Why Does British Food Suck? Brown, Beige, Boiled, Bland, Boring, Basic, British British food has been at the heart of culinary scrutiny for decades for its lack of flavour and flair. Debate’s editorial assistant, Andrew Broadley, answers the age old question, why does British food suck? When Britain fell in love with a fermented fish sauce popular across Asia, they recreated it, and in doing so came up with tomato sauce. A dish that despite being a sugary tomato-based abomination (fight me) remains popular across the Western world and in no way resembles fermented fish. Something about that feels very British. As a nation
they colonised half the world and ruled the spice trade (through horrific and not to be brushed over methods) only to become the bearers of bad taste. Britain is in many ways the laughing stock of the food world, but how did it get that way? How did a cold and grey land of constant drizzle, but one with a rich supply of spice and trade, establish a cuisine so... beige. “What is British cuisine?” Dr Lindsay Neill, a professor of Hospitality at AUT, asks me. It’s a complex question. If we want to ignore the complexities of food in
a modern, globalised context for a moment (we’ll get there) and simply focus on ‘traditional’ British cuisine, Dr Neill says people see it as “overcooked, stodgy, bland food with all the colour boiled out.” He then tells me a sweet story of a time his aunt boiled cabbage for four hours, leaving a smell that penetrates his memory to this day. “So British food is so bad it induces trauma?” My eyes light up at the prospect of my article being filled with snappy one liners and jokes. “Overcooking isn't a cuisine,” Dr Neill reminds me. “Less is more” and if you take away overcooking food, you take away a lot of the issues people have with British food.
