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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/35679472
British food is still made either like the Luftwaffe is flying overhead or we are celebrating the fact that the war is over and we can cook with butter and oil again. There's nothing in-between.
We'd hope y'all could come up with something better than deep-fried butter tho
Uhh, what could possibly be better than deep fried butter?!?
Have you smoked a spotted dick?
Not since boarding school..
Thanks to successive waves of immigration in the 20th century from India, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Africa, China and others we actually have a pretty diverse and vibrant food culture.
Sadly a lot is still dominated by roast dinners and meat and two veg (one of those veg is always potato) but go to any major city and you'll likely find excellent quality restaurants from pretty much every culture on earth.
Sounds like you have had some shit roast dinners. A good roast dinner is amazing. I love all the foreign foods we have access to now as well, but our traditional cooking gets a lot of shit when really it's just bad cooks. Although we do also have stuff like jellied eels and mushy peas, so I'm not saying it's all good...
I love a roast, it's one of my favourite meals, but a shit roast is proper shit.
I went eating at an Italian restaurant in, I don't know, somewhere in the Highlands, and I haven't been aware that it was run by Scottish people, including the kitchen. Our trip had many highlights and was really cool all in all, but that food has to be the deepest trench we had to pass through.
Careful! Facts will damage the worn-out, out-dated stereotype!
Yes but those are restaurants, im assuming grandma is still serving up run over peas and boiled potatoes
Fuck grandma, my roast dinners are an event. Got my roastie game en point, my yorkies are crispy and all the trimmings are standard. Plus the gravy, not to brag, will make you jizz your pants its that good.
I think the problem is that after the Second World War, Britain's economy was so shot to hell that folks had to keep eating like the Luftwaffe was still blitzing London. That kept going on long enough to introduce generational trauma into British cuisine.
Rationing in the UK went on until 1954, nine years after the war ended.
To me, another be part of it is that the British seem to have an awful penchant for giving delicious things names that sound like Victorian euphemisms for something awful. Spotted dick and toad in the hole sound like they would be ways for Victorians to talk about their STIs, and I'm unsure what exactly Gentleman's Relish would mean, but it strikes me as some sort of medieval form of punishment on the peasants.
Sounds like somebody never tried a warm plate of Scraggledy Numps, or a bowl of Thumps in a Bodice, or even a hot cup of Singeshammy Longerjohns in Tabbernickywammelty sauce.
I genuinely believe these are actual names of actual british foods.
British Food is awesome. It's not very colorful or ultra complex but it's the kinda food that warms the soul.
There are few things that bring me more joy than popping into a Greggs on a cold rainy morning for an overheated cup of generic tea and a sausage roll.
Some other great British dishes:
Shepherd's Pie (with beef, though, I only like lamb in gyros, and only then when it's a blend with beef), minced meat pies, good chicken pot pie, and Yorkshire puddings are all great. Bangers and mash with the right sausage is great. Fish and Chips are generally great but the flavor and texture of the batter can vary significantly.
(trivia: a Shepard's pie with beef is technically called a "cottage" pie!)
I once had a conversation with my boss who was well-travelled. He said the secret to Europe is to eat in the Catholic countries. If you must spend time within a Protestant country, look around for a Catholic enclave within it. Not only will the food be superior, but people will be falling over each other to make sure you are well fed.
I looked at him incredulously. How can you say that? It's such a sweeping generalization! And then I went to Europe…
I don't know.. my experience is that in Muslim communities they wont let you leave until your stomach explodes... then they offer you coffee and sweets to go with.
Chicken Tikka Masala. Nuff said.
British-Asians truly improved British cuisine. Tikka Masala is next level!
Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez.
I can confirm that no "Brit" uses a semicolon like that. We're not barbarians.
The taste of their food and beauty of their women made the British the greatest sailors on Earth.
Say what you will about British food, but a full English breakfast is the best thing after night out drinking.
So every morning then
Mostly a stereotype perpetuated by cheap or hastily found dining places.
When you get fish and chips from a good place that handles fresh catches, there is considerable flavour, yet buy from the fast food place in the middle of a high street and you'll get a soggy representation from the frozen cod.
Same situation with a good roast, or a cottage/shepherds pie, or pie and mash that isn't just a casserole with a hat, etc.
Honestly I've stepped foot in 39 US States so far, and it's a similar thing there. I just think the "British food bad" thing has stuck as humour, there's plenty of theories about it I won't get into but it's just a thing I suppose.
I think you've unintentionally reinforced how bad British food is.
In any other country, I don't need to go looking for gourmet chefs and fine dining luxury ingredients for the food to taste good. In most countries I've been to, I could step into a backstreet little "fast food" type restaurant and it still tastes good; whether that's in Italy, Spain, Thailand, Singapore, Croatia, Austria, America, India, etc etc.
A gourmet chef with the finest ingredients can make anything taste good. And that's what it takes to make British food taste good.
🤯
Dunno man I just roasted a couple sausages, yorkies, sauted mushrooms, butter peas, and gravy. It's pretty damn good.
Yorkies
My man is so desperate for flavor he’s eating the neighbor’s dog. Blink twice if you need help.
I sometimes wonder after the unusually high number of “British people try X food for the first time and are blown away” videos.
Then I started watching Great British Bake-Off, and it’s clear there’s some damn good food somewhere over there. The number of times I’ve envied Sue Perkins her taste testing job is extreme.
British food is a lot like the english countryside - lots of earth tones in the palate and everything sounds different (but after your third slice of hamlet you realize it's all basically the same)
Fish and chip is awesome wdym
Here's a good read about it: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/aug/05/how-did-british-pub-food-get-so-grim-gastropubs
TLDR: it got better in 2000s but then it went down again because of raising costs.