by Flora Foodie

Created on: June 10, 2007

Simple! Because it is may be the easiest cuisine in the world to mess-up. The products that are required for traditional English recipes should be top-quality, the timing when cooking - perfect. It is one of the most widely spread gastronomic banalities that English food is horrid and the English have long been Europe's laughing stock for their cooking. I am sure that people that continue to think and spread this around have never tried organic Cumberland sausages, flavourful cauliflower cheese, curried breakfast kedgeree, properly done Sunday roast beef and roast potatoes, melt-in-the mouth Chelsea and Bath buns, succulent fruitcake and many other signature English dishes.

What about English contributions to the treasury of international recipes? How would you like a world without English steaks, originally beef-steaks (if you are not a vegetarian that is) that came into fashion in France, America, Russia and other countries in the 19th century? And nowadays, even if the French continue laughing at the English palate they have adopted English crumble in many of their fancy restaurant menus (they pronounce it "cronble" and often make it a savoury one with tomatoes, but it is still just another English crumble, you know).
What about Jamie Oliver taking modern gastronomic world by storm? I can't say that he is my favourite chef, but some of his recipes are really brilliant, including his very English Sheila's Pudding
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recip e/0,1977,FOOD_9936_14178,00.html
and no less English Fantastic Fish Pie
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0, 1977,FOOD_9936_14180,00.html
So yes, England has a lot of lovely food to offer. Just read Laura Mason's "The Taste of Britain" and other great books (Alan Davidson's "A Kipper with my Tea" is also one of my favourites) to know more on English food traditions.
And yet I, just as many of you, was frequently disappointed by English cooking when visiting England, my love for English cuisine notwithstanding. It seems that many cooks in England still follow the technique of a frustrated house-wife from one of Agatha Christie's detective novels: "After all every food is alright if you boil it long enough, isn't it?" or something along these lines. Over-boiled vegetables are never tempting, to be sure, but if you boil them just right that's when their flavour comes out, not masked by rich sauces or over-abundance of spices. And this is indeed one of techniques crucial to good English cooking. And so it goes on. There are too many mistakes one can make when cooking the English way.
And there were also the lean years of Second World War and the period after it (food restrictions in the UK were abolished only in 1954!) during which most of the population became reconciled with cheap processed food, there being not much else to eat. General loss of cooking traditions followed. It's only lately that many English cooks have come to recognize their heritage and begun to work on it.
So, if you get to eat some properly cooked decent English food, you sure are going to realize that the reputation of English cuisine is not what it should be. English cooking done by a good cook is an unforgettable experience for a true foodie.

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