Spam spam beans and spam
I’m seeing this all over Facebook:
#Brexit – A Still Life pic.twitter.com/lRrDhP14up
— William Gould (@willgupshup) June 24, 2016
I actually remember that Britain, the one that had never heard of quiche or hummus or gelato, the one where “baked” beans on toast was considered an acceptable meal.
I remember it too. And I remember being so totally thrilled with every single thing I put in my mouth in France, after a few months in England. . .
Right???
England: “ice cream” that tasted like nothing at all; France: glace cassis, abricot, noisette…
(off topic)
The title is genius. You made me want to seek that out. :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_eYSuPKP3Y
(/off topic)
I know someone that married a Brit. She told me she asked her husband once, “Does everything your mother cooks come out of a can?” He replied, “No, sometimes it comes out of a packet.”
fork, to be totally fair, that isn’t totally the Brits. That was the way a lot of people I know cooked. Both of my husband’s grew up eating stuff from cans and packets. The only reason we ever ate anything that wasn’t from a can or packet is that my father had a garden and we didn’t have a lot of money, so we ate what we could grow. As soon as my mother was able to, she ditched all fresh foods for canned.
I find that picture both hilarious and poignant but let’s not fall back on that – especially but not uniquely American – trope that the British can’t cook.
We lost our culinary way for a while. That can be traced to ww2 and its aftermath. Rationing wasn’t exactly conducive to good cooking. We had to make do with things like powdered eggs and a generation of Brits grew up with inferior ingredients. I think that did some damage to our reputation but it is simply not true today. Some of our restaurants are among the best in the world, our ingredients certainly rival anyone elses and cooking has never been more popular as a recreational passtime and a rewarding career. While I agree that eating out here in the 70s was a dismal affair, that isn’t the case now. Well, usually.
I’ll say just one more thing about this, in case I start to sound bitter. I do all the cooking in our house and I sometimes look up recipes. When I look up recipes on a UK site they are almost always recipes from scratch, without using processed or pre-prepared ingredients. When I look the same recipes on US sites, they almost always require something like soup mix, usually referred to by the brand. Start to reeducate yourselves about modern British cooking culture and I won’t harp on about your embarrassing recipes.
I actually remember that Britain, the one that had never heard of quiche or hummus or gelato, the one where “baked” beans on toast was considered an acceptable meal.
Yeah uncontrolled immigration just means more yummy food pavilions at Folk Fest.
And there are those who remember a Britain in which no one had ever heard of Rotherham.
Not being ashamed of my humble origins, I can honestly state that I love ‘baked’ beans on toast
latsot – well that’s what I said – I remember when Britain was like that. Decades ago. It changed.
And so did the US. I grew up on decent food but my god it was provincial and tame.
OK, that was meant as a light-hearted comment, because this is all so horrible and depressing. But, yeah, it relied on unfair stereotypes and hand-waving away social factors that influence how we cook and what we eat. As an apology, and to show I know better, here’s a defense of jello salads:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/08/history-of-jell-o-salad.html?src=longreads
Jim Hacker on EEC regulations. (1:37)