast that must cheer the most jaded Irishman. Roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding - magnifique! The chip buttie, whilst hardly being the epitome of haute cuisine, is excellent halfway through an evening of drinking beer. British butchers sausages, pies, pasties are all tasty, filling and warming.

I own my restaurant, and am not part of a chain. I buy my meat from a butcher who I know is good. My veg comes from local farmers, and I serve veg that is in season - i.e, fresh, not frozen. I bake my own bread, cut my own chips, make my own pastry. If I need to get in prepared products, I use only one supplier (Brakes) who I know is good. My menu has British French, Italian, North African and Indian dishes, and my kitchen has never witnessed curry powder.

Probably a bit more than you asked for, but at least any French readers will now realise that at least one Englishman is passionate about food!

Answer 3

Yes, you get what you pay for. British food should not be judged on the quality of food served up in Motorway service stations. (The worst croissant I ever experienced was on a Motorway in France. They heated them up in the microwave. I guess I could have put it on my shoe and walked around for 12 months before it disintegrated.)

Traditional British food is excellent, if cooked properly. I remember serving a traditional turkey Christmas dinner for Swiss friends when we were in Hong Kong. The wife, who thought it was fantastic, couldn't believe it was a) genuine and b) without any wine or spirit additions.

My mother had a very small number of main meals, but what she did was superbly cooked.

Answer 4

Mushy peas!

Probably the lack of variety. Bangers & Mash, Fish & Chips, Roast, Vegetable Stew, that's about it. Desserts rocks though.

Try living in a catered university hall of residence, and you'll probably see potatoes cooked in every imaginable form for the same meal - wedges, fries, baked, roasted, mashed.

Vegetables - asians who are used to eating flavourful vegetables - those with oyster sauce etc, it probably needs some getting used to eating plain vegetables boiled in water (brussel sprouts, carrots etc)

Answer 5

I'm a Brit and I really dislike British food.

I find it extremely bland compared to most other food,no matter where I have eaten in this Country-whether it be a traditional place,nice restaurant or whatever...it's just tasteless. I hate having to spice things up/alter dishes just to give them a little more flavour.

Answer 6

I am a UK Citizen and I personally hate our cuisine! I think it is uninspired and bland. I prefer food with some flavour to it like Italian food, French food or Indian food.
The trouble with british food is that it has nothing special about it, nothing that is rich in flavour and barely anything which uses fresh ingredients.

Answer 7

British food as such is fine, its the way some people cook it that is the problem. There are some who can ruin something simple like a hotpot or roast because they have no love of food and cooking.

Answer 8

This is an old generalisation started after the war, because of the stodgy and over cooked food our parents parents made.

Answer 9

Mass-produced bread and over cooked everything. You can find those two in the most up-market establishments, especially in the North where they tend to like their food "properly cooked".

Answer 10

A population that can accept the existence of the chip bunty can never be considered civilized.