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I was very pleasantly surprised by British food when we visited earlier this year, and I made it a point to order traditional foods as often as possible. I mean, why go to England and eat what I can eat at ethnic (or American style) restaurants in the States?
One big difference I noticed is that it seems that just about every dessert is called "pudding." I was amazed at the variety of "puddings" - which often weren't what we'd call puddings at all.
I had heard that traditional British foods were bland, but personally I liked them. To be fair, I'd also heard that many German foods were bland as well, and I like German foods too. And lest I am accused of simply liking "bland" foods, let the record show that two of my favorite food types are Korean and Vietnamese, and there's nothing bland about THOSE cuisines!
I really liked the various gravies and different types of Yorkshire puds that I had when visiting England. But my absolute favorite meal was fish and chips with mushy peas!
I never could get my head around beans for breakfast...but I shocked my husband by devouring black pudding nearly every morning for breakfast!
I hated Marmite though. BLECH!!!!
As for the bacon - we have the same sort of meat cut here in the US, but we don't call it bacon - we just call it ham. As for our bacon, I have always preferred (and always been able to buy in abundance here) thicker bacon anyway. It's very common here. Bacon of any sort is pretty dang good.
As for sausages, yes, British sausages are very good. But keep in mind that I am from Cajun country in the US - and Cajuns make fabulous sausages as well...different but definitely not inferior. I also live in an area that is greatly influenced by Germans as well, and they make a mean sausage. So...I didn't feel that British sausages were superior to any I can get easily at home, though they were definitely good.
Finally, milk products: Yes, UK milk products are terrific. However, at home in east Texas I have easy access to organic and very fresh (with cream intact) milk and milk products. They're fabulous. In fact, I've made my own butter before and it's terrific. So yes, I do appreciate good dairy products, which the UK offers - I'm spoiled that way. Germans also have fabulous dairy products, on a par with UK and US (specialty/loca/organic/not mass produced) products. Keep in mind that mass produced milk/dairy products in the US have to have a longer shelf life due to the vast size of the market, so they are more processed and altered. However, very good and very fresh dairy products from local sources are often available and they're every bit as good as UK products.
My personal opinion is that UK food is very good overall. Loved the big full English breakfasts. Loved the traditional foods I tried, for the most part. I think you have great milk products, though to be fair I can get some fabulous domestic and imported butters and cheeses and creams here - even clotted cream (from England - LOL). I don't drink highly processed milk here - the milk I drink is barely pasturized (lowest possible temps for the shortest possible time) and still has the cream on top, so it's hard to beat. Your sausages are very good.
My grandmother's side of the family is very Scottish when it comes to cooking styles and dishes (she was a Kirkpatrick and apparently even though her family had been in the US for several generations they had kept a lot of cooking traditions from the Old Country fairly intact). So many of the dishes seemed familiar to me anyway, especially the beef and cabbage dishes. They had a very hearty, "down home" taste to them. Yum.
One more thing - I was very pleasantly surprised at the desserts. Having lived in Germany for several years, I was half expecting the desserts to be more along the lines of German desserts - delicious in their own way but not all that sweet sometimes. The desserts I ate in the UK tasted very much like the desserts I'm used to from the US - sweeter than German desserts and with less whipped cream and pastry stuff - more cakes and bread like (and pudding like!) in many cases.
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 11-06-2013 at 03:19 PM..
It's a shame that the better types of bacon, sausage and dairy products are not more widely available.
I will add that it's difficult to beat a Texan barbeque. I love slow cooked brisket with sauce in a roll.
Yum!
Thankfully we have seen a resurgence of better breads (fresh, baked daily, without preservatives) in many higher end grocery stores as well as independent bakeries. Prior to this fairly recent development, I absolutely HATED American breads and rolls, mass produced and all soft and tasteless. Now in many markets (and I live in a smaller market so I'm assuming it's pretty common), we have fresh bakery products available, and that's a huge improvement over, say, ten years ago.
As for the dairy products in the US, one has to know where to look for them. Most areas (other than very rural areas) have organic grocery stores and sources for better dairy products and you can also find them in high end or very large grocery stores, but options are limited for people in small markets or who only shop at WalMart or some other national chain stores. If I had to confine my grocery shopping to Wal Mart I'd be pretty depressed!
Jam Roly-Poly (made with suet) and custard was the best thing about school dinners by a million miles. It was the only thing that made school dinners worth having.
But I've been vegetarian since I was 16 (now 45) so I never really went in for the traditional Sunday Roast or traditional dinners that everyone else ate in Britain ie meat with two or three vegetables and gravy.
My mother got into what were thought of as 'exotic' dinners back then (in the 70's) from very early on like spaghetti or curry dishes. She wasn't really a meat eater either.
So in answer to the OP, no I've never really been into old school British food.
