What is that? Potatoes with a side of stew on a plate?
Nearly - minced beef in gravy with some chopped vegetables thrown in (usually peas and carrots), next to boiled potatoes (that are usually mashed up).
Some parts of the UK have bread and butter as a side with everything.
It is a hearty dinner mind - it’s not flashy or instagram-ready, but it is tasty and fills you up.
To be fair, the Brown Sauce is actually pretty neat. But not in everyones taste tho.
The stew might be super tasty, but those white potatoes look bland as fuck. Throw them in an oven or skillet with some of that butter, get the edges a little crispy, sprig of whatever herbs were used in the stew, and they will be much better.
I’m not talking about the stew. I mean the bottle on the upper center of the picture.
the best homemade dinner on the planet x
Planet X must have terrible food if this is the best thing it has to offer. Glad I live on planet Earth.
This reminds me of that post
“Is British food really that bad?”
“If made correctly, Yes”
Which culinary pleb made that? At least bang the taters in the stew while it cooks.
The yanks seem to be attracted to this meme like somebody desperate to paint a target and distract attention away from themself.
Funny, but sadly, I’ve seen my best friend sharing these memes (neither from the U.K nor the U.S.).
Since the first time I saw them, I thought they were kind of rude and probably inaccurate as no national cuisine is dull. I googled and read… What seems to have happened is that we’ve normalized British cuisine because it is part of many countries now. We think British dishes are regular dishes. Anyway, I don’t like these memes.
Watched Once Were Warriors last night and the dinner Temuera Morrison has in that is even more bland and basic than any of these memes. So it’s more of classist meme than anything.
Also, I think you’re right about loads of core British dishes just being ubiquitous now. My American colleague told me about the Shepherd’s Pie he made, which apparently came out a bit too rich.
The way they censored the name is a new low point. Usually, you at least need to look for a few seconds, but this is just plain readable.
On the other hand Americans eat like they have free healthcare…
We eat that way because we don’t. Heart disease is the only way we’re going to end up going out quickly enough to avoid end of life hospital bills. I mean it’s not like any of us have the means to afford to retire.
Buuuuuuurn.
Touché!
I don’t care. I’ll die on that hill.
Oh you will
Americans have been sold and eat up the idea that instant gratification beats the effort needed to realize something greater.
No no you see, Americans work* so much, they don’t have time to first learn and then practise to cook healthy meals at home. Hence fast food chains!!
*work American style, as in staying at work long hours but also spend about 60% of their work day chatting with co workers, or on the phone, going on personal, non-work related errands, browsing the internet, selecting, getting, eating, and ridding their bowels of food.
Try getting a blue collar job, and tell me again how the majority of American workers are slacking. Must be nice over there in your “office job,” that clearly can be done working at home.
Also I don’t know about other office jobs, but in IT, it was feast or famine. When there was work to be done, we worked 100 hour weeks, but when we finally managed to put out all the fires, yeah we would spend weeks at a time working on side projects, not slacking off.
Blue collar? I was obviously not talking about you losers, so shut your gd mouth and go back to pounding rocks.
FWIW it wasn’t the Germans flying overhead that led to the shitty food and not much of it - it was the Germans in their submersible tin cans that were the big problem.
The funniest thing about these threads are the yanks trying to convince themselves that dumping an entire spice rack on everything makes it better.
Just because we have a blend called Allspice, doesn’t mean we dump the whole rack in there. Also portion control is absolutely essential with most spices. Don’t be jealous of us just because we never used spices as currency.
Enjoy your beans on toast, I guess.
Wanker.
With actual baked beans and real bread. Delicious.
Entire wars were fought for access to spices. If we have cheap access to every spice we could ever want, why not throw a bunch of spices on to make it pop with flavor?
“pop with flavour”
There are only obscure german words to describe the level of gastronomic disgust I have at the phrase.
You would put ketchup on wagyu to make it “pop with flavour”
Personally I’m not a fan of vinegar tomato paste.
