Does everyone in this thread yelling at you know that we also have access to good cheddar cheese in America if we want to get it? *baffled in upper midwest*

No they think all American cheese is Kraft singles.

there's also this tendency to assume all American food is as over salted as Hungry Man dinners. if anything the Midwest tendency to not put enough seasonings on things runs parallel to their own. And imo both countries' food cultures have improved *dramatically* in our lifetimes

yeah, I would say sometimes American fast food is *really* salty in a way I find unpleasant, but that's clearly not all of it and the bores doing retaliatory shots at US food are just as stupid and tedious as this stuff

The 1970s hell UK spaghetti bolognese and prawn cocktail stuff is definitely grim but I'm reminded of the story of Wolfgang Puck in LA getting yelled at by patrons who thought he'd put food dye in green beans because they'd never had non-canned green beans before. We also had a slop food culture

Food has gotten better in America because we’ve had more immigration and we’ve been relentlessly teased by Europeans

but also I think there's just been a general improvement in availability of ingredients. It used to be functionally impossible to get olive oil or whole bean coffee in most of the US unless you either lived in a place with immigrant grocery stores or ordered them from a mail-order catalog

I can buy good Korean instant ramyun in what's functionally the UK equivalent of Big Lots. It blows my mind.

Yeah when I was a kid the only ramen you could get was Maruchan and they didn't sell any of the spicy versions in the US. By contrast i can get the very hot Korean ones here in basically any grocery store, even in no spice having Switzerland. It was NOT the case when I lived in France 20 years ago

This is a good point. It’s easier to learn how to cook now as well and celebrity chefs have made cooking sexier for lack of a better word

People are into it now! Sometimes you get abysmal creations but sometimes it's also really good. There are only a few ingredients here where I have to order them online or go to a specialty shop. when we lived in Germany in the '90s it took my mom *years* to find a single shop that sold black beans

nate it’s monday, let george get his juices flowing messing with the brits

Canadian-American agent provocateur starting a new war of 1812... I've seen it all...

yeah but we won’t get our asses beat this time, they don’t have any troops

the book "united states of arugula" is *really* good on the history of america's waves of food culture, e.g., when did salsa become america's top-selling condiment? my mother grew up in new york city, which had a *very* different food culture than the rest of the country for most of the century!

When I was learning to cook as a teenager in the 80s I was cooking with chickpeas and aubergines which I bought in Watney Market, from the stalls covered in heaps of fresh vegetables from all over the world, and Watney Market isn't even by London standards a *good* market

Back in my mafia days we'd trade chickpeas for tuna cans. Market hustle never changes, just the goods.

I remember eating my first samosa and it was like 1982 or something

I get what you're saying (I used to work right next to Watney Market) but also I don't think it's controversial to say that UK food culture has gotten a lot more adventurous and cosmopolitan since the 1970s, especially outside of major cities

the GOOD FOOD GUIDE (a book published annually from 1951 to crusade against bad british food) was the project of a socialist (and former communist) = raymond postgate (yes, dad of the bagbuss guy, its turtles all the way down)

(i guess i meant to include the point that this book was a key part in a social project to make ordinary british cuisine adventurous, and not just its spice-seeking empire wing)

Wait what, BAGPUSS?

raymond postgate was oliver postgate's dad yes

Wow, epic bagpuss/cookbook/communism lore today

No that's totally true, I spent my childhood exclusively in very multicultural places and this forms my entire view of the 80s but it's not representative

Yeah I mean I can see it with my mom's extended family in Norfolk, who are super into relatively exotic foodie stuff now based on what I see on social media, versus my mom's story of of visiting family in the 1970s and realizing that none of her cousins knew what a pizza was

In the 80s I went to stay with a boyfriend in Norfolk and his mum cooked pizza and he kept telling her how my mum cooked this really really good pizza (true but like, oh no stop saying that) she was polite though and said to me would my mum send her the recipe

The Norfolk boyfriend had never eaten Indian food before coming to stay with me and soon every visit I had to take a big bag of samosas with me for the whole family

My mom once tried to get her mom (born in Norfolk, married at 16, emigrated at 19) to cook pizza once after having had it as a school lunch in the US. She described what she'd had and her mom in turn made toast with ketchup / beef mince / cheddar cheese. In relative terms it wasn't that long ago!

Absolutely massive self own on the quality of cheese and smoked fish you're used to my friend.

I’ve eaten kippers in the UK! And cheddar! They’re not bland! But picking them as the least bland foods in your cuisine says a hell of a lot lol.