I love Marmite though. Could not live without it. It was the first thing I went looking for when I arrived in the US.
I was very pleasantly surprised by British food when we visited earlier this year, and I made it a point to order traditional foods as often as possible. I mean, why go to England and eat what I can eat at ethnic (or American style) restaurants in the States?
One big difference I noticed is that it seems that just about every dessert is called "pudding." I was amazed at the variety of "puddings" - which often weren't what we'd call puddings at all.
I had heard that traditional British foods were bland, but personally I liked them. To be fair, I'd also heard that many German foods were bland as well, and I like German foods too. And lest I am accused of simply liking "bland" foods, let the record show that two of my favorite food types are Korean and Vietnamese, and there's nothing bland about THOSE cuisines!
I really liked the various gravies and different types of Yorkshire puds that I had when visiting England. But my absolute favorite meal was fish and chips with mushy peas!
I never could get my head around beans for breakfast...but I shocked my husband by devouring black pudding nearly every morning for breakfast!
I hated Marmite though. BLECH!!!!
As for the bacon - we have the same sort of meat cut here in the US, but we don't call it bacon - we just call it ham. As for our bacon, I have always preferred (and always been able to buy in abundance here) thicker bacon anyway. It's very common here. Bacon of any sort is pretty dang good.
As for sausages, yes, British sausages are very good. But keep in mind that I am from Cajun country in the US - and Cajuns make fabulous sausages as well...different but definitely not inferior. I also live in an area that is greatly influenced by Germans as well, and they make a mean sausage. So...I didn't feel that British sausages were superior to any I can get easily at home, though they were definitely good.
Finally, milk products: Yes, UK milk products are terrific. However, at home in east Texas I have easy access to organic and very fresh (with cream intact) milk and milk products. They're fabulous. In fact, I've made my own butter before and it's terrific. So yes, I do appreciate good dairy products, which the UK offers - I'm spoiled that way. Germans also have fabulous dairy products, on a par with UK and US (specialty/loca/organic/not mass produced) products. Keep in mind that mass produced milk/dairy products in the US have to have a longer shelf life due to the vast size of the market, so they are more processed and altered. However, very good and very fresh dairy products from local sources are often available and they're every bit as good as UK products.
My personal opinion is that UK food is very good overall. Loved the big full English breakfasts. Loved the traditional foods I tried, for the most part. I think you have great milk products, though to be fair I can get some fabulous domestic and imported butters and cheeses and creams here - even clotted cream (from England - LOL). I don't drink highly processed milk here - the milk I drink is barely pasturized (lowest possible temps for the shortest possible time) and still has the cream on top, so it's hard to beat. Your sausages are very good.
My grandmother's side of the family is very Scottish when it comes to cooking styles and dishes (she was a Kirkpatrick and apparently even though her family had been in the US for several generations they had kept a lot of cooking traditions from the Old Country fairly intact). So many of the dishes seemed familiar to me anyway, especially the beef and cabbage dishes. They had a very hearty, "down home" taste to them. Yum.
One more thing - I was very pleasantly surprised at the desserts. Having lived in Germany for several years, I was half expecting the desserts to be more along the lines of German desserts - delicious in their own way but not all that sweet sometimes. The desserts I ate in the UK tasted very much like the desserts I'm used to from the US - sweeter than German desserts and with less whipped cream and pastry stuff - more cakes and bread like (and pudding like!) in many cases.
I always have to remind my mother, when she visits here, not to ask for pudding after a meal because it will only confuse the poor waitress . It's "dessert"! Pudding is really just a generic term in the UK.
LOVE black pudding - you just can't get it here. Marmite is the food of the devil and Cumberland sausages are the best in the world!!!
We have an "olde Englishe pub" in downtown Denver where they serve raspberry trifle - will have to check that out sometime soon.
I always have to remind my mother, when she visits here, not to ask for pudding after a meal because it will only confuse the poor waitress . It's "dessert"! Pudding is really just a generic term in the UK.
LOVE black pudding - you just can't get it here. Marmite is the food of the devil and Cumberland sausages are the best in the world!!!
We have an "olde Englishe pub" in downtown Denver where they serve raspberry trifle - will have to check that out sometime soon.
We have an English tea room in Shreveport, LA (not far from me in East Texas) and they have some delicious trifles and "puddings" as well as a nice assortment of teas. I take my little grandchildren there sometimes. They really like it. Oh, they also serve a nice tea with traditional finger sandwiches. We just don't generally do the afternoon tea thing here, but it would be a nice tradition to start! I do see more and more Americans drinking tea throughout the day though. I think it's a booming market here. Nice tradition to import - now if we could just get the hang of the cookies (biscuits ) or sandwiches or cakes as well, we'd be set!
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. It's "dessert"! Pudding is really just a generic term in the UK.
