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they realize that every culture’s cuisine is dictated by the poor doing what they can with what they have, right? Do you think my italian-american ancestors were hype to eat beans and paste every day for its own sake? No, they did it because they had 170 kids each and could only find work throwing garbage over the hill into the pond for 2 cents a year. It’s just that they also made it really, really good.
“When this food is made good its made good” also applies to British cuisine. You’re telling me that brandy cake made with a type of fat that supercedes butter for all of its baking properties, Corinthian raisins and a warm brandy/cream sauce doesn’t sound good?
Taiwanese man who can cook. Dated a British girl in college. I normally cook and one day she decided to cook for me.
I went into the kitchen to see what was happening and she was boiling the broccoli… in just water… No salt…no oil… just water.
She was also microwaving some kind of yellow peas in the microwave… in just water.
I haven’t made it over to the UK to try real British food, but as of now, it’s not very favorable.
Chips aren’t exactly cheap these days. Poor food isn’t cheap more.
You know what else is poor food? Duck confit.
You know what else? Soul food is literally food made from things slaves got and grew themselves. Like, it’s below poor food and it’s absolutely amazing.
There’s poverty food from all over the world that’s amazing. The English are just bad at food.
Lobster was prison food.
Then again, they did just grind up the whole thing, scales and all.
Ummm scales? Lobsters have shells, I believe you were fed snake.
Sorry my foreign is showing
All that hoity-toity British “poor” food, only available at restaurants. Meanwhile, tacos are literally found on the streets the world over, where they are always delicious.
What I’m saying is: 🌮 > 🇬🇧
No tacos around here…
You poor soul. May tacos one day fill your belly with their grace.
This keeps coming up like British chefs aren’t household names in America.
Also, spotted dick is awesome.
like British chefs aren’t household names in America
I dunno, they’re taking a massive beating lately from Uncle Roger.
Well we can kind of claim him too - Nigel Ng had been living in London working as a data analyst for Monzo when his Uncle Roger character blew up during lockdown.
No, he Malaysian, as is the character. Just because he immigrated doesn’t mean you claim him. Do you work for the East India Company?
Is Ash…banging Pikachu?
Also, adding neon green food coloring to your fucking peas isn’t a poverty move. That food coloring isn’t free. And it’s probably shrinking your balls.
Sorry, I guess that would be “bollocks.”
No, in this context you would use the word balls or nuts.
I thought this was an interesting topic of one of the episodes of chef’s table (netflix docuseries). The chef focused on what real “american” cuisine looks like, and since cuisine typically comes out of hardship, American food doesn’t have as distinct of an identity since the USA has typically been a country of “plenty.” Was really a fascinating point, and it made me look at food culture in a very different way
I think it’s more that the US is a very recent country and was a melding of many cultures, plus the sheer size of the country and diversity of the ingredients found around the country.
I dunno man, the Pretzel Bun wasn’t really popularized until after Millenials couldn’t afford houses
Lol fair. Though I don’t mean to suggest that there is no hardship anywhere in the US (i think that’s why chicken wings became popular), but across the board, food has historically been more easily accessible in the US than most nations than pre existed it. Sure there are some regional delicacies, but no true US cuisine. I’m sure that could be partially explained by the geographic size as well, but there are some distinct differences in UK cuisine even though those cultures are significantly closer.
The US is too big to have a unified cuisine. The UK is hard to compare to because even their accents vary much more across a small geographic area, their cultural regions are strictly divided and enforced thanks to deeply entrenched classism and social pressure.
Also I just flat disagree that cuisines like Cajun/Creole or Tex Mex or Southwest/Santa Fe don’t qualify as true US cuisines.
I think they would identify as more as their own regional cuisine, as opposed to being a part of some larger US identity. I think this would be similar to understanding of french or italian cuisine, but then if you dig into specific regions you’ll get “tuscan” as opposed to prototypical “italian.” That nuance for “US cuisine” is not as well defined because it doesn’t exist in the same way, even though regional cuisines are totally distinct in their own way.
I used the UK as an example because they have distinct regional cuisines like Cornish, Welsh, Scottish, Yorkshire, etc, even though it is geographically quite small. To me, that defies the logic that the US can’t have a more distinct food identity but then also coexist with various subcultures across a larger geographic area.
