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I think Rick Stein is my favourite British Celebrity chef, he has a number of seafood restaurants on the South Coast of England including his famous restaurant in Padstwow in Cornwall.
One of Stein prodiges Nathan Outlaw has also built up quite a reputation and has a restaurant in Port Issac in Cornwall which has two michelin stars as well as other restaurants in London and Dubai.
I go to the links and they dont post their full menus, only a sample. That seems to be a trend with some British restaurants.
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Originally Posted by blazerj
Yup, the race/ ethnicity/ origin of a chef determines what they can cook!
I am talking about the food they develop themselves in isolation from others.
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Originally Posted by GeoffD
My paternal grandparents were born in England. Their cuisine was incredibly boring. I'm from metro Boston which inherited that incredibly boring cuisine. In 1960, "dining" in Boston was comparable to the UK. The difference being that the UK had much more Indian and Hong Kong influence and alternatives. Fast forward 60 years and Boston cuisine is a fusion of global cuisines just like the UK. Other than pub fare, you have to work at it to find much in the way of traditional "English cuisine" anywhere I've been in the UK recently outside of pubs.
Boston has long been known for seafood. I think the lobster becoming popular first happened in Boston. Lobster used to be seen as poor man's food, but no is a delicacy.
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Originally Posted by eureka1
I've been visiting the UK since 1994 and I found the food is like everywhere else- you get what you pay for.I love British food, especially the breakfasts.
Britain has some really daft items like Chip Butty which is french fries sandwiched in bread, or the famed toast and beans. But I do feel the full english breakfast looks extremely hardy and savoury. Always wanted to try.
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Originally Posted by Retriever
The most relevant question, of course, is...
How often have you visited The UK?
I have been to the other side of the pond on a regular basis since 1977, and I can tell you that the quality of their restaurant cuisine has markedly improved since then. Then again, the type of restaurant that I can afford to patronize has risen steadily in ensuing decades.
Translation: There has always been excellent quality food in The UK, for those who can afford it, and for those who can only afford to patronize low-end restos, the quality might still be lacking.
To put it in terms that you can probably identify with... Do you consider "diner food" to be good?
If so, even the lowliest pub's food will make you happy.
On the other hand, if you--like me--commonly dine at the top-rated restaurants in NJ, then you would need to seek the top-rated restos in The UK. You get what you pay for...
+1
I used to work with a lummox who asked me, "How do you deal with the constant rain and the constant fog in London?".
I informed him that, out of 5 visits to London at that point, I had only needed to resort to an umbrella on one occasion--for a few hours--and that I had never encountered fog.
The moral of the story, I suppose, is that low-information people who rely on outdated stereotypes, and who never venture overseas, have a very distorted concept of almost everything outside of their own little cocoon.
But are the high quality restos of English style or French?
I actually do find Diner food to be pretty good. I will not say it is low end. If anything it is middle to high especially some diners. Some of their items can be pricey.
Diners are quite impressive when you consider the extensive menu, and the quality they consistently produce, if you go to the right diner.
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Originally Posted by goldenwings
I remember going to London in 1985 and it was the worst food I ever encountered.....meat pies and things which tasted awful. Finally got to get a home cooked meal there at a friend's house! Also ate at Hard Rock cafe just to get something familiar. Yes- the food has improved tremendously!
That is actually what I have heard. Pub food being just fried dough, and sausages or some meat covered in battered and fried.
A lot of anti-British food sentiment is simple continental snobbery that has been adopted by some Americans.
I really like traditional British food, from country and traditional dishes like lamb with mint sauce and Sunday roasts, to pub fare, pies, and English breakfast, to your basic chipshop offerings.
Root veg and other vegetables in crusts, sausage rolls and other 'meat in pastry' from the prosaic toad-in-the-hole to the vaunted Beef Wellington, jams and cream, *******, all kinds of game and fish, various puddings, and so on.
To many, they may seem like comfort food at best, but I find most English (and Scottish) dishes really hit the spot. Hearty food that suits the environment and speaks to the land it comes from.
I draw the line at jellied eels, though ;-) j/k, pile on the mushy peas!
edit: the censored dish is named for a bundle of sticks one keeps by the fireplace to revive the coals and produce a gay flame.
And adding to the tableau of food in Britain are the contributions of Indian/Pakistani and Chinese cuisines, the versions of which would be very familiar to Americans. ("Americanized" Indian and Chinese food is very much the same as "Britishized" Indian and Chinese food)
You can eat very well in the UK. Sadly, something I hear often is 'You can eat well in the UK if you stick to Indian and Chinese', but in my opinion it would be a shame, and a loss, to discount the traditional British dishes by limiting oneself to chicken tikka masala and onion bhajis.
edit: the censored dish is named for the bundles of sticks one keeps next to the fireplace to throw on the coals and revive the gay flames.
Does England actually have a widely available and bountiful supply of game animals? Is a densely populated and small island. I figure much of the native fauna has been extirpated except in places like the Highlands of Scotland and very rural Ireland or Wales.
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Originally Posted by NJ Brazen_3133
I have never heard this before. British mixed with German. Well I guess most of our people are of British, or Germanic descent. But in the New World, more kinds of foods are readily available. I have heard the Americans ate better during the 1800, and 1900 than their Euro counterparts. America was the breadbasket of the world.
