British food..... (home, buy, live in)

[southdown]

Since being away from the UK (now in Texas) I really miss lots of things to do with food and cooking, the shops mainly, and also good pub food - like a Ploughman's Lunch with a huge chunk of stilton and a pint of bitter.

Also would love a good curry, a freshly cooked kebab, a picnic of French bread, wine and cheese - not very British but part of our culture.

I have realised how little British food I actually cook at home - no roast dinners now it's 85 in the shade! And I haven't found a good-sized free-range chicken here yet to roast anyway...where are they?

Anyway, I'm rambling now, but wondered what people think of British food these days? I know it went through a bad time (over the last 1,000 years some would say!) but I think it's pretty good, and standards, variety, choice, quality are all climbing rapidly.

It certainly compares well to this part of the US, but it's not bad here either - don't get me wrong!!! Just wondered what you all think of 'British' food?

[RH1]

Originally Posted by southdown

Since being away from the UK (now in Texas) I really miss lots of things to do with food and cooking, the shops mainly, and also good pub food - like a Ploughman's Lunch with a huge chunk of stilton and a pint of bitter.

Also would love a good curry, a freshly cooked kebab, a picnic of French bread, wine and cheese - not very British but part of our culture.

I have realised how little British food I actually cook at home - no roast dinners now it's 85 in the shade! And I haven't found a good-sized free-range chicken here yet to roast anyway...where are they?

Anyway, I'm rambling now, but wondered what people think of British food these days? I know it went through a bad time (over the last 1,000 years some would say!) but I think it's pretty good, and standards, variety, choice, quality are all climbing rapidly.

It certainly compares well to this part of the US, but it's not bad here either - don't get me wrong!!! Just wondered what you all think of 'British' food?

I was brought up on the fairly boring sort of "some form of meat with potatoes and a couple of veg" diet, which I found pretty dull and escaped from as soon as I left home.

I like the odd roast dinner - my neighbour does a great roast beef and my OH does a really good roast chicken, but it's not something I often crave or bother to do myself.

I tend to veer towards Italian and Indian food by preference. Although the problem with Indian food is that it either takes you forever to make (unless you cook 8 gallons in bulk and have a BIG freezer!) or you get it from the takeaway and it makes you fat.

What I make at home tends to be very vague dishes with no one place of origin - usually some form of meat (like a chicken kiev) with some steamed veg. Or with sweet potatoes. Or I make "vegetable splat" (a vegan friend's term) and put it on a baked potato. I very rarely make definitive "English food." Quite apart from anything else, a lot of it is quite stodgy, so you wouldn't want it too often.

Some pies are OK.... Wow - look at my unreserved pride in my national dishes.... some pies are OK... lol

I think if I were in America I'd love the availability of good mexican food, but I don't like big steaks or ribs or anything like that... I'd definitely miss curry if you're missing curry!

[southdown]

We are the same here! Hardly anything 'English' gets cooked in my house!

We eat Italian pasta, risotto and pizza; Asian stir-fries, rice and noodles; Moroccan cous cous and stews etc - all non-British. A plain dinner of some chicken, meat or fish plus broccoli and carrots is our basic standard fare.

I guess some of the more special things I really like to cook are European/modern British, like seared lamb steaks on mustard mash, or lamb shanks in red wine, beetroot and feta salads, and 'fusion' stuff like sea bass with thai herbs.

[chilaili]

I miss steak & kidney pie! And sausage rolls. There is an English pub in Minneapolis that has those on the menu along with Scotch eggs and so on, but I don't live there any more. Other things I can actually buy here at a supermarket in Boulder like squash and custard. Sometimes I get a real craving for things like rice pudding altho, again, you can get it here. One thing I miss and can't find anywhere is black pudding. And do you find it's really hard to get the right ingredients for cooking English recipes?

[andreaspercheron]

My Mom was a Brit, I do miss her food and it helped that where we lived in Florida having a Scottish / British food store, they also carried refrigerated items. I still love the food, in fact, recently in Florida (Tampa) I found a store and they had a website where you can order food and they ship it overnight even the frozen foods! I was in heaven! I've ordered from them a couple of times, they were great and the food came the next afternoon. I love meat pies and all sorts of goodies!

[Debradearing]

When I visited Britain in 2004, I was introduced to sticky toffee pudding. YUM!! I made a point of ordering it in Epcot center in Orlando at the Rose and Crown since then. It was close but not the same. Neither are American Fish and Chips-I think you have to be there! But you can keep 2 things-stilton cheese and British Hot Dogs!! The hot dogs were purchased at a booth on the Thames, and both my husband and I threw them away after one bite. Everything else was great-Yorkshire pudding, venison, roast, etc. I can hardly wait to go back in 3 years to celebrate my retirement from teaching

[Jezer]

I did my best to educate Taxans to the delights of British food and recall tracking lamb down in Houston.

I went to a Lebanese shop which had Mexican speaking butchers and asking for neck filet of lamb.

British food can be great, you just need to know where to go which usually means avoiding the big chains that source their food centrally.

Round here in the New Forest there are some great places to either buy the ingredients or eat out.

[LINCOLNSHIRE]

Originally Posted by Jezer

British food can be great, you just need to know where to go which usually means avoiding the big chains that source their food centrally.

Round here in the New Forest there are some great places to either buy the ingredients or eat out.

Good point there Jezer.."British" food is too much of a generalisation. "British regional" food would make for a far better experience,,

[southdown]

Originally Posted by LINCOLNSHIRE

Good point there Jezer.."British" food is too much of a generalisation. "British regional" food would make for a far better experience,,

I live in Sussex (usually) and buy locally-sourced ingredients, but I don't think I could name a single regional Sussex dish! Shame on me....except Sussex Pond Pudding perhaps...tho I'm not too sure what it is

So I had to go and look it up - this looks useful... The Great British Kitchen (broken link)

where i found

Great British Cookbook - Sussex Pond Pudding which looks yummy

[Jezer]

Sussex Pond Pudding sounds awful but looks yummy!

Thanks for the other link BTW.

I was surprised and delighted for the village consortium that runs the pub to find that one of our locals has just had the accolade of the best for food in a pub in a National newspaper article- shame it will probably get more busy and the prices may go up.