Photo Credit: Ndemello via www.pixabay.com
We are a nation of foodies. We love nothing more than sitting down to the table to enjoy some hearty grub with the people who are the most precious to us. Food is the great leveller. It unites us as a species and transcends boundaries of geography, race, culture, gender and religion. Sure, we may all have our individual culinary preferences. Of course, some of us can tolerate gluten better than others. And while meat, eggs and dairy products are anathema to some, there are others who don’[t consider a meal complete without them. The food we eat brings us closer to the people we love. It helps us to make new friends and catch up with old ones. It helps us to meet our health and fitness goals. It gives us familiarity and comfort when we need it while also presenting us with intrigue and challenge when we need that too.
A love of good food is both shared and fundamental. At a time when we’ve never felt more divided as a nation, good food is something that can unite us. Our food is as much of a British institution as queuing, tutting at the rain or apologising profusely. Yet, there are many strange myths that persist about British food. Myths that not only shape other cultures’ perception of our culinary habits but can also limit our perception of what a good British meal is.
After all, our culinary heritage is something to be proud of! Yet the myths and misconceptions about our culinary prowess have made us feel like we need to bow our heads in shame. Our nation’s capital alone has over 60 Michelin star restaurants. Many of which have more than one to their name. Whether you’re a proud vegan, a gluten-free gourmand or a voracious omnivore, our culinary repertoire has you covered. Let’s bust some British food myths that a disturbing number of people (both within the UK and elsewhere in the world) believe…
Our food is bland and boring
Did you ever wonder where the stereotype of British food being bland and boring came from? You may assume that this myth was perpetuated by American soldiers in Britain when rationing was par for the course and almost everything was boiled and absolutely everything was sparse, especially meat, dairy products and eggs. But the truth is that the roots of this stereotype go back even further to the Victorian era. Arguably one of the greatest periods of British cultural expansion, and an era that helped to define our relationship with the world around us in the time since.
Victorian Brits had surprisingly fussy attitudes towards foods, as historian Colin Spencer recounts in his book British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History. At this time, we as a nation became extremely image obsessed, a habit that crept into our food in all the wrong ways. We became terrified of raw foods leading to the misapprehension that all foods are overcooked. We also became disdainful of simplistic preparation methods and enamoured by the excess of French cuisine. But in our attempts to add more showmanship to our cuisine, we ended up neutering its taste.
Which is a shame, because for most of our history we’ve enjoyed a great reputation for food around the world. Since the middle ages we’ve been key players in the spice trade. We were exporting spices centuries before we ever exported Spice Girls. Buying and selling spices from all over the world, we’ve always been keen on using exotic spices and herbs to season our food. While our palates have certainly become more diverse in an era of multiculturalism, it would be a fallacy to assume that nothing more challenging than salt and pepper passed our lips in previous centuries. Indeed, mustard was once one of our most famous and desirable exports.
We’re addicted to take aways and fast food
Well, okay, there may be some truth to this. But in an era where the likes of Just Eat and Deliveroo have made it so easy to get restaurant quality food to our door. The temptation to let someone else take care of our cooking is understandable, especially in an era where we’re working longer hours than ever.
Yet, despite the fact that we have greater access to take aways, fast food and restaurants than ever, we’re actually more adept in the kitchen than some may believe. We’re not quite the nation of fast food junkies the tabloid headlines make us out to be. In fact, we spend more time in the kitchen than our French counterparts, despite the fact that they’re the ones who have the reputation for quality and passion in their food. A poll conducted by the BBC food mag Olive in conjunction with French magazine Madame Figaro determined that 50% of readers in the UK spent more than 30 minutes a night cooking, compared to only 27 percent of French readers who did the same.
As you might suspect, the amount of time we spend in the kitchen as increased considerably since the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, when access to food became more scarce and Brits needed to get creative in the kitchen. It’s estimated that 67% of us have been cooking more since we went into lockdown. And while the catering industry has now well and truly opened its doors, the evidence suggests that our newfound culinary habits are here to stay.
There’s no diversity in British cuisine
Honestly, you couldn’t make it up. Some people assume that boiled veggies and baked meats with the occasional chunk of battered cod thrown in for good measure. But our proud history of multiculturalism (and our less proud imperial history) have made our culinary vocabulary much more diverse and varied than many realise. Our favourite dish is a curry for Heaven’s sake. As a nation we have a palate that’s as richly diverse as our populace. Walk down any UK highstreet and you’ll likely come across a plethora of Chinese and Indian restaurants and takeaways, not to mention a handful of Italian pizzerias, a Spanish Tapas restaurant or two, and probably at least one Caribbean “jerk joint”. While franchise chains have started to dominate the high street and define our eating habits in recent years, we still enjoy a vast variety of foods and embrace ingredients, influences and cooking methodologies from all over the world.
Even our staple foods feature extraordinary diversity. For instance, did you know that Britain produces around 700 different kinds of cheese? That’s 100 more than our fromage-loving friends in France. According to statistics provided by the Financial Times, we both have more variants of cheese than our Saxon counterparts, but we produce more of it, too!
Our only quintessential meal is roast beef
When it comes to British food most people jump to either roast beef or fish and chips. But to sum up our entire culinary repertoire based on these two dishes is a bit like saying that there’s no Italian food outside of pizza and pasta. Sure, we all love to get together over a good roast, but while we’re famous for roast beef, for much of our history most of the populace couldn’t actually afford to eat it. Our reputation for roasts is actually attributable to us because throughout the 18th and 19th centuries we were world renowned for the breeding and export of cattle, rather than for our roasting and consumption of the animals we reared.
Still, there’s far more to our cuisine than roast beef, fish and chips, steak and kidney pudding and other stereotypical fare. Britishness has always been a work in progress. For millennia our culture has been shaped and influenced by others from the Vikings and Romans to India and the Caribbean. Though we may be a small country, each region has its own unique approach to cuisine based on the people who have come, gone and settled there over the centuries. From the Italian influences of the northeastern Parmo (a breaded chicken fillet smothered in bechamel sauce and parmesan cheese) to the Stargazy Pie (which has a distinctly Victorian taste for the theatrical) there’s more to British food than many give us credit for.
British food is gross to other palates
It’s true that we have a number of idiosyncratic foods in our culinary repertoire. Black pudding, jellied eels, periwinkles and even pease pudding might seem like a tough sell to some of our friends overseas. Yet, is there any nation on the planet that doesn’t have its delicacies that may seem strange to others. Even Brits who profess to love Chinese food may well balk at what many people actually eat in China (chicken’s feet anyone?). Rather than feeling embarrassed about the weird and wonderful aspects of our cuisine, we should embrace them. After all, without them we’d be eating nothing but roast beef and rice pudding, right?
Once you get past the myths, the misconceptions and our inherently self-deprecating nature it’s clear to see that we’ve done a lot to be proud of in the kitchen!