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The Dutch and British just took home the natives of their colonies as immigrants who opened restaurants. Why try to emulate when you can get the real deal?
And even better than that, they tailor their flavorful food for our palettes!
Fantastic.
100%
If I hear that an Indian restaurant locally has been busted by immigration, I immediately head round.
Also, the reason most British food is bland is because of rationing during WW2. People who grew up back then ate food which was made with limited resources and that was the food they felt nostalgic for and made for their children, who then went on to make it for their own children.
It’s a miracle the French still have good food then
France is (mostly) not an island and they weren’t besieged during WWII.
I’ve also heard that Britain rolling early with the Industrial Revolution meant that they got the big cities quicker and fed them with bland canned goods before they worked out the fresh goods logistics.
and they weren’t besieged during WWII.
Cheese eating surrender monkeys. Created a state of the art defence system but didn’t extend it across the gap where ‘the Germans will never invade through such rough terrain’ although they did before during WWI.
The British do too. Like we have to top five healthiest teeth in the world.
Americans need to stop confusing their memes foe actual knowledge and experience of the world.
rationing during WW2
Not just during but long after (well into the 1950s). People generally don’t understand that Britain literally bankrupted herself holding out against Germany, then got to watch as the former Axis powers rebounded faster than they did.
Less we bankrupted ourselves and more the Americans bankrupted us. America put a lot of effort in the early 20th century to undermining the influence of the BE and was far more concerned with building up west Germany as a barrier to the Soviets than they did with building back up allies like the UK and France.
Always felt that was a weak reasoning. Are there no recipe books from before the war that you can refer to and try to recreate?
People just tend to stick with what they know
The same reason you have all of human knowledge at your finger tips, yet only use the same tired joke over and over.
Boom. Roasted.
A common British cooking technique…
They just wanted control of the spices so they could sell it to everybody else.
A drug lord doesn’t take their own drugs
Don’t get high on your own supply
I wish someone would’ve told me this earlier. I got into it just wanting to make a little cash by selling that salt rock. Now look at me; I can’t even enjoy some chicken if doesn’t have at least 9 different herbs and spices.
He who controls the spice controls the universe.
DESERT POWER
In this thread: people that think spices = spicy
English is a very confusing language to have this conversation in.
Also using “hot” as a measure of how spicy it is and also using it to talk about the actual temperature of the food.
True, as a native English speaker, English sucks lol. There are a bunch of similar words but their meaning is different and they’re only to be used in certain contexts.
Yeah cloves and bay leaves are pretty common in old recipes. For example check out
https://blogs.transparent.com/dutch/recipe-the-oldest-dish-in-the-netherlands/
That recipe should come out like this https://miljuschka.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Frietje-zuurvlees-Daphne-Dekkers.jpg
Providing links to solidify the existence of two of them…
Legitimately, though: I listened to my sister tell her 4-year about “yummy spices” at Thanksgiving. The example she used was “like salt!” I was horrified.
She also made & brought the absolute worst green bean casserole I have ever tasted in my life. It was like wet, crunchy green beans covered in French-fried onions (which came from a can, which is why it’s pretty much the only thing she got right).
She used “no added salt/sodium” cream-of-mushroom soup, the green beans, and the canned fried onions, and added nothing else.
I love green bean casserole, as it’s one of my favorite Thanksgiving foods. Even offered to make it for everyone this year! But she insisted that she wanted to do it.
The only thing that was salty this Thanksgiving was me.
Right, how the fuck can onions be
french fried
and what the fuck kind of heathen buys fried onions in a can?!?!??!
Man… idk… it was all kinds of fucked up.
they’re basically onion rings cooled and sealed in a airtight container, https://www.amazon.com/Frenchs-French-Onions-Original-2-8-Ounce/dp/B000KOQDJI
Because 'MURICA!
she used was “like salt!”
Japanese?
Is this some weird stereotype that I’ve been privileged to never hear before?