I’m talking throwing a bit of garlic powder, some granulated onion, dash of pepper, dash of parsley and oregano and some seasoning salt to give the flavor some body if it still needs it.
They plated it wrong and forgot to toast the bread. BLOODY ELL
No plating in stew, all cooked in the one pot. Toast seems insane, no soakage
You uns ain’t got bowls or grilled cheese over there guvnah
Lmao, for sure use a bowl if it pleases you. I was more annoyed the spuds were not stewed. There should not be elements to a stew it should all be one pot, then some brown bread with a half inch of butter dragged across it.
No guvnah here, though they tried to make it so for centuries.
I know British food tend to be memed as “brown stuff”, but this doesn’t even look half bad, the lighting makes it look worse than it actually is.
Slap an Instagram filter on it and it will look way better.
The unseasoned boiled potatoes and the untoasted bread are just bland.
The ground beef and carrots in the undefinable brown liquid would be a textural nightmare. I cannot fathom how it tastes because the closest thing in the US would be a sloppy joe.
The real problem with this is lack of technique and seasoning.
Here’s how I would “fix” this: Toast the bread, roast and season the potatoes, make the ground beef and sauce into a something resembling Salisbury steak, and cook the carrots as their own side dish.
Laugh at this ne’er-do-well who can not see the beauty of a plain slice of buttered white bread.
I’m going to be visiting in a few months. Speaking as a foreigner of course, is it British culture to minimize both color and hope in your cuisine?
English national dish is Chicken Tikka Masala. With a bit of garnish it can look quite colourful.
Lmao I guess when you’ve subjugated half the world, you can claim any dish as your own.
Chicken Tikka Masala appears to have credibly originated in the UK. It’s probably as British as Beef Stroganoff is Russian (okay, looking it up, it looks like the latter may be at least a bit of a myth, but it gets my point across).
I’m not disagreeing there. But were those British chefs who came up with it? And not chefs they brought back from places which Brits had conquered? Obviously no.
And, needless to say, tikka masala is about as far from modern English cuisine as you can get.
Well, they were British chefs with South Asian heritage who of course were indirectly here because of horrific Imperialism
But it is British, its very British. Despite what Farage and co want you to believe, we’re a multi-cultural nation and have been for centuries.
British-Indian cuisine is at this point distinct and diverse enough from traditional Indian cuisine that it is its own thing. And its super widespread - even the racists discuss how shitty they are over a curry
You know, this got my mind working for a bit. We have a similar phenomenon in the United States, where just about every ethnic cuisine is kind of a bastardized version of the more authentic dishes brought here by people emigrating from their home countries. American Chinese, Tex Mex, etc are all distinctly American but have clearly been inspired by their origin but modified for western tastes and sensibilities. It makes me wonder at what point a certain cuisine is considered to be a genuine and unique creation, rather than just something adopted from elsewhere by way of either conquest or cultural exchange? How many things do we associate with a particular nationality as being their specialty when that style of cooking or method of preparation or presentation were probably acquired along the way somewhere and forgotten with time? I guess it’s hard to know for sure.
But, more to my point: let’s say I walk into an English pub, and ask what they’ve got on the menu. How many times do you think they’ll tell me about the unseasoned fried fish, or the unseasoned fried potatoes, before they mention “oh and we’ve got chicken tikka masala”
Not exactly a national dish, in my opinion.
Don’t eat at a JD Wetherspoon, it’s basically McPub.
As I said in another comment, British cuisine basically had to be neutered during the wars due to extended rationing. People lived, but long-term damage was made. The best food here isn’t British, but British takes on foreign food.
If you’d like to make any suggestions especially in the south London area or Southampton I’d be happy to hear them.
If it’s not too late for your visit, the most renowned curry house in soton is Kutis. I used to live near the city rather than in it and found myself more often than not heading out to the new forest to find a country pub to go for nice meals.
It is not too late! Just a few more days.
