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.
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.
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?
The same reason you have all of human knowledge at your finger tips, yet only use the same tired joke over and over.
Fucks me up as a German, too. Globalization gave us all kinds of tasty spices, but go to any public event and you'd be convinced our greatest culinary achievement is sausage with tomato ketchup and curry powder.
Curry, you said it yourself, a very exotic spice mix!
Was möchten Sie denn sonst noch Sie Schnösel?
I agree there. German food is very...white. That is simply the best descriptor.
As an American, going to any German-themed public event (read: Oktoberfest and uhh... that's about it) convinces me that your greatest culinary achievement is sausage with mustard and sauerkraut. Not too shabby, TBH.
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.
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.
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.
I'll remember that when I want to eat a sack of blood or a plate of liver.
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.
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.
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
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.
You had access to the entire spice trade, WHY DIDNT YOU USE IT???
Never been to a British supermarket
I'm British. Don't put the Dutch in the same group as us. Our local 'cuisine' truly is a crime to food.
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?
Dunno, have you ever had a curry in Birmingham on the mile?
I went with two American colleagues and one of them couldn't finish his 'medium' heat dish because they said it was too spicy.
That may be so, but curry isn't exactly a real British dish. It's Indian food.
Careful, that's like saying that the guy who made it, who was born in the UK isn't really British either.
Pretty much all food is imported.
As someone else mentioned. The Tikka Masala was invented in Britain.
Italian pizza, the most Italian of dishes, didn't exist until America was 'discovered' and tomatoes brought back from the new world.
Same with the Irish and potatoes.
Most curries you can get in the UK were invented there.
As a quick rule of thumb, if it looks like it has gravy or thick sauce someone from India wouldn't recognise it
What?
Mate, we've been making gravys and thick sauces before the Brits came along. Especially people in coastal regions who use coconut in nearly everything.
We are talking about importing spices to use them in the country. It doesn't even matter where the cook is from. Even the most Indian guy can't prepare an Indian meal without the ingredients
It's almost like, in such a huge country, there exist people with different tastes.
I, an American, went to India once. The hotel restaurant had a breakfast buffet. On one side was a glorious Indian spread. The other was some nauseating English breakfast spread, with like baked beans (that's for summer BBQs not breakfast!).
Anyway me and my buddy head straight to the good side, when the hotel staff woman came running over to warn us that it was too spicy. She gently walked us to the gross English food. We confirmed with her, numerous times, that the Indian food was very spicy. We then dug in on the eatible food (the Indian side) and made a friend with the hotel staff lady.
It was somewhat spicy, but amazing.
Some Americans think black pepper is too spicy, some eat ghost peppers as a light snack, I am in between.
It's almost like, in such a huge country, there exist people with different tastes.
followed up by
The other was some nauseating English breakfast spread, with like baked beans (that's for summer BBQs not breakfast!).
I really hope that's irony
This is quite the circlejerk.
They really did did Kill millions of people to get spices and then decide they didn't like any of them.
Theres a lot of great dutch food! I will defend pannenkoek, stampot, oliebollen, Gouda, spekkoek, krokets, poffertjes, stroopwafel... hell, I love pickled herring.
Dutch food is very underrated!
They might have had good foods when they looted. Paying for good stuff is not what they do.
What about Dutch pancakes? Your choice of toppings, covered in syrup. Divine.
Dutch and British food isn’t bad, unless your a yank that only eats things pumped full of sugar.
No we asked mainland Europe and they agreed.
