Oh for a decent loaf of bread! Either it’s the 30 day kind you mention, or it’s ‘artisan’ which means it’s so hard you risk losing several teeth biting into it. Why is it IMPOSSIBLE to buy good bread over here? Did the recipie get lost on the trip over the Atlantic? If someone was to steal the Tesco bread baking cookbook and open a bakery over here they’d make a killing!

Then there’s the deserts. Have you noticed how ‘American’ deserts tasted better back in the UK? The cookies, the cakes, the brownies etc, all tasted like they’d just been baked using real ingredients, not just a bunch of chemicals and a Hershey Bar.

AND, there’s Indian Food, the most British of British cuisines. Maybe it’s the lack of competition but Indian food here is just not that great. I have found a couple of lunch places in Manhattan that are OK but in terms of delivery in Park Slope, I’m yet to find anything that comes close to the most average of average Indian takeaways in the UK.

A colleague recently (very seriously) told me that English Food is terrible because we still have a rationing mentality held over from the war. Silly me. I didn’t realize ‘good food’ simply consisted of portion sizes big enough to feed a family of 5 for a week. The same colleague, when I was ordering an Indian Takeaway at lunchtime asked ‘Ooh, Indian Food! I may order some too! Can I get some Hummus?’

I rest my case.

Now - let’s get to the real point: what are people calling English food? Do they mean any food prepared and served in that country, or do they mean the traditional fare of steak and kidney pie, toad in the hole etc?

Because if we go with the former they would be SOOOOOOOO wrong to say English food is bad. To me when I think of the food I eat back home, it is a fusion of many cultures’ foods, and really the curry is now the official Great British food! Are a billion or so Indians eating crap food - I think not!

Now, if we talk of traditional English fare, again it is all a matter of taste. Some people don’t like to prepare food with lots of salt, and salt is what brings out the taste of it. I think that used to be a downfall of English meals that no longer is true.

It is my belief that 95% of the people who moan that English food is awful have never even eaten food in England anyway - it’s one of those things that people say, like the Scots are cheap or the French don’t wash - tarring a broad brush over a nation because of a random incident or unpleasant meeting with someone of that nationality.

I live in Charlotte, NC and I have to say that US Southern food has to be the worst. Southerners take perfectly good, nutritious vegetables and boil them or fry them into oblivion - completely nullifying any goodness God gave them. There is nothing but sugar and fat in the food so it’s no wonder most of the people here are obese. Shops here are so far behind the UK in the ranges of food that are available - trying to get good international food at the supermarket here is a laugh - and bread - give me a break! No one here knows what a crust is - baguettes are not soft!!!!!!

OK, so I am starting to rant a little.

I am not so defensive of English food because I can trace my heritage back to Saxon Kings or anything - indeed I am a child of immigrants to the UK. All I know is that saying English/British food is bad is a very broad statement that can, in fact, be applied to any country because all people are ethnocentric in their cores - the unfamiliar takes time to assimilate. To the very restricted mind and palette of the average American, great food just is not appreciated because Americans are very stuck in their ways, and so very far from Cosmopolitan in nature.

And yes, American tea is awful. Liptons does not even class as tea on the Great British Tea Scale.