• hOrni@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Depends on who’s asking. If an American… They shouldn’t even ask. For them “bad food” is just “food”.

    • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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      4 days ago

      Oh please. The US has many problems, and there are food deserts to be sure — but go to a first class US city and you’ll find great food.

      • Eq0@literature.cafe
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        4 days ago

        What I read is “US is big enough that if you search long enough you find good food”. Overall, a random US restaurant will be a fairly forgettable experience

      • MelonYellow@piefed.ca
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        4 days ago

        Gotta go where the fresh immigrants concentrate lol. Personally, LA is my food mecca. I’m a sucker for good authentic Asian/Indian/Mexican food. Gimmie all that spice!

        • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          LA is the only place you can wake up, have authentic jianbing for breakfast, go down the street for some authentic tamales for lunch, and around the corner for some authentic sushi for dinner.

          And then when you get tired of authentic, you can take advantage of all the blended culture. Bulgogi tacos, curry spaghetti, pizza baos, etc.

          I haven’t had many opportunities to visit, but dear god the food was beyond words.

    • Corn@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      L take. It might be poison, but the average food is definitely better than average Euro food north of Italy.

      We have nothing on Mexico/SA or any Asian countries tho.

    • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Oh good lord. I looked it up:

      Stargazy pie (also starry-gazy pie, starry-gaze pie)[1] is a Cornish dish made of baked pilchards (sardines), along with eggs and potatoes, covered with a pastry crust. Although there are a few variations using other types of fish, the unique feature of stargazy pie is fish heads (and sometimes tails) protruding through the crust, so that they appear to be gazing to the stars.

  • binarytobis@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I sometimes wonder after the unusually high number of “British people try X food for the first time and are blown away” videos.

    Then I started watching Great British Bake-Off, and it’s clear there’s some damn good food somewhere over there. The number of times I’ve envied Sue Perkins her taste testing job is extreme.

  • Baron Von J@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Shepherd’s Pie (with beef, though, I only like lamb in gyros, and only then when it’s a blend with beef), minced meat pies, good chicken pot pie, and Yorkshire puddings are all great. Bangers and mash with the right sausage is great. Fish and Chips are generally great but the flavor and texture of the batter can vary significantly.

  • Denjin@feddit.uk
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    4 days ago

    Thanks to successive waves of immigration in the 20th century from India, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Africa, China and others we actually have a pretty diverse and vibrant food culture.

    Sadly a lot is still dominated by roast dinners and meat and two veg (one of those veg is always potato) but go to any major city and you’ll likely find excellent quality restaurants from pretty much every culture on earth.

    • PoopBuffet@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Sounds like you have had some shit roast dinners. A good roast dinner is amazing. I love all the foreign foods we have access to now as well, but our traditional cooking gets a lot of shit when really it’s just bad cooks. Although we do also have stuff like jellied eels and mushy peas, so I’m not saying it’s all good…

      • anytimesoon@piefed.social
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        23 hours ago

        I lived in the UK for a long time. My experience there a was that a good roast dinner is quite nice, but difficult to find. And when you do find one, it’s very expensive. This is something I found very odd. In most other countries, popular foods like this tend to be everywhere at a decent price.

        And like you said, the variety of food available in the UK is great. I used to be able to find some pretty obscure ingredients for Asian/Mexican/whatever cuisine in any normal supermarket.

      • Denjin@feddit.uk
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        4 days ago

        I love a roast, it’s one of my favourite meals, but a shit roast is proper shit.

    • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Thanks to successive waves of immigration in the 20th century from India, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Africa, China and others we actually have a pretty diverse and vibrant food culture.

      OK, but the idea is that it’s the indigenous food that represents the place in question. The Indian (subcontinent), Caribbean, African, Chinese, etc cuisines count as the food culture of those places, not british food culture.

      Don’t be like germans who are stupidly deluded enough to say “The döner was invented in germany” , when , no, it wasn’t invented in germany, it was invented in the ottoman empire. Also, Hans isn’t out back in the kebab shop busting his ass making that gigantic log of meat, it’s Ahmet. If you want to argue that derived foods that are based on local ingredients are part of the food culture of that place, that’s a more interesting debate that isn’t cut and dry; no one is selling kapsolon made with gouda cheese in İstanbul, nor are they making Tacos al Pastor with pork and pineapples.

      British food is good. Kinda simple, but good. Just not legendary. It’s like a more mid version of itallian food; relies too much on fat and carbs and meat to feel delicious and satisfying, instead of advanced techniques or “just right” spice blends.

      • Denjin@feddit.uk
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        3 days ago

        My point is that those immigrant communities have brought their food and their culture with them and they’ve created fusion dishes that have created a unique food culture, one that has itself been exported back abroad. Like I’ve said elsewhere, most of the dishes people associate with Indian food were actually created in Indian restaurants in Britain.

        If only indigenous food counted, American cuisine is hominy and fry bread and Indian food is lentils.

        • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Like I’ve said elsewhere, most of the dishes people associate with Indian food were actually created in Indian restaurants in Britain.

          the absolute arrogance of this statement. Disgusting.

          • Denjin@feddit.uk
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            3 days ago

            Lol, do some research. Tikka Masala, Balti, Korma, Butter Chicken, poppadoms, chutneys, all invented in British Indian restaurants.

            I make no personal claim to any of them so how can it be arrogant at all.

            • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              Onto what, an Indian guy slightly changing the recipe for a curry leading the brits claiming that any curry served outside of india is based off the tikka masala? Get your own fucking cuisine to export you lazy gits.

              EDIT: Here’s his original bullshit :

              • Denjin@feddit.uk
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                2 days ago

                Quite why you felt the need to attempt to call out my edit is beyond me, since I didn’t remove anything from the original, it’s just clear that critical thinking is somewhat beyond you and so in thought I’d save you the difficulty of doing even 30 seconds of reading and gave you some examples.

              • Denjin@feddit.uk
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                3 days ago

                If you’re not prepared to actually have a civil conversation, kindly fuck off you idiot.

                • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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                  3 days ago

                  No. The train was an indian invention, the reason countries except for britain and india have trains is because they are adapting to the mass transit ideas that are indian.

      • Kushan@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Fuck grandma, my roast dinners are an event. Got my roastie game en point, my yorkies are crispy and all the trimmings are standard. Plus the gravy, not to brag, will make you jizz your pants its that good.

          • Kushan@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Honestly, beef wellington isn’t bad or anything but it’s definitely overrated. Don’t bother trying to make one, just find one at a restaurant and wonder what the fuss was about.

        • supamanc@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          See, gravy is so easy - meat juice, stock, bit of balsamic - I think how can you fuck this up? Then you get gravy litteraly in any commercial setting, and… urgh…

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          4 days ago

          Totally unrelated, but you made me question if the phrase is supposed to be “en pointe” like ballet or “on point.” after a little research, I’m guessing it’s “on point” but it seems like the etymology could be from ballet potentially, but it sounds like it isn’t likely. At the end of the day, it means exactly the same thing so it doesn’t really matter. I do find it funny you used “en point” instead of “en pointe” though. Halfway between the two I guess. Lol.

          • Kushan@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Honestly, getting it wrong in either sense might be the most British thing I’ve ever done.

    • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social
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      4 days ago

      I went eating at an Italian restaurant in, I don’t know, somewhere in the Highlands, and I haven’t been aware that it was run by Scottish people, including the kitchen. Our trip had many highlights and was really cool all in all, but that food has to be the deepest trench we had to pass through.

  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 days ago

    I don’t remember where I heard/read it first, but someone said that the British eat like they’re still going through the blitz. I thought that was hilarious, and it seemed true.

  • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I had bangers and mash once because a family member made it. It was super good. She told me she couldn’t get proper bangers and had to substitute with some other sausage. (Don’t remember which) I presume that if she used proper bangers it would have been gross.

  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    I think the problem is that after the Second World War, Britain’s economy was so shot to hell that folks had to keep eating like the Luftwaffe was still blitzing London. That kept going on long enough to introduce generational trauma into British cuisine.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      folks had to keep eating like the Luftwaffe was still blitzing London

      To be more precise, they had to keep eating like the Kriegsmarine’s U-bootwaffe was still sinking the ships with the food.

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          4 days ago

          They quite literally did, Britain and France nearly merged their economies it was so bad. While the London blitz is the most well known part of the bombing campaign it was actually the end of it, early on the Germans were specifically bombing factories and agricultural infrastructure like say granaries.

          Reminder Great Britain itself isn’t that big while still having a massive population, even while exploiting their colonies they were still massively hurting. Also converting their economy from a wartime one back to a civil one was slow as dick.

        • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
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          3 days ago

          About 65,000 tonnes of munitions were dumped on Britain during WW2 by the Luftwaffe - they did more than break a few windows with all that.

    • hraegsvelmir@ani.social
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      4 days ago

      To me, another be part of it is that the British seem to have an awful penchant for giving delicious things names that sound like Victorian euphemisms for something awful. Spotted dick and toad in the hole sound like they would be ways for Victorians to talk about their STIs, and I’m unsure what exactly Gentleman’s Relish would mean, but it strikes me as some sort of medieval form of punishment on the peasants.

      • Wolf@lemmy.today
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        3 days ago

        Toad in the hole

        My mom made these all the time when I was growing up, but she called them “Egg in a basket” 🥚 🧺. Sounds a lot nicer than “Toad in the hole”. 🐸 🕳️

        I had grown up calling it that it would probably seem normal to me though.

  • RedFrank24@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Nah, British are kings of pastries, pies and cakes. Also don’t underestimate British cheeses. Cheddar cheese is the most popular cheese in the world, and where was it made? Britain. Then there’s stuff like Stilton, Wensleydale, and while Somerset Brie is really just a variant of Brie, it’s still really nice.

    That’s not even digging into the various curries that gained their current forms in Britain, mainly by British Indians, who are just as British as any other.