I don’t know Southampton very well but I see there is a “The Pig…” there. I’ve been to one elsewhere and it was really good.
In terms of London, I’d say don’t limit yourself to the south, you’re never really more than 45 mins away from anywhere really. Brick Lane is a fun area, it’s kind of hipstery/street food/vintage clothing-y but also has two of my favourite places.
SMOKESTAK - one of the best things to actually survive the barbecue revolution a few years ago. Everything is smoked on premises, no take out.
Beigel Shop. This is one of (if not the) oldest bagel joints in London. It’s open 24/7, take out only, they only do three things (lox, chicken & salt beef). Have the salt beef with pickles and mustard, expect to queue, thank me later.
E. Thought Beigel was older, it’s only from the 70s. E2. Found it, it was next door. It’s from 1855, link updated
Awesome! I will make an effort to stop by the Beigel shop especially because my wife and I love bagels.
Awesome! I forgot to mention there’s a Dishoom round the corner from all the Brick Lane stuff, it’s all based on Bombay style food. They’re open for breakfast too, can highly recommend the breakfast keema, best cure for a hangover I’ve ever found.
Also, if you’re interested in the whole salt beef sandwich thing, The Brass Rail at Selfridges is a fucking institution. Pro tip: if you see a queue but there’s a few people hanging back, it means they’re just about to bring out a fresh load of brisket. Hold off until those folks swoop in.
Edit: actually you know what, have some more recommendations.
Literally any Hawksmoor, there are a few in London, they’re always in art deco spaces, but in unusual places - Air Street is in the arches over some of the biggest shops in London, just off Piccadilly circus. If you want to know what a proper roast looks like, go here. Beef cooked over charcoal, charged by weight.
The Quality Chop House - this is an old favourite. Chop houses used to be all over London, they were a kind of after work eatery for your average businessman. Drop in after work, hang your hat by the door, have a beer and a chop, at some point later remember you have family, stagger home etc. As far as I know, this is the only chop house that still exists that has the original Victorian setup - very, very narrow benches and extremely thin tables (eat up, then fuck off!), and the folks who took it on have maintained the tradition of cooking their chops over coals. I mention this specifically because they have “mince on toast” on the menu which is what the OOP is shitting on. It’s a very traditional dinner and this would be the best place to try it outside of home cooking. Also, their confit potatoes are incredible. Small plates, expect to share, if you’re going there at the weekend it will be empty because nobody actually lives in Farringdon. They also do pretty decent set menus on weekdays and there is a roast on Sundays!
I was in London for a week last year and I went to that exact Dishoom three times, twice for breakfast and once for dinner. Probably my favorite meals of that trip. Everything was delicious, and I ended up buying a tin of their chai so I could make it at home.
I can highly recommend their cookbook if you’re into cooking. Their chicken ruby is probably one of the greatest things I’ve ever put in my face.
They call it chicken ruby but it’s basically a butter chicken/tikka masala.
Did they forget to add the spices back in or something?
Like others have said, the war ‘locked in’ perceptions but there were years of supply shortages and government rationing of foodstuffs afterwards, ending in the early 50s.
Cookbooks were re-written at the time to emphasize economic meals like stews and soups that used a lot of vegetables you can grow in the garden and to use up scraps. Potatoes, leeks, and cabbage grew to feature much more heavily, meat was OUT as was sugar and most fruit… You try working varied and fun meals with those limits
So combined with the more ‘bland’ cuisine of the era and extensive rationing limitations, generations of households got used to cooking and eating the basic foods. Immigration and globalization has broadened the modern offerings, but the British classics’ are undeniably under spiced shades of grey and brown.
Also I imagine industrialization did a number even before the world wars. As I understand it a lot of Northern European recipes relied on certain styles of preservation that wouldnt be possible in say a London tenement. Hell just looking at my own families recipes from back during westward expansion it heavily emphasizes cured meats and foraged ingredients. Either that or harrassing Mexicans for spices.
