English food English food has a bad reputation. The only dish recommended to foreign tourists is cream tea. Unfortunately, nobody can eat three cream teas a day. In fact, it is easy to eat very well in England. Supermarkets are full of produce from every continent. London is one of the best places to eat out in the world. The thing is, none of this food is English. It is Italian, Indian, Chinese, Arabian, Thai, Spanish, Mexican, but never English. To understand the English, you have to understand our attitude to food. Rich young professionals proudly eat foreign food all the time. But everyone else, the real English people, proudly eat only English food. Why? Because English food is like our weather. It is dull, grey and wet, but it is ours. English people on holiday in Spain grow tired of the sun and long for drizzle. In the same way, English people eating delicious Mediterranean salad and pasta can't wait to get back to tasteless mashed vegetables, plastic sausages and transparent gravy. To many English people, foreign food is like foreign people. It may look stylish and attractive, but it is insubstantial and cannot be trusted, and smells funny. It also makes you rush to the toilet. Old men, confronted with a curry or Chinese meal, will groan and complain that they can't tell what is in it. A common urban myth tells the story of a 'friend of a friend' who got a bone stuck in their throat after a visit to a Chinese takeaway. On removal, the bone was examined and turned out to be from - a cat! Some people still believe this really happened. English food may not be stylish, but it is honest. You can see what you get. It is judged not by the taste, but by the amount. It fills you up. The more chips on the plate, the better. Quantity and price, not quality, is what counts. For the real English food experience, find a little cafe that is full of old people. (A cafe serving tea and English food is pronounced "caff", one selling coffee and foreign food "cafÈ".) The most genuine food is found in Transport Cafes, used by truck drivers, who are famous for their hatred for foreign food. If the owner asks you about the meal, do not talk about the taste. They will not be interested. Compliment them on the amount, and the price. Here are the most traditional English dishes, with our image of what each dish means, and the reality of how it is eaten. Fish and Chips In our imagination, the perfect food for the common people. The chips are hand-cut, deep-fried quickly. The fish is locally-caught, freshly battered and fried. We eat it from a newspaper on the way home in the street at night and it is cheap and delicious. In reality, the chips came from frozen packets and the fish came from Iceland. We eat it in a pub or cafe with peas like green ball-bearings. In a proper English cafe, chips are available with every dish. Remember to put lots of tomato ketchup or brown sauce on them. A proper English cafe will have these for free in squeezy plastic bottles. Not mayonnaise, which is foreign and therefore untrustworthy. Bacon and Eggs In our imagination, we are sitting in a friendly local cafe, reading the newspaper. The bacon is fried only in the fat of its own rind until crisp. The eggs are then fried in the bacon fat. The smell is wonderful. In reality, the bacon is microwaved and the eggs rubbery. There is only yesterday's newspaper. Good cafes do an 'all-day breakfast' so you can enjoy fresh bacon and eggs any time of day. Bad cafes do an 'all-day breakfast' so they can sell leftover morning breakfasts in the evening. Roast .Beef and Yorkshire Pudding Despite BSE, still a common Sunday lunch. Yorkshire Pudding is a cake of fried batter. Traditionally it was eaten with gravy as a first course, with the meat as a second course, and with butter and jam as a third course. To the English, this 'Sunday roast' is the most revered English dish. It is what we miss when we are abroad. In our imagination, it is home-cooked and eaten with the family, prior to watching cricket on the village green. In reality, it is usually mass-produced and eaten in a pub full of children, prior to a visit to the supermarket and DIY store. Apple Pie and Custard The most English dessert. In our imagination, mother bakes an apple pie using apples from next door's tree, and leaves it to cool on the window ledge. The neighbourhood's naughty boys come and steal a small slice. In reality, mother buys a frozen one from the supermarket and leaves it in the car. The neighbourhood's naughty boys come and steal the car. Cream tea A cream tea is the best of English food. We love cakes, pies and buns - much of our food is unhealthy, made of pastry, full of fat and sugar. The cream tea is very unhealthy, but absolutely delicious. In our imagination, we are in a quaint village. Light scones just out the oven, fresh clotted cream from the local farm, home-made strawberry jam. The birds sing. A pleasant old lady serves us, and says she will go to the farm for some more butter. In reality, there are no cream teas left, because a coachload of foreign tourists just came and ate them all. As we get more affluent and travel more, our food is becoming more international. The traditional old English dishes may be disappearing for ever. Apart from the cream tea, let's hope so.

Going Native main index