Actually, don’t answer that. I just want to live in blissful ignorance.
Salt is just a major part of their cuisine/flavouring
It’s not exclusive to Japan if you’re worried about stereotypes but they tend to celebrate it more than other countries that look to burn your mouth off
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The best restaurants in the world are in London. Of course they don’t serve English food. The Brits just knew to bring the best stuff home.
I’ll remember that when I want to eat a sack of blood or a plate of liver.
You would if it was covered in butter and high fructose corn syrup
stop, my stomach can only get so erect
That weirdly applies to museums as well. The best museums in the world are in London. Of course, they don’t serve English stuff. The Brits just knew to bring the best stuff home.
Also, what do you call English food in other countries? Prison food.
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This is a subjective, but would be pretty universally laughed at in the culinary world especially when compared to France, Italy, Tokyo, or any American city.
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restaurants weren’t even prevalent until the early 1900s, way past the introduction of spices.
Outside of London the UK has a very low presence of Michelin rated restaurants compared to Europe, the US, and Japan. Not the best metric, but there’s no reason why Britain’s restaurants, who would stand to benefit from such rating, is being unfairly treated.
Btw I actually like British food, and have spent a lot of time in the UK. Just think your comment is funny, and the upvotes are funnier.
any American city
You just tried to slip that in there, hoping we wouldn’t notice
I get your point number one, but any American city better restaurants than London? You cannot seriously believe that. Sure, NY, Chicago, etc but common.
They probably mean any large/prominent American city comparable in size to London.
They are still wrong. London is up with the best you will find anywhere in the world. Even a lot of large US cities are a poorer substitute.
I can’t make an argument for or against that, because I’ve never been to London. I was just saying what I thought they meant 😊
It’s very, very subjective mate,
or any American city
is incredibly wrong from the culinary world’s point of view, I can assure you
I think DC and LA are about the only two cities in the top 20 worldwide if we’re talking culinary excellence
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You had access to the entire spice trade, WHY DIDNT YOU USE IT???
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True, my dad calls food “spicy” and breaks out in a sweat when I put black pepper on.
I recently discovered #16 black pepper. It truly can make things spicey. But table ground? Ha!
I know someone allergic to capsaicin. I’ve seen him eat the mildest salsa and turn red. He also sweats to black pepper. Maybe your father has a similar allergy.
What is “#16 black pepper?” Isn’t that just a grind size?
I didn’t know people used preground at home. Not any cheaper and tastes like actual dust. With a regular old pepper mill you can change that grind size easily. And no matter the grind size it doesn’t have the ability to make food “spicy” as in “hot.”
I grind my own pepper too, but #16 aka coarse ground is much larger pieces of ground pepper. #16 is the die size. You technically could grind it coarse yourself, but you’d have to sift it and only keep the bigger pieces. Here’s an example: Amazon Brand - Happy Belly Black Pepper, Coarse Ground, 18 Oz https://a.co/d/8e7AWHT But you should be able to find it at any big grocery store. I get it at Costco. It’s great for rubs and spicing up stuff just a bit. I think it’s the oil that remains in the course pieces as opposed to the smaller grind that allows the oil tooxidize quickly, which mutes the heat in the oil. I learned about it when I got into smoking meat. It’s used to crust a smoked brisket.
Black pepper is a spice, over using it can make things spicy
I’m British. Don’t put the Dutch in the same group as us. Our local ‘cuisine’ truly is a crime to food.
No, it isn’t. I have dined exceptionally well in the UK. Our Christmas dinner is based on an a recipe from an English cook. We have a Scottish cafe/diner in town which serves excellent food.
OK, I’ve dined horribly, too, but it is definitely not the norm - I made the mistake of ordering half a chicken in a fish and chips shop. My recommendation: Don’t repeat my mistake.
I’m Dutch, feel free to put us in the same group. They way we drown our potatoes in gravy absolutely is a crime against food.