That’s the point, the US is geography about the same size as mainland Europe, and only about 80mill less people. Would you criticize Europe for not having a unified food culture across the entire continent? How about North Africa? No, that would be ridiculous. It’s the same for the US, you’ll find some similarities but even with the same food there will be differences and some places where you shouldn’t buy that food.
For instance, California has great Mexican food and especially street tacos. But you’ll find it hard to locate really good pizza. Florida is technically in the south, but there’s not a lot of good Mexican around, but fresh seafood is really nice. NY has some specialties but is probably the best place in the entire world for culinary diversity and quality. There are more immigrant populations there demanding quality food representation than anywhere else in the world. Even relatively sparse locations like small Midwest towns will typically have an okay pizza place, a good Chinese place, and a great Mexican restaurant. That’s way more than most countries can say.
US food culture is far more than what you see on TV
I don’t think i made my point clearly enough. I get that there are regionally distinct cuisines such as cajun cuisine, but my point was that this occurs even in smaller countries and locations such as the UK, which has numerous culinarily distinct cultures despite being a fraction of the size of the US. I’m not sure why you’re completely ignoring my point there. I’m also not sure how highlighting Americanized versions of other cuisines is relevant at all. I understand that other cuisines coexist inside of the US, but they are not actually US cuisines. Are you suggesting that Mexican food existing in California or the midwest is one possible definition of US cuisine? Because this actually feeds into the point that American cuisine doesn’t really have its own distinction.
I’ll try using Germany as an example. German food has an identity, wurst, schnitzel, etc. sometimes it’s borrowed (wiener schnitzel from vienna), sometimes its distinctly German. But Germany also has various regions with their own distinctive cuisines (former independent states like bavaria, swabia, franconia, hesse, etc each with their own cuisine). This would be like cajun is in the US. On top of that, there’s plenty of transplant cuisines, such as Turkish doner which is quite popular. This would be like mexican food in California. Yet, german cuisine is still able to stand out as its own thing.
I also completely disagree, North African cuisine as an example absolutely has some level of shared culture. Sure, Morocco and Libya have different cuisines for example, but they sit on the southern Mediterranean and share spices, vegetables, etc, and have a shared history.
I understand that I’m not a food expert and I’m citing a documentary about food experts that was interesting. I’m not certain why this feels like an attack. Additionally, that doesn’t mean it’s my only source of information.
Everything comes from somewhere else. Beans, corn, peppers, potatoes, squash, and tomatoes all came from the Americas. So any culinary traditions using those ingredients only goes back at maximum early 1700s, but more like early 1800s. They pale in comparison to the many centuries of history they have on this side of the ocean. Native people have been nixtamalizing corn for longer than anyone has been speaking French.
The UK has distinct food culture, that’s not at issue. But you can trace it to the density of people and length of time inhabited. But if you look at specific regions of the US, you can see similar. Take a similar size area. Like the northeastern seaboard from Boston to north Carolina, that’s a HUGE amount of regional food differences. Beans, soups, seafood, sandwiches, barbecue, fried chicken, breakfasts, desserts, slaws and salads. And that’s not even mentioning the alcohol traditions. Scotch wouldn’t exist without used American white oak bourbon barrels.
But yes, I am making the argument that both Mexican and Chinese food in the USA are separate and culinarily distinct things than what you find in their home countries. They’ve been in this country for well over 100 years; living, evolving, changing the attitudes and palates of Americans the whole time. You won’t find most US Chinese dishes anywhere in China, and you won’t find a dish that looks like US Mexican or TexMex in Mexico, even if it’s got the same name. But they will be regionally different. They’re influenced by each other, but they’re separate.
More than that, I’ll give you three foods that evolved from elsewhere but finalized in the US, and three honest foods that are 100% from the USA, showing off deep food culture. First for the evolved dishes that now are around the world. Hot dogs, hamburgers, and fries. They all had precursors, but the combination of German/Belgian food, French baking, and food science with industrialization to make for a cheap food that is tasty and easy to eat? Purely American. And now exported worldwide.
