The Dutch and British just took home the natives of their colonies as immigrants who opened restaurants. Why try to emulate when you can get the real deal?
And even better than that, they tailor their flavorful food for our palettes!
Fantastic.
100%
If I hear that an Indian restaurant locally has been busted by immigration, I immediately head round.
Also, the reason most British food is bland is because of rationing during WW2. People who grew up back then ate food which was made with limited resources and that was the food they felt nostalgic for and made for their children, who then went on to make it for their own children.
rationing during WW2
Not just during but long after (well into the 1950s). People generally don't understand that Britain literally bankrupted herself holding out against Germany, then got to watch as the former Axis powers rebounded faster than they did.
The same reason you have all of human knowledge at your finger tips, yet only use the same tired joke over and over.
Fucks me up as a German, too. Globalization gave us all kinds of tasty spices, but go to any public event and you'd be convinced our greatest culinary achievement is sausage with tomato ketchup and curry powder.
Curry, you said it yourself, a very exotic spice mix!
Was möchten Sie denn sonst noch Sie Schnösel?
As an American, going to any German-themed public event (read: Oktoberfest and uhh... that's about it) convinces me that your greatest culinary achievement is sausage with mustard and sauerkraut. Not too shabby, TBH.
I agree there. German food is very...white. That is simply the best descriptor.
They just wanted control of the spices so they could sell it to everybody else.
A drug lord doesn't take their own drugs
Don't get high on your own supply
I wish someone would've told me this earlier. I got into it just wanting to make a little cash by selling that salt rock. Now look at me; I can't even enjoy some chicken if doesn't have at least 9 different herbs and spices.
The best restaurants in the world are in London. Of course they don't serve English food. The Brits just knew to bring the best stuff home.
Legitimately, though: I listened to my sister tell her 4-year about "yummy spices" at Thanksgiving. The example she used was "like salt!" I was horrified.
She also made & brought the absolute worst green bean casserole I have ever tasted in my life. It was like wet, crunchy green beans covered in French-fried onions (which came from a can, which is why it's pretty much the only thing she got right).
She used "no added salt/sodium" cream-of-mushroom soup, the green beans, and the canned fried onions, and added nothing else.
I love green bean casserole, as it's one of my favorite Thanksgiving foods. Even offered to make it for everyone this year! But she insisted that she wanted to do it.
The only thing that was salty this Thanksgiving was me.
Right, how the fuck can onions be
french fried
and what the fuck kind of heathen buys fried onions in a can?!?!??!
In this thread: people that think spices = spicy
English is a very confusing language to have this conversation in.
Also using "hot" as a measure of how spicy it is and also using it to talk about the actual temperature of the food.
Yeah cloves and bay leaves are pretty common in old recipes. For example check out
https://blogs.transparent.com/dutch/recipe-the-oldest-dish-in-the-netherlands/
That recipe should come out like this https://miljuschka.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Frietje-zuurvlees-Daphne-Dekkers.jpg
True, my dad calls food "spicy" and breaks out in a sweat when I put black pepper on.
I recently discovered #16 black pepper. It truly can make things spicey. But table ground? Ha!
I know someone allergic to capsaicin. I've seen him eat the mildest salsa and turn red. He also sweats to black pepper. Maybe your father has a similar allergy.
You had access to the entire spice trade, WHY DIDNT YOU USE IT???
I'm British. Don't put the Dutch in the same group as us. Our local 'cuisine' truly is a crime to food.
This is quite the circlejerk.
What do you think tea is made of?
And let's be real, the Brits gave up their own food in favor of Indian food. They love that Tikka masala.
If we're to insist on it being a specific country's food, it really should be Indian no? It was invented by Indian diaspora in the UK as (IIRC) a take on traditional Indian food using ingredients that are easier to obtain in the UK.
IMO saying tikka masala is British food is like saying General Tso's Chicken, which was invented by Chinese diaspora in the US for similar reasons, is somehow American food. I don't think the country it was invented in can really claim credit in either case.
Tikka Masala is an Indian-Inspired dish which was invented in the UK by people with Indian cultural heritage. That's about as concise a description as you can get without running into difficulties of definition - there's no consistent way of defining what "being a dish" means without running into contradictions.
In fact General Tso's is the perfect counter-example: Multiple Chinese people have told me they enthusiastically disown General Tso's Chicken and explicitly call it American food. So if we say "a dish belongs to a country if it's invented there", then Tikka Masala is British (which I agree "feels" wrong); but if we say "a dish belongs to a country if it was inspired by the cuisine of that country", then General Tso's is Chinese, which, apparently not!
And that's without even considering the question of how far "back" you should go with inspiration - what if a dish was inspired by how the Indians used food they got from the Persians who traded it with the Chinese - is it Indian food or Chinese food? (Idk if that's historically nonsense, but you get my point) Why is the most-recent ancestor more important than the environment of creation?
Dunno, have you ever had a curry in Birmingham on the mile?
I went with two American colleagues and one of them couldn't finish his 'medium' heat dish because they said it was too spicy.
Yanks on their way to just cover bland, mass produced shite in butter and salt so they can proclaim it "the gradest food in the wuuuurld"
They really did did Kill millions of people to get spices and then decide they didn't like any of them.
Sure, it was for spices, definitely not for money.
It was a different time. We don't do that anymore!
The English have tikka masala, the Dutch have satay chicken.
Theres a lot of great dutch food! I will defend pannenkoek, stampot, oliebollen, Gouda, spekkoek, krokets, poffertjes, stroopwafel... hell, I love pickled herring.
Dutch food is very underrated!
This reminds me of an old post I remember seeing where it depicted the contrast between anime food and English film food with some eggs. The anime ones were drawn with utmost care to look downright heavenly, while the English film eggs were very scraggly.