But I dont really see any toad in the hole, fish and chips, herring, sauerbraten, or the many sausages (besides frankfurters) eaten here in the US and Canada. Well ok we have pretzels. Americans also eat pork chops, and breaded cutlets. Is that from Britain or Germany? I know Germany has lots of schnitzels
Do hamburgers, sandwiches, cold cut deli meats, and steaks come from Britain or Germany?
I did not know tikka masala was invented in Britain. Was it by an immigrant or a native Brit? What other staples dishes like Corn Beef and Cabbage do they have? Is Kedgeree indigenous?
Fish and chips can only be so good though. I have always wanted to try a roast. Is it basically the same thing as American Prime Rib roasts?
Come to think of it, yes there is really no "American" cuisine unless you talk about the native americans. America/Canada is made up of immigrants. I think on Mexico, and Latin American has a strong indigenous influence.
America/Canada is largely Euro migrants, and they brought over their foods. Well, there is Southern BBQ. And I am not sure, but big steaks, burgers, maybe club sandwiches, NYC/Chicago Pizza, lobster are perhaps American creations.
I'm a Boomer. I well remember what people ate in the 50s and 60s. While a friend whose family was Polish would occasionally have some sort of Polish food, average people had food that you could trace back to food that was of English &/or germanic origin. Where do you think that hot dogs came from? Certainly not the French. Even regional foods fall into that category. Take the ever-present scrapple of Philadelphia. It comes from the Amish farmers. One of my best friends looked forward to mashed turnips on Thanksgiving.
No toad in a hole? How about pigs in a blanket? Find some 1950 era cookbooks. My mother's 1949 Betty Crocker cookbook had spaghetti sauce recipes. Not a pinch of basil to be found. I didn't say that American food is English and German, but that's where the roots are. Then immigrants brought their food and added to it.
When was the last time you saw an English restaurant opening in the US? I've never seen one yet.
Arthur Treachers, I wish there were more. Hush puppies, and fish and chips. When I a kid, my parents take me to the Paramus Park Mall in NJ, and the best part was going to the cafeteria. It was a smorgasbord of fast foods.
And some where good quality. There was this place called Idaho Potatoes. It was potatoes with sour cream, chives, cheese, and bacon, etc etc.
So there you have it, quite a few posts on here from people that have probably never been within 1000 miles of the UK perpetuating the (like I said quite frankly stupid) stereotypical myths. To be fair though its not just (some) Americans that are guilty of this, if anything our European 'friends' are even worse!
Arthur Treachers, I wish there were more. Hush puppies, and fish and chips. When I a kid, my parents take me to the Paramus Park Mall in NJ, and the best part was going to the cafeteria. It was a smorgasbord of fast foods.
Hush puppies are a southern US dish.
There are apparently a few outposts of this chain still, all in Ohio or New York. A look at the menu online suggests that also offer things like chicken sandwiches, hamburgers, fried seafood, and chicken and chips, also not considered typical English fare.
Also saw mention that their primary competitors would be places like Long John Silver’s, which doesn’t strike me as English. I think it’s the name of the franchise (named for a once famous UK actor) and the presence of fish and chips on the menu that give the chain any claim to an English tie. Which strikes me as tenuous, actually.
Does England actually have a widely available and bountiful supply of game animals? Is a densely populated and small island. I figure much of the native fauna has been extirpated except in places like the Highlands of Scotland and very rural Ireland or Wales.
Yes, they do have some. Game birds include grouse, quail, and partridge. Game animals include deer, hare, and rabbit. It gets eaten on occasion in homes or in restaurants that specialize in it (Rules, in London's Covent Garden area, is one that has it sometimes).
Whether that fits your definition of "widely/bountiful" or not, I can't say.
My paternal grandparents were born in England. Their cuisine was incredibly boring. I'm from metro Boston which inherited that incredibly boring cuisine. In 1960, "dining" in Boston was comparable to the UK. The difference being that the UK had much more Indian and Hong Kong influence and alternatives. Fast forward 60 years and Boston cuisine is a fusion of global cuisines just like the UK. Other than pub fare, you have to work at it to find much in the way of traditional "English cuisine" anywhere I've been in the UK recently outside of pubs.
Actually, dining in the US in general (except for those areas with regional specialties) wasn't especially adventurous back then. Most Boston area restaurants pretty much offered the same thing at the time: steaks, chops, classic chicken dishes, standard seafood dishes, a few nods to Americanized Italian cuisine. This place on the North Shore, apparently still in business, was pretty typical of the era:
The primary exceptions that I remember were Italian places (usually very Americanized: spaghetti and meatballs, veal parmesan, antipasto salads, sometimes also pizza) or Polynesian-style Chinese places (again, fairly Americanized: sweet and sour, egg foo yung, pu-pu platters).
Boston had/has a specialty in seafood that many other areas didn't: things like scrod and steamed clams are and were area-specific.
There's also classic Yankee style cooking that included things like pot roast, crock baked beans, Indian pudding, and coffee jello. The best of these was the just recently closed Durgin-Park. Union Oyster House still serves this stuff up but not in any sort of distinguished fashion.
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