At least part of the negative perception of Englishcuisine stemsfrom experience of American service men who were there in World War II. The heartiest food was found in military mess halls (and that’s not saying much) simply because there was darn little food available for civilian population.
After the war I reada description of a British dinner as an experience of eating boiled clouds, a bit vicious, but with a kernel of truth at the time. I was in England during the unpleasantness with Hitler, so I couldn’t argue. Since then things have changed a great deal, but it is hard to let go of our prejudices.
During a stay in England in 1993, I was served the worst shepherd’s pie imaginable, but the best steak and kidney pie at a pub in a small town. In London I had the best Chinese dinner of my life. Between the two extremes, there were good choices for meals, well prepared and well served.
Sorta like one might find in the U.S.A. dontcha think?
Aw, I’ll stick with my Polish/Slavic foods. Pierogies, the mushroom soup my mom makes, the yummy apricot rolls, mmmm…
I love English muffins-btw, do they REALLY come from England?-tea, biscuits, stuff like that. But I’d gag if I had to eat organ meats-steak and KIDNEY pie? Icky!
Now, ITALIAN food, that’s something to write home about!
Compare and contrast
You don’t like fried food, but you like McDonalds?
Uhh, millions of Asian people were drinking tea long before the English ever “discovered” it. And I believe Worcestershire sause is stolen (borrowed and renamed) from India. The two main ingredients (if memory serves me correctly–I’m at work, can’t run to a bottle) are tamarind and fish of some sort (anchovy?). I doubt anybody either named or from a place called Worcestershire ever came up with that combination.
I spent a month with my family eating in pretty nice restaurants all over England. My favorite moment was at some pretty expensive place where we all ordered meat dishes. The waitresses came around, serving from a huge platter that was separated into about 6 compartments. Coming right up: your choice of potatoes, prepared 6 different ways!
I don’t recall encountering a fresh vegetable until we hit the salad bar at a London Wendy’s. I despise seeing American fast food places all over the world but that salad bar almost justifies them all. Then we hit up an Indian place with a tandoori in the dining area and the contest was really over…
I have always kind of felt that a countrys food quality varied inversly to the quality of their beer*. Great food countries; France, Italy, India, China, Mexico have mostly bad beer, except for the stuff that is made by people imported from a good beer country. Good beer places, England, Ireland, Germany, tend to have boring and/or bad food. I guess if you can drink your calories, there is little need to learn to cook.
P.S You can’t claim Roast beef as a national food. I’m sure every group of people on earth figured out how to kill an Auroch or buffalo or something, and heat it up 
- The one noteable exception to the rule that I have found is Belgium. Incredible beer, and damn good food(particularly the waffles).
Curry rules. And us British invented it. Easily the greatest British invention. Thus:
Encyclopedia Britannica: curry (from Tamil kari: “sauce”), in Western usage, blend of ground spices adapted by British settlers in India from the traditional spice mixtures of Indian cuisine.
Er, I can’t find many references to the origin of the curry on the net. But I remember a TV programme that said it was invented by Indian settlers in Britain. It was TV so it must be more true than Britannica…
Whichever of those two accounts is correct - or indeed even if neither of then are - I’m gonna get a big dish of Vindaloo and stick a Union Jack in it anyway. It’s Britain’s most eaten food by miles!
Other Brit food: sausages.
And sandwiches. Bit boring I know, but the humble sandwich is the ancestor of the mighty hamburger. I think we might also have invented the legendary chip - that’s french fries to you Pagans. Though french fries are always thin and crispy. Like horrible MacDonald’s fries. Give me a good thick, potatoy, solid, British chip anyday… And mashed potatoes.
(Trying not to mention that the potato was first imported from America. Weren’t any Americans then though. At least I don’t think so. Oh dear. I’ve become very confused all of a sudden.)
The original producers of Worcestershire sauce might beg to differ.
Why should a “culinary tradition” use only native ingredients? It’s a pointless argument, rather like the origins of pasta, which seems to have originated in China, but is firmly and traditionally associated with Italy. A long association will equal a tradition, hence the English and tea, curry and so on.
Just as the English language borrows words from many countires, so the cooking is bound to have influences from around the world, particularly the Indian subcontinent.
Many hundreds of years ago English food was richly spiced (not refering to peasant diet but to that of the wealthy).
As with cheeses, there are plenty of good regional dishes, it’s just that they are not widely availaible outside their local area. Go to any supermarket chain and find a dozen varieties of cheddar. Go to a specialist shop or farmer’s market and find something an awful lot more interesting.
Now excuse me while I put some carrots onto boil for Sunday
lunch. 
My Dad on returning from a month long trip to England: “The food wasn’t bad if you like gray, warm, mushy stuff.” Ahh, no thanks, I’ll pass.
‘wolfman’ cites Germany for good beer and boring food. While bratwurst and sauerkraut may sound boring, the taste sure isn’t. Also, there are many interesting pork and veal dishes which are pleasurable to ingest.
explore a few and report back.
I certainly can’t speak for the accuracy of the following, but I like the joke:
If you look at Canada and the three countries that have had the greatest impact on Her, they could have had the world’s greatest restaurants with French food, American service and British style. Instead they end up with French service, American style and British food.
Sauerkraut, sure isn’t boring, It is clearly within the category of bad as far as I am concerned.
