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Sounds sweet and yeah ona day trip to France was just shocked at how nice store bought food froma huge supermarket can be..
In Canada too (maybe the French Influence) but they take their day to day food pretty seriously as well.
It varies in France. Northern France isn't really that different to Britain I've found. In Normandy they seem to mainly drink beer and cider and on a Saturday night there's just as many drunk people about. They go out and drink socially like us too.
You mean apart from...
Fish Pie
Salmon with Dill/Lemon or Orange Sauce
Most fish with Parsely/Butter sauce
Roasted Seabass
Seared Tuna steaks
Smoked haddock/cod
Monkfish in ceddar
Haddock in egg and cream sauce
Apple backed cod/haddock
Stuffed sea bass
Trout in Resling sauce... for example.
All you need is imagination.
Yeah theres no doubt those dishes exist - the question was how often do you see them.
Britain certainly has a culinary tradition, one which I prefer to the others that I've tried. The problem is what with the rise of junk food, the hegemony of supermarkets (combined with the decline in time to cook and knowledge of food preparation) you're less likely to see a sunday roast or a stuffed sea bass than a takeaway pizza or burger and chips. Unless you're middle class of course. Which is what I think this thread really boils down to.
It doesn't even matter if the food is even British - you can get just as high quality Indian or Italian food in Britain as "British food." It remains the case that the vast majority of people eat rubbish the vast majority of the time.
There are nice restaurants but English ones tend to be overpriced.
I crave fresh, good, simple food, why is it so difficult to get? The only place in Wolverhampton that I know of is a Polish cafe serving fresh meals very reasonably. Birmingham isn't much better unless you have loads of money and are willing to pay to go to one of the posh restaurants like Simpsons or Bank or Le Petit Blanc (which is French anyway)
The culture is different in other countries regarding food and the family. As I live on my own I don't bother cooking a lot of the time but if I lived with a big family as many Europeans do, I would.
Here is a familiar scene: the boys start drinking at the pub before midday; they eat nothing, and continue all day; by evening, the drink is doing all the talking, and the mood is souring. There is an argument; fists fly, a knife flashes, and a man of 29 dies in a pool of blood and ale on the floor.
That may sound like a typically tragic event in one of the modern drinking factories; in fact, it is a simplified description of the death of the playwright Christopher Marlowe in a Deptford tavern in 1593.
Marlowe's contemporary, William Shakespeare, also recognised that the British drink differently, and competitively. When Iago, in Othello, speaks of drinking, he observes: "I learned it in England, where indeed they are most potent at potting: your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander "Drunk Ho!" are nothing to the English."
Excellent - you said pretty much what I wanted to say, if you're prepared to make something yourself then yes there's no limits.
But as you said, walk into an average Fish & Chip shop and what is really on offer? Fried Chips, Fried Fish, Fried Sausages. I'd love to walk into my average fish and chip shop and be able to buy a Tuna Steak ready to eat.
I'd love to know why so many people in this country would prefer a pint to a meal though - it is the taste of beer that's so appealing or the fact it help makes you drunk or could it simply be for the price the food on offer is so bad that you might as well just drink?
When I was in Spain you could get Tapas fairly cheaply and have a whole range of things to pick from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapas
What's the equivelent of Tapas in the UK, packet of crisps, peanuts, pork scratchings? If you do order omething little to just sustain you it's most likely friend in oil, chips, onion rings, etc. or it's something utterly simple and uninspiring that any kid could make at home like Nachoes with cheese poured over it.
http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/food/viewcategory.php?CurrentCategory=108
if you look at the wetherspoons menu they charge £4.99 for what looks like a pretty healthy Chicken Ceasar salad?
http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/food/viewcategory.php?CurrentCategory=85
and yet only charge
£3.99 for a burger, with chips & a free drink
http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/food/viewcategory.php?CurrentCategory=97
.. why?
:yes:
When I went to France in the summer I saw more Kebab houses than I ever have here.
Maison de Kebab ?
Ys I saw lots in Spain too, BUT the huge difference was the ones I saw were quality products not the cheap meat most kebab houses in the UK serve today.
When Donor Kebabs for instance first came to the UK the places near me used quality lamb, make from real slices that they put together themselves. These days it's a factory made produce made by minced up pieces of the bits and pieces left over and then frozen (and BTW I know someone who's seen the production process and told me)
When I was in Barcelona, the kebabs there used meat imported from Germany and was well nice and not greasy. I know there's a few places in central London that still make their own from scratch but they are few and far between these days.