If these everyday basic food items are not bland that says something about the average British palette, even if they're not the least bland things in the cuisine (whatever that would mean)

Since good kippers can be smelled twenty yards away, it's a bit strange to think that they don't also taste strongly

lol amazing that this is where we both went

Strong taste=haute cuisine I think we may be onto something here

no, I’ve got to agree with @dsquareddigest.bsky.social here, if you cook good kippers they can be smelled on the next street

Cheddar is like famously a very strong, sharp cheese, I don't know what your problem is.

Mustard

Our food isn't bland, we put pepper on our bread sandwich

Not this old chestnut again. The toast sandwich was intended as invalid cookery, because before modern medicine (the Victorians didn't even have ASPIRIN), recovering from a serious illness meant a long convalescent period when one would only want very simple plain food. Nobody makes them now.

I've seen a mfer in the UK put a bunch of fries on buttered bread and eat that which is not much better

Point. I will probably have to hand in my passport for my chip butty disdain, but it is a real thing that people eat.

Priors validated ✅

I'd like some narcotic potatoes please..

Narcotic potatoes are legit. I get very sleepy when I have them for lunch

You know that Mrs Beeton died in the mid 1800s, right?

Who doesn’t like mangos! This explains so much

People in the year of our lord 1861, my guy.

We need to renegotiate global trade with high tariffs until Idaho stops making highly addictive and dangerous potatoes.

Two words: Coleman’s Mustard

Have you had proper cheddar before? And not the block cheese that US supermarkets sell under the same name. The extra mature stuff can taste like eating a lightning bolt!

Jack I assure you I have had “proper” Cheddar both in the UK and in the US. And the top end of both are similar, also quite delicious.

Sorry if this caused a minor pile on. I was only asking playfully and it seemed to strike a nerve with some people!

Something something Luftwaffe not flying overhead something something. Imagine being this ignorant about anyone else’s cuisine.

Thanks to Costco, I get to compare what American friends think is good US cheddar with the (good but not stunning) British mature they also stock. So I’m guessing no, he hasn’t. But he should.

FWIW I don’t think I can get a great US cheddar at my US Costco. The cheese monger by my house carries around 300 cheeses, about a third of which are from the US, so I’d caution you against assuming too much about US cheese selection from what you can get at a Costco.

I wouldn’t compare Costco UK cheddar with anything I’d buy from a cheesemonger. It compares to a standard supermarket own brand mature cheddar in the UK. I explicitly cited views of Americans I know on the US cheese available. But you’d agree ridiculing a good cheddar is silly, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve had lots of UK and Irish cheddars, and I love them. I love English stilton even more. I was taking issue with the implication that US cheddars are universally milder than UK versions, when my guess is at best you’ve tried a 12-month white from Cabot or Tillamook…

If I judged British beer by the tastes of the UK expats I know, I would assume it wasn’t very good from their preference for Heineken and Stella. But there is tons of great British beer! I just wouldn’t know it from my British friends.

Those aren’t British beers though.

Yeah, that was my point. I have a couple of British friends that always drink Stella, even when we’re somewhere with English beer on tap. They don’t like English beer, and so I probably would have a good sense of whether it was any good if I trusted the opinion of the small sample I know.

I was specifically talking about cheddar though, not other cheeses. I wouldn’t be so crass as to make generalisations about food I haven’t tried.

The one house, of every single house I have ever been to, that never kept salt at all, was in the UK

the problem is that we can see the viral food content/creators that come out of the usa/tik tok. it would obviously be mad for us to use that as emblematic. but people like yourself will come on here and say "i knew a weird british guy who ate shoes" and then suddenly it's"old mother hubberd-ass-UK"

😂😂😂

The point, as was obvious to most, is that these are standard and almost 'boring' sounding foods, not exotic at all, not spicy at all, but which have a lot of flavour. It's to illustrate the bit that followed: "Americans have this weird idea that anything which doesn't have chili in it is bland"

If curious about what cheddar is supposed to be like: www.quickes.co.uk?gad_source=1...

They're just a couple of miles from me here, and are indeed superb. The other outstanding UK producers are Keens and Montgomerys.

No way, do you live near Newtown st cyres? I grew up there

Brampford Speke, after twelve years in Thorverton!

So UK is not participating in the embargo on shipping into the US because tariffs?