The world of sausage contains, Chorizo, Andoullie, Pepperoni. Bratwurst is good, but its taste is very boring in comparison. Weisswurst is very good, I have to admit thought.
Yes there are many interesting veal dishes. Unfortunately for your point, 90% of the veal available in restauraunts is cooked in italian(Saltimbocca, Marsala, Parmigiana) or french style. Weiner Schnitzel, despite the German sounding name is a French created dish.
As far a pork, I have yet to see German style pork dishes sweep over the world. Bacon, Pork chops, and ham steaks, while developed in Germany(along with every other country with pigs) are boring. The majority of interesting pork dishes come from Asian countries, or Hawaiian/polynesian traditions. The majority of other ‘fancy’ pork dishes, stuffed or served with truffles or what ever, are usually french or Italian in origin.
Well, they exist here in the same form, called simply “muffins”, but I know nothing of their history. For all I know they may have been an American creation.
I’ve heard that all English cuisine is based on a dare…
Not quite. Scottish foods are based on dares…
Does there remain a General Question here?
Nah, Manhattan, the question is 'why not knock this bullshit off before it gets any deeper? I’m for it!
To try to return to the general question briefly, there are a lot of fantastic British foods, but British food has a bad reputation. Probably because:
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British food got pretty dire after rationing in world war 2 (rationing continued for years after the end of the war).
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The traditional British attitude of cynicism means we don’t really promote British products very heavily.
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A lot of the most popular British foods are fusion-cooking e.g. curries are an Anglo-Indian invention, but everyone considers them as Indian, and forgets about the British influence.
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Apart from the obvious roast beef and yorkshire pudding, there aren’t many foods that people recognise as stereotypically British.
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A lot of good British products aren’t exported, because labour costs over here are relatively high, so it’s a lot cheaper to import food from a poorer country
And a few examples of good British food to look out for…
Britain has a superb variety of different cheeses (I think actually more varied than France), but a lot of these aren’t readily available overseas - availability within Britain has got a lot better over the last few years - until recently, though, a lot of cheeses were only available locally.
British real ales and ciders are also very good, when you can actually find them. Again, availability in Britain is improving, but they’re very hard to get overseas. And yes, ales are drunk at cellar temperature, so that you can actually taste them properly. When you say “Ugghh! Warm beer!” you’re probably thinking of lager not ale - we drink lagers cold.
British apples are normally excellent - but it’s a lot more expensive to import apples from Britain than from a country with low labour costs, so you’re not likely to find these overseas either.
Restaurants are highly variable, but generally also getting better - there’s been a renewed interest in food due to loads of celebrity chefs hitting the soptlight. I live in Manchester, where there are plenty of good British, French, Italian, Indian, Persian, Greek, Thai and Chinese restaurants - that’s just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
If anyone is over here visiting, it’s worth checking out the Good Food guide, or any local restaurant guide, before eating out.
Don’t forget Angus beef. Wonderful stuff.
British ales are one of the most wonderful beverages in the world. You really won’t find anything like it in the States, as they don’t travel well and are traditionally hand pulled from the barrel, and uncarbonated. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a good british bitter or ale.
For a country that supposed to have a crap culinary tradition, they sure are making up for it. It seems to me that the last time I visited London (a couple weeks ago) every other program on BBC or BBC2 was a cooking show of some sort. London was a wonderful place for food, and I would rank it as one of the culinary capitals of the world. Not necessarily for its strictly British food, but its range of restaurants in general.
The best curries I’ve ever had were in Birmingham/Wolverhampton. As Katie said, people do forget the English influence on this style of cooking. Most English people I know are crazy for curries, and for good reason.
Now, certainly, there are foods that are so typically British that pretty much no one else in the world likes them. For example, Marmite. I’m American, but I happen to love this disgusting stuff made of yeast extract. How this came to be palatable to a good portion of Brits, I cannot imagine, but it is strangely addictive.
From what I can tell, the Brits are trying very hard to turn around their culinary reputation. Most of the twentysomethings that I know from Britain have a very good sense of how to use herbs and spices and have a very wide range of tastes, as far as cooking styles go. There’s a great international culinary influence in England, and it’s seeping out into the general public.
There’s a series of ads in the UK right now for Marmite which use the line ‘You either love it or hate it’; what marks it apart from pretty much any other ad I’ve seen is that they consistently show the scenes from the “hater’s” perspective. I.e. they’ll show a guy re-using a knife which his SO has obviously used earlier (leaving a tiny residue of Marmite), buttering his bread and then practically having an on-screen coronary when he takes a bite.
I guess they felt that no-one’s going to be persuaded to change their views and that, yes, you either love it or hate it (I love it, personally - Marmite soldiers - yum; my wife would rather ritually disembowel herself with a pair of rusty scissors than have to even smell it).
That said, the ad can claim to be a success in my book. Not only does it raise public awareness of the wonders (or not) of Marmite, but they’ve got some witless idiot to eulogise about it on SDMB.
[sub]pulykamell - lest there be any misunderstanding, the witless idiot is me eulogising about the ad, rather than you about Marmite…[/sub]
Have to agree with you there (having just got back from the pub after a couple of pints of rather wonderful Timothy Taylors - not my usual tipple but surprising good nonetheless).
Ey eet it allatime…somebuddy say “mad cow dizeez”-huh…no sutch luk-I habbnt noddiced anny thingbhg wrung! Lik i sed eet briddish beef, itz so gud!