Yes exactly, which is why I went to the trouble to name the places I'd visited in the very first post, so my post isn't flawed it's based on my experience and other people have been invited to give opinions on their own personal situations and experience .. I'm sure the experience of people that live near a fishing port for example is different to those that live inland... and to those that live in little villages.
Also it isn't flawed when someone pointed out that chains like Wetherspoons give great deals on things like Burgers & Chips with a drink but try and be a bit healthy and get a salad instead and there's a huge price premium.
Why what's wrong with wanting a Salad there? I'm sure their Chicken Caesar is healthy enough ..
I just don't see why a Salad with a drink should cost so much more then a Burger and Chips with a free drink?
And plenty of reasons to go depending on the situation and what your other options are.
Some of the reasons include,
lots of seating,
good locations,
ample non smoking sections that are far away from smokers,
it's quiet enough to hold a conversation,
parking availability,
disabled access,
clean toilets,
safe environment,
good security,
no fights,
No sports if that's not of interest at the time
friendly staff
big selection of drinks
I know several places for instance in London that serve good food, but there's no where to park anywhere near them ..
There's more to making good food available to everyone then just what's on the menu, I think Nando's is great BUT our local one has a 1 hour waiting time after 7pm because it's that popular.
I held a party at a Japanese Restaurant a few weeks ago and over 40 people came - all dying to try something different and healthy and the place is packed almost every night - when the same place was an English food Restaurant it closed down twice for lack of business.
Don't know what your local ones are like but ours are very nice.
The one everyone is going to on the weekend for the meetup is very nice with high ceiling so any smoke that is in the air rises pretty high and doesn't effect non smokers much.
Why should healthy food cost more then unhealthy food?
This is exactly my point in other countries (not all countries but other countries) .. healthy food is just normal food, it's not a premium product.
In this country Ice cream for example in a lot of situations isn't made from milk but vegetable oils
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream#United_Kingdom
But how many consumer even realise that? There's very little foods manufacturer over here don't mess with to get the costs down and the profits up.
Everyone here is saying "but I eat home cooked meals" or "look you can buy stuffed sea-bass/leg of lamb with sauteed potatoes etc in a restuarant if you want" (implying that you do - you must all be very well off). No ones saying that you personally don't eat good, healthy food, or that its impossible to get.
What DiamondGeezer seems to be saying is that most people in this country do not, or at least not as regularly/habitually as some of our European neighbours. And that is borne out by the facts. The UK is facing an obesity epidemic. Junk food outsells decent food. Supermarket ready-meals, full of salt, fat, etc, are more popular (quantitively) than home-cooked decent food. A lot of people don't even eat "meals" anymore, they just graze on crisps and chocolate. In short bad food prevails over good, apart from a small minority of expensive (and to many unaffordable) restuarants, or those who have the time/inclination to cook for themselves.
Like I said, I prefer (good quality) "British" food to the rivals. But I think a lot of people are in denial as the the general state of British eating habits as reflected by the majority of the population, the majority of the time.
i do agree that a lot of british people have a bad attitude to food but its not everyone. i can only really use France in my examples because thats where I have lived and travelled around. french people do care a lot about what they eat but its for reasons of pure vanity!! not health or because they love food so much.
i can't count the number of times i was warned by men in the street (who i didn't even know!!) not to eat that ice cream etc because it will make me fat!
But the two points are totally unrelated, yes a significant minority of british drinkers do so in unhealthily large amounts, and yes a significant minority of british eaters eat largely only crap. But the two points arent related.
That is utterly irrelevant to the point if the point is abotu a general view that would be supported by statistics surveys etc.
I personally am not a millionaire, nor do I know any yet I know that they exist, and in fact that there are more millionaires than there used to be.
personal experiences are totally irrelevant when discussing general facts.....
It's embarrassing to live in a country that contains Aberdeen Angus Steak Houses, Garfunkels and Harvesters. It's depressing proof of some people's awful taste that these places make a profit. Most restaurant chains are bland and boring with every branch providing the same warmed up crap straight out the freezer. Part of the reason why eating out in Europe is so much better imo is that restaurant chains are far less common.
It's just depressing to think that one thing we have got right - proper pubs, are under threat from bland uniform chain pubs.