Scrutable

Every so often the “British people don’t like flavor” (spelling intentional), “British food is bland” topic comes up on Bluesky. It’s tedious every time it comes up. But what’s interesting is some of the responses when people push back and point out this is incorrect.

Case in point here. Someone mentioned curry, which I’m sure you’ll agree is not bland food. The response to that from an American sociologist who would no doubt consider themselves anti-racist, implies that someone who’s been born in the UK but who’s grandparents moved over from the Indian subcontinent, could never actually be British. That seems to be an ethno-nationalist position that’s pretty darned racist.
A similar thing happened around the World Cup, where US commentators were saying what a win for Africa the French win was. All players were French and all but 2 were born in France.

Just a personal observation but it seems to me that Americans have a different conception of identity compared to Europeans (and probably the rest of the world).

In the US what people call ethnicity is based upon ancestry. For example someone might claim to be Swedish or Italian because their great great grandparents emigrated from there in the 19th Century.

In Europe (and elsewhere) ethnicity is based partly on ancestry, but also knowledge of the language and culture. So Rishi Sunak is British because he was born in Britain, speaks the language and knows how to play cricket etc.

These different conceptions can cause problems when an American claims an identity and Europeans bluntly tell them that they don’t include someone in their ethnicity who doesn’t speak their language or understand their culture.

You can alternatively view this as a discussion about what it means for food or cuisine to be British, American, etc.

Americans will call American variations of pizza and pasta dishes "Italian", and American (and Tex-Mex) variations of Mexican dishes "Mexican". Brits call curries "Indian" food, even Tikka Masala, which, as everyone knows, is from Glasgow.

dyqik wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 11:44 am Brits call curries "Indian" food, even Tikka Masala, which, as everyone knows, is from Glasgow.

Much of what Brits call ‘Indian’ food is Bangladeshi or Pakistani.

It’s a bit like someone going out for an ‘Italian’ and eating a Weiner Schnitzel.

Woodchopper wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 1:41 pm

dyqik wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 11:44 am Brits call curries "Indian" food, even Tikka Masala, which, as everyone knows, is from Glasgow.

Much of what Brits call ‘Indian’ food is Bangladeshi or Pakistani.

It’s a bit like someone going out for an ‘Italian’ and eating a Weiner Schnitzel.

It's mostly a mix of Punjabi and Kashmiri. But the restaurants are often Bangladeshi run.

See also: Lebanese restaurants run by Syrians in the UK, and Armenian food in the US, which is from Syria.

Woodchopper wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 1:41 pm

dyqik wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 11:44 am Brits call curries "Indian" food, even Tikka Masala, which, as everyone knows, is from Glasgow.

Much of what Brits call ‘Indian’ food is Bangladeshi or Pakistani.

It’s a bit like someone going out for an ‘Italian’ and eating a Weiner Schnitzel.

And some of it is British. Tikka Massala and Balti being prominent examples.

But the point of the post is about the American saying it’s made by Indians, when it isn’t.

Tristan wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:05 pm

Woodchopper wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 1:41 pm

dyqik wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 11:44 am Brits call curries "Indian" food, even Tikka Masala, which, as everyone knows, is from Glasgow.

Much of what Brits call ‘Indian’ food is Bangladeshi or Pakistani.

It’s a bit like someone going out for an ‘Italian’ and eating a Weiner Schnitzel.

And some of it is British. Tikka Massala and Balti being prominent examples.

But the point of the post is about the American saying it’s made by Indians, when it isn’t.

British people have been eating curry for a couple of hundred years at this point. I have a curry recipe book with country of origin sections, one of which is UK.

Tristan wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 2:05 pm But the point of the post is about the American saying it’s made by Indians, when it isn’t.

That's rather weird, obviously. It's like saying Tex-Mex is made by Tejanos.

The context for the sociologist is that she posted a picture of red beans and rice and a British person called it "cat sick"

Stephanie wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 5:51 pm The context for the sociologist is that she posted a picture of red beans and rice and a British person called it "cat sick"

I don’t get it.

I mean, the fact that we call Indian food ‘Indian food’ implies that we acknowledge it’s a cuisine that has origins in the Indian subcontinent, however much it’s altered itself to suit us since (and based on my one visit to Rajasthan, that’s less than I’d been led to expect).

But if you can’t lay claim to anything that’s been brought to your country by immigrants, (a) what’s the cutoff date for being ‘indigenous’, and (b) on any sensible definition of (a), surely this means the USA’s only cuisine is based around maize, beans, pumpkins and turkey?

It’s not really about what we call the cuisine though. It’s the idea that it’s “Indian people who make it” that’s the issue.

Anyway, Americans who think British food is bland have clearly never eaten lamb with mint sauce, or ham with English mustard, to pick two examples.

Woodchopper wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 1:41 pm It’s a bit like someone going out for an ‘Italian’ and eating a Weiner Schnitzel.

It is Italian, under the name cotoletta alla milanese, or milanesa as South American Spanish-speakers call it.

There's been a lot of culinary sharing. Spag bol has been made in Britain, and other countries north of the Alps, for a very long time. Tagliatelle alla bolognesa is similar, and is made in a distinctive way from how north Europeans make it.

There's a recipe for lasagne, under the name loseyns, in The Forme of Cury, the earliest surviving English cookbook, dated about about 1390. So we've been making that for a long time too. Cury here means "cooking", as in French cuire. But it may indicate our receptiveness later to adopt the word curry. It is notable how much use of spices there is in that early cookery book. It was mainly the Victorians who turned British food bland. Though doubtless poor people had little choice, and there were other factors influencing that from Puritanism and 2ww rationing.

One of the most interesting examples of culinary sharing is visible in the Cornish pasty. Very, very Cornish. (Just don't tell people in the northern Home Counties eating their Bedfordshire Clangers, though those have a more recent origin.) But brave people have suggested that the Cornish probably got the idea, in about the 16th century, from Galician fishermen who they encountered out fishing, who were eating their empanadas, which they had been eating for about 800 years before that. Some empanadas can be very like a Cornish pasty, especially if you have tried the empanadas al horno they eat in Chile and Argentina. Although it doesn't suggest it in that article, elsewhere I have read that the Spanish probably got the empanada from the Arabs - for the Arab conquest of Spain is about when the Spanish started eating empanadas. The Arabs had been making little tasty things wrapped up in pastry for rather longer. And it is generally suggested they got that idea from the Indians and their samosas. Of course, it got a make-over every time it moved.

IvanV wrote: Sun Apr 20, 2025 11:10 am There's a recipe for lasagne, under the name loseyns, in The Forme of Cury, the earliest surviving English cookbook, dated about about 1390. So we've been making that for a long time too. Cury here means "cooking", as in French cuire. But it may indicate our receptiveness later to adopt the word curry. It is notable how much use of spices there is in that early cookery book. It was mainly the Victorians who turned British food bland. Though doubtless poor people had little choice, and there were other factors influencing that from Puritanism and 2ww rationing.

I've made that "losyns" recipe a few times, both for home and for reenactment events, though I did use commercial lasagne sheets because I'm lazy. Very cheesy and very tasty, even though it doesn't bake the lasagne after you've assembled it. I was quite surprised when I found it, having Italian parents and all.

It's a really weird position for merkins to take, especially over Easter weekend. We had homemade simnel cake (ancient, origins at least medieval, spiced), homemade hot