I was in London for a couple of days, Ate at a hotel, a couple cafes, two pubs, a chip shop with one hell of a line. I must have missed something; flavors were low-key, under-seasoned, and under-spiced. The closest thing I got to flavor was breakfast; the sausage was decent, I think you fully understand sausage there. The beans and eggs were just kinda meh.
Then you have places like this catering to local tastes. oldelpaso.co.uk/…/extra-mild-super-tasty-fajita-k…
I think things are changing. People are starting to crave a little more spice. There’s no lack of curry shops with plenty of spice, but they’re not strictly British food.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
I think this overstates things. A substantial number of countries have their modern culinary culture defined in the post-war decades, though.
Japanese culinary identity came together after World War II, and many of the dishes and traditions defining their cuisine are recently invented or have evolved considerably during the post-war period: the popularization and evolution of ramen, katsu, Japanese curry, yakitori, etc. Even ancient traditions like sushi and Modern Japanese food draws a lot of influence from classic pre-war cuisine, but the food itself is very different from what was eaten before the war.
Even French cuisine underwent a revolution with nouvelle cuisine, heavily influenced by Japanese kaiseki traditions. Before the 20th century, French cuisine was about heavy sauces covering rich, slow-cooked foods (see for example the duck press and how that was used), and it took a few waves of new chefs pushing back against the orthodoxy to emphasize lighter, fresher ingredients. The most notable wave happened in the 1960’s, when Paul Bocuse and others brought in small, lighter courses as the pinnacle of fine dining.
Korean, Italian (both northern and southern), and American culinary traditions changed pretty significantly in the second half of the 20th century, as well, through changes in food supply chains, political or economic changes, etc. And that’s true of a lot of places.
Britain’s inability to shake off an 80-year-old culinary reputation comes in large part from simply failing to keep up with other more food-centered cultures that continually reinvent themselves and build on that classic foundation. Some of the criticism is unfair, of course, but it’s not enough to point at how things were 100 years ago as if that has bearing on what is experienced today.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 16 minutes ago
The only reason Britain still has that reputation is because Americans repeat it mindlessly in media that the whole world consumes.
Like the teeth thing. In the 2000s, the UK alongside Germany had the joint healthiest teeth in the world (although now they’ve fallen to 8th after the Scandinavian countries upped their game). Did it stop the “Brits have bad teeth” gag in US media? No.
The US, for whatever reason, has been engaged in a cultural pissing match with the UK for a long time.