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Holidaymaker's 'nightmare' Corfu hotel stay where there was 'no English food'
(www.chroniclelive.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2025
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There's 3 sort of sections to British food.
Old staples, things like stews, pies, roasts etc. We exported most of these, with the empire. They are also shared a lot with Europe, making them even more ubiquitous.
Local specialities. Local traditional dishes, e.g. Yorkshire puddings, Cornish pasties, or Eccles cakes. These were town or region specific. Some have spread, others are still hyper local.
Imported. Mostly from the empire days. We tended to "discover" spices and flavours. When they came back, they were often reimagined. E.g. the curry was a Scottish invention, using Indian spices. We mostly dump all the related dishes under a label of the country we stole the flavours from. E.g. Chinese food tastes nothing like what they eat in China.
Basically, there is a lot of really good British food about. We also set the baseline for a lot of the comparisons, making us look bland by comparison. The London restaurant industry also does a complete number on tourists, making us look even worse.
Chicken Tikka Masala was invented in Scotland, by a Scottish chef of Indian descent, in the 1970s. Cleopatra ate curry.
https://youtu.be/zt10iMRWg20
You forgot the fourth section: yellow / brown with beans.
Only taking the piss of course.
Scotch egg is peak for me. Incredible invention. 99% sure that's British? Introduced to me by an English man anyway.
Used to love smoked kippers as a child. Different English man introduced me to them. They strike me as a very British thing also.
Never quite got the Yorkshire with a roast thing myself but my sister lives over there and is fully converted on them. I mean they're good like but I'd happily live without them.
Got gifted an Eccles cake by a lovely Scouser I know last year. Also delish with a mug of tea.
I do love a good pastie too (is that Greggs or am I mixing up?).
Baked beans are definitely a VERY British thing, along with fry up in general.
Scotch eggs are Scottish in origin, I believe. I bundle them in with British, though a good chunk of Scotland would disagree. Definitely good, either way. Kippers and haggis are also Scottish/northern England traditionally.
As for Greggs... I personally consider them an example of how British food got screwed over by mass production. I've been disappointed most times I've brought from them. I know a lot of people swear by them however.
As for Yorkshire pudding. It's a case of a good one is absolutely amazing, while an average one is just meh. It also needs a good gravy to dip it in. Hence why it goes so well with a roast.
Ah she's an incredible cook and I'm reliably informed that her Yorkshire's are legendary level. As with everything she cooks them from scratch (like even her bread is home cooked on the daily) so they were pleasant alright.
I do find her gravy a bit thin myself (again she does it from scratch like some crazy woman). I like my gravy thick AF and have no problem taking it from a tub haha. No bisto though. That's muck IMO. Anyway I might like them more with my thick peasant gravy as you say.
Chinese curry, however, is a British invention, bizarrely.
You can reduce anything like that if you want.
Italian food is tomatoes, meat and pasta or tomatoes, meat and bread.
Not even British and this is such a gross oversimplification. It's like calling a french bakery full of bread.
Yorkshire pudding - name of locality of origin included. Generally only served with a "Sunday roast" dinner as a side dish. It is made from a batter and not a pastry.
Cornish pasty - again name of locality of origin included. Wide range of fillings available nothing even vaguely similar to a Yorkshire despite your poor attempt to lump it in.
Eccles is a sweet treat. The pastry is nothing like either a Yorkshire or a pasty.
Most of the more obvious ones are intended as travel food. Wrap something tasty, nutritious, or expensive in a semi disposable, edible wrapper. It's a basic stable of most of mankind. England tended to use pastry or batter for this. Battered fish and burgers are other examples. Other as regions might use leaves for the same job.
If it was in a good state, you could eat it. If it wasn't, then you could still eat the good bit inside. The crust of a Cornish pasty is intended to be thrown away. Coal miners could take them down the mine, and eat them without washing their hands.
Other dishes are a thing. They tended to be more family orientated however. The recipes wandered over time, with less stable traditional dishes. Bangers and mash, or a ploughman's would fall into this sort of category.