Next are the cultural dishes. First is chili. Every state has some version, some variety. With or without beans, different protein, brown or white, and different spices. But it’s a dish that comes from hard work, long hours, and wanting a filling meal that’s easy to make but well spiced. No bean soup quite hits the same highs, it’s almost more of a stew. Then you have biscuits and gravy. It originally came from the Revolutionary War, but today it’s best recognized as southern love on a plate, and and just as many calories. People from the UK often confuse US biscuits for scones, but they’re not. Scones have egg, and usually sugar in the dough, and get worked 2-3x as much as a biscuit, which is crispy on the outside but inside is airy, light, fluffy, and savory. Goes well with the rich, creamy, peppery sausage gravy. Last is barbecue. That’s got 5 legitimate culinary traditional regions and probably like 4 more that could argue for another. But it comes from poverty and slavery, when people couldn’t get good cuts of meat and had to invent methods to make them good. Then they combined that with Afrocaribbean flavors and local ingredients, and you have a unique tradition that is probably some of the best open heat cooked meat in the world.
After all this, I’m really not some sort of American chauvinist. Honestly I prefer pasta, ramen, and some African foods most of the time. But everywhere I see this lie that the USA has no food culture and it drives me wild. It’s a rich and diverse food culture, but just very different than the media says and very different than the rest of the world, and especially Europe. So it can sometimes be hard to understand. Hopefully this helps.
Always makes me laugh when the country that sells “cheese” in spray cans or as plastic slices calls other countries’ food bad.
Barely anyone outside of Philly eats spray cheese regularly
Do you think everyone in the UK eats spotted dick/spotted dog regularly?
Yes.
You guys always miss the point, we have your cheese, and our cheese, and synth cheese, and any other cheese you want. Imported European cheese? Yep. Craft cheeses from Wisconsin? Any kind you can think of. Cow, goat, buffalo, sheep, cashew, chicken, fire-ant, whatever. I can go to Costco and get a 72lb wheel of Parmigiano reggiano, aged 2 years, shipped to my door within a few days. I can go to town and visit a number of delis and get a pound of anything sliced fresh. I can go to the grocery chain store and get a presliced pound or go to their full in store deli for more options. If I’m having a burger I might go for the classic American cheese slices. We also have a cheese flavored product in a can that is good when you are tired of living. You have only high quality cheese because there isn’t room on your tiny European shelf for the sheer variety of bullshit we also have.
…do you think supermarkets and online retail only exist in the US?
Internet Europeans seem to think we don’t have bakeries or breweries or dairy…ies… so it’s only fair to assume the inverse.
No, but you guys seems to think we only are aware of craft singles and can cheese. That’s our lowest level of cheese. I was trying to explain that despite your opinions, we actually do have food here.
Edit: Saying “we actually have that too” doesn’t mean in any way “Europe has no grocery stores”. I thought you guys had the good schools?
You literally said we have small shelves that can’t have a wide range of food. Read your own comment lol
Did you even go to school?
I also said we had cheese made of fire ant milk. Google hyperbole, then get back to me.
Of course I went to school, I’m an American, where do you think I learned to bar the door from gunmen?
In other words, nothing you said had any point then
Oh sorry for not being serious enough in the memes community. I’ll be sure to bring my dissertation next time about how your mom sucked me good and hard through my jorts.
Yeah because the British are a historically poor country right? Not like South America or Asia!
What those people do to beans should be considered a war crime.
Are you talking about baking them? Don’t baked beans also appear in American cuisine?
Y’all could use more seasoning. Didn’t y’all do colonialism for spices?
UK food has lots of seasoning, I really don’t know where this meme comes from.
The UK actually has spicier food than anywhere else in Europe. The only other countries really being Spain and Hungary.
Even putting aside how massive British-Indian cuisine is here, there’s extensive use of English mustard, which is spicy (try it if you haven’t, it’s nothing like American or Dijon mustards), and horseradish, which is basically wasabi.
I was specifically referring to the beans
I always put all kinds of spices and herbs in my baked beans
Tell that to a Full English or a Tikka Masala
They abandoned the spices when France did. The reason? Poor people could also afford spices so it was no longer a status symbol. The new status symbol was simple meals of very fresh meat and vegetables cooked with complicated methods requiring many hours and loads of practice.
Source: I made it the fuck up
In reality, UK food uses spices extensively.
Yes, although the American ones come in a different, much more sugary sauce, which has led to Americans being confused as to why people would put it on toast and top with cheese.
American bread is also more sugary than uk bread too right? I’ve never tried it but I’ve heard from a lot of other fellow Brits that it almost tastes like cake in comparison