Historically British food was closer to Moroccan food than what Americans think of as British food (which I assume is “meat and potatoes”)

Americans have a boiled mutton dish which they are convinced is British despite my never having seen it in Britain in my entire life.

Have literally never eaten mutton, it's true!

I love mutton, gorgeous flavour. 😋😋

Tbh I think Shepherd's Pie is better with mutton as you get a stronger flavour than with lamb and the fact that it's mince nullifies the normal disadvantages of mutton

The only time I've had it was when it was used as a substitute for goat in Jamaican curry goat.

My theory is the core of the “British food is bad” trope is that in the 1st era of major international tourism after WW2, London was a key destination in Europe for Americans (like Paris) but London was a terrible place to eat out (for any kind of cuisine not just “British”) & this created the trope

Yeah, similar to the explanation I heard that it was US servicemen eating there while the UK was on the ration. I've also heard Fergus Henderson and others say that a lot of traditional recipes just disappeared during WW2.

I took a 3-week tour of the UK and Ireland. Hotel food most days. Terrible. TERRIBLE.

Ah yes. Hotel food famously being the pinnacle of cuisine and not mass produced reheatable slop for people who can’t be bothered to leave the premises.

Ah, yes, there’s that charm I’ve so missed from the Brutish. Charming.

I’m Swedish.

British people ARE objectively capable of being very rude, way ruder than Americans But objectively there’s plenty of good food available to tourists in Britain (whether or not you think the food “counts” as British because it’s from immigrants)

Actually, we’d like to move there, but it’s crazy expensive. The houses we saw within our means were $$$ and in need of serious renovation.

If you have USD the UK is very cheap - but the housing stock is much smaller than anything in the US outside of NYC, if you care about space

I need some space to store all my pans. Half kidding.

Yes, I’m sure. I want to come back but not bus tour. For 1 thing, 3 weeks of nonstop bus riding, filming out the window the things you wish you could walk around in, having your admittedly very nice but bullshitting tour guide spew “facts” about surrounding area is objectively terrible & expensive.

2019, I shd mention, 8 months before Covid.

Why did you eat in the hotel ?

Practically every night they had us out at an event and then have to have your luggage outside your door at 6sm to make it on the bus. Breakfast out of heating pans at the hotel and back in the bus. We did eat out a few times and it was better.

Was this like a guided tour ?

Yes. Globus.

Gusendheit

😂

That’s what the tour paid for

And your takeaway from this is that British and Irish food is terrible and not that hotel food is terrible?

Tbh the way they make it isn't bland at all. You have to go pretty far into luxury brand sharp cheddar in the US to get something that tastes equivalent to normal cheddar cheese in the UK—it's not spicy but it's definitely a strong flavor and in general they do savory foods well, however…

Right cheddar cheese isn’t bland per se but like, choosing that as your “our food isn’t bland” evidence is wild.

you shd introduce the second half of this post to the first, sometimes opposites attract

We lived in the UK for four years and my wife got addicted to English sharp cheddar. Tillamook makes the closest approximation we could find here. My objection was that cheddar was virtually the only cheese in the UK. Oh, they get lots of names for it, but it was still all cheddar.

You missed out on Stilton, and that is very sad.

This is red Leicester erasure 😤

(Also British farmhouse cheese is an incredibly broad category with more historical types as France. However, despite it being amazing, it’s very bougie; unlike France, many of the the most interesting types aren’t really cheeses everyday folk tend to eat.)

I just wanted some Tex-Mex, which requires a mild melty cheese. I’d have people smuggle in 10 pound bricks of Costco Monterey Jack.

God, so relatable. For me it was canned pumpkin for Thanksgiving pies, which could not be found for love or money (at least not in 2006 lol). For cheese at least we have sodium citrate now and can make ANY cheese melty- which begs the question of what red Leicester queso would be like…

The only other thing we had a problem with was salsa. The local varieties were all sugary and even ‘hot’ was mild.

We make those because red leics is my daughter's favourite cheese! They're... alright? I guess.

i take no joy - okay, i take a lot of joy - in reporting that everybody got got here

Yo this guy dont eat food! Someone ask him what a potato tastes like!

i've heard this for a long time - i know chefs that come back from the UK amazed at the cheeses and dairy that US products can barely reach. the quality appears to be outstanding.

…there is a recent-ish trend to undersalt stuff to the point where it's pretty unambiguously bland, but I've only ever had that happen occasionally when I've taken a chance on a pub dinner. Knowing Britain it's probably a Jamie Oliver thing—it's def not the case anywhere else I've been in Europe