Except it isn’t though. You have shitty fast food like the rest of the world, but we also have Michelin star restaurants too. This is just yet another excuse for people to be xenophobic to the British.
And there are loads of excuses already. No need to manufacture an extra one! I wonder how many Michelin star restaurants in the UK claim to serve traditional British food though.
But genuinely, does the rest of the world dislike fish and chips, roast dinners, fried breakfasts, and pies? I know the stereotype has been around forever but I always had trouble believing that most non British people wouldn’t really like those foods.
My understanding is a lot of them. The majority of restaurants in the Michelin guide certaintly are British cuisine. The stars, I’m not so sure. I would say there isn’t really any reason to be xenophobic or racist to anyone.
Yeah of course mate, it was a joke about how (historically) we’ve given people plenty of excuses to be.
What do you think tea is made of?
And let’s be real, the Brits gave up their own food in favor of Indian food. They love that Tikka masala.
If we’re to insist on it being a specific country’s food, it really should be Indian no? It was invented by Indian diaspora in the UK as (IIRC) a take on traditional Indian food using ingredients that are easier to obtain in the UK.
IMO saying tikka masala is British food is like saying General Tso’s Chicken, which was invented by Chinese diaspora in the US for similar reasons, is somehow American food. I don’t think the country it was invented in can really claim credit in either case.
Tikka Masala is an Indian-Inspired dish which was invented in the UK by people with Indian cultural heritage. That’s about as concise a description as you can get without running into difficulties of definition - there’s no consistent way of defining what “being a dish” means without running into contradictions.
In fact General Tso’s is the perfect counter-example: Multiple Chinese people have told me they enthusiastically disown General Tso’s Chicken and explicitly call it American food. So if we say “a dish belongs to a country if it’s invented there”, then Tikka Masala is British (which I agree “feels” wrong); but if we say “a dish belongs to a country if it was inspired by the cuisine of that country”, then General Tso’s is Chinese, which, apparently not!
And that’s without even considering the question of how far “back” you should go with inspiration - what if a dish was inspired by how the Indians used food they got from the Persians who traded it with the Chinese - is it Indian food or Chinese food? (Idk if that’s historically nonsense, but you get my point) Why is the most-recent ancestor more important than the environment of creation?
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I respectfully disagree with one major caveat. I’ll get that out of the way first; I think there should be a name for these foods that recognize the creators (e.g. Italian American food is American food that comes from Italian immigrants). We’ve traditionally been bad at giving credit or, worse, using names to mark a cuisine as “other” and weird.
The thing is that there really isn’t a food of a place. People use ingredients that are available and use techniques from the people around them. When cultures interact, they create remixes of cuisine that take unfamiliar ingredients and techniques and create something new.
Let me use the food of my own home, New Mexico, as an example. The food of the region is a mixture of Spanish colonizers, later Mexican immigrants, and Native American foods using a crazy combination of techniques and ingredients from all three. It isn’t Spanish food. It isn’t Mexican food. It isn’t Native American food. It is New Mexican food, a thing that arose from a place and its history. Now, with Asian immigrants moving in, the food has started to incorporate stuff from those cultures too.
Is deep dish pizza considered American, Italian, or culinary cancer?
This is quite the circlejerk.
The English have tikka masala, the Dutch have satay chicken.
They really did did Kill millions of people to get spices and then decide they didn’t like any of them.
Yanks on their way to just cover bland, mass produced shite in butter and salt so they can proclaim it “the gradest food in the wuuuurld”
to be honest, I dont know a single fellow american that thinks that “american food” (whatever that even means) is better than just about any other variety. Yet what you said is true nonetheless lmao
To that I say ‘what American food?’
Because there’s a massive difference in quality between a Big Mac and a Philly Cheesesteak
Very fair, and even from one cheesesteak to another
I don’t think Americans claim we have the greatest food in the world lol Cheap? Yes. Fast? Yes. BBQ? Yes!
Yeah we just kind of took food from other countries and made it worse lol
We made it cheap and fast and worse lol
