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Damozel: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
An Anglophile's file of English and Expat culture. A yank's eye view.

• 
  

  I am relocating my blog to the following address:

  http://theflatlandalmanack.typepad.com/  (THE FLATLAND ALMANACK)

  I will continue to maintain this site and everything posted here but will do all my further posting there!

  Do stop by for a visit!

• English food: a note to American tourists
  

   

  Hi!  I've changed addresses.  Please jump to the updated version of this posting by clicking here.

   

  English food, here and in England:  A note to American tourists visiting England* (Part 1).

  * CAVEAT: not designed for foodies.

  [1]  The myth.

  Years ago, when I was first a bride and was trying to choose a  china pattern for my gift registry, I saw an advertisement in one of those bride-directed magazines that made a tremendous impression on me.  It was an ad for Royal Doulton china.  The ad featured a surpassingly beautiful plate with bits of unappetizing glop on it.  I can't remember what the food looked like, other than that it was mainly brown or brownish; and there may have been some extremely bright green beans or peas as well.  Underneath it said:  WE PUT THE WORLD'S WORST FOOD ON THE WORLD'S BEST CHINA (or perhaps it was "the world's finest" or "most beautiful" china).  The thing that stuck with me was the description of the food.

  I spent my life hearing jokes about English food and the poor quality of English dentistry; but whatever was true back when those myths gained currency, it isn't true anymore.  English people have delicious food and perfectly fine teeth.  Americans who want to mock them for something are nowadays in a bit of a jam.  There just isn't anything for me to feel superior about these days.  

  I don't know what the food in England was like back in the Seventies.  When I married Don in the Nineties we went to a lot of places that purported to serve English or English-style food.  And most of it, to my surprise, was pretty good.  I didn't try any of the ones with amusing names---I doubt that there are any circumstances in which I could ever bring myself to order any food called "spotted dick"---but I did have other things that according to Don were reasonably authentic and which I quite liked. 

  Most of what I had was pretty basic fare---the sort of food, I imagine---that Don had eaten when he lived in England fifteen years before:  yorkshire pudding, bangers and mash, black pudding, those dark brown pickles, digestive biscuits, and similar fare. 

  He also used to prepare sandwiches in what I thought were pretty odd combinations:  cheese and pickle, tomato and egg, cheese and onion---that sort of thing.  He bought things from time to time from a grocery store in Kissimmee Florida that carried British food (mostly sweets, but a few things in cans).  A local restaurant which Rumcove while visiting from Southend-on-Sea dubbed "The Fake Limey Pub" served fish and chips with malt vinegar, but both he and Don stated that the fish wasn't really the proper English cod cooked in proper English fashion.  Still, I thought it was okay.

  But I believed---because Rumcove and Don seemed to believe---that whatever our deficiencies in history or comedy, we at least had better food than the average English person can buy at the local supermarket.  Furthermore, Americans have many more reasonably priced restaurants serving decent fare.  This was an article of faith for both of them. 

  As it turns out, food in England is indeed expensive.  And we do have more restaurants that are reasonably priced.   Dining out there is very expensive.  

  Everything else you can forget.  Walking through the English supermarkets I visited---and during my trips, I visited Tesco, Sainsbury's, and Morrison's,  I saw a much greater variety of different foods.  Whereas here you can look in the frozen food display and see eight different brands of frozen pizza, in England your basic supermarket offers a variety of  Indian, West Indian, Thai, French, Italian, and Chinese foods.  The supermarkets are generally larger. They have a much greater variety of wines, fresh meat, and fresh fish. 

  I haven't a clue what the average English person eats, but I must say I had a variety of foods while I was there that I've never seen or heard of over here---and almost all of it was good.  It certainly was not as I'd always imagined (bad American food in scanty portions or else stuff made of or cooked in lard). 

  And I need a whole separate posting to talk about the candy.   

  [2]  Dining out in England for the truly average American.

  Rumcove went with me once to our local (beloved) Publix Grocery store, but we didn't stay long, and he didn't really spend much time assessing the items on offer.  Whenever he visited, he wanted to eat out as much as possible because of what he considered the absurd cheapness of restaurant meals, and certainly he developed an appreciation for the variety of (relatively) inexpensive "dining experiences" available in various Florida towns. 

  As to restaurant dining, an American visiting England will find a dearth of the inexpensive chain restaurants of which we are wont to say "at least you know what you're getting when you eat there" and a large number of places offering food of very---as far as I could ascertain---unpredictable quality.  There were a lot of pubs, small cafes, and little restaurants---even supermarkets have cafeterias in them---but you aren't necessarily going to get the sort of smiling service and predictable quality you get here.  You sort of have to know in advance which places are good.  Nick's parents live in a tiny village called Hempton, near the town of Banbury.  "We don't eat out much," they said when we inquired.  We just had to wing it.  Since my mother-in-law is an expert in both French and English cookery, and since the meals she prepared were relentlessly five-star, we had little incentive to eat out at all.  We did it anyway because I was curious about what the restaurants there were like.   

  Nick and I have gone through phases of eating out a lot here.  It isn't cheap; it adds up; but a single meal isn't that expensive.  We did experience a bit of sticker shock if we let ourselves do the math necessary to calculate the exchange rate.  And we spent a lot more money than we had intended.  We aren't wealthy;  and neither of us can distinguish really good food from fine food, so we weren't tempted to try anything prestigious.  We just aimed for middle of the road places with decent fare.  And finding good food wasn't hard at all. 

  We generally had pretty good luck finding places to eat that were pretty good, once we got past the price differential.  We found a wonderful Italian place in Banbury called Fabio's where we had an anniversary party for our family and where we ate several times. 

  There was also a delightful Greek place in Edgeware (London) where we went to celebrate Nick's birthday where we had a lovely meal that unfortunately I can't remember at all (except that it was lovely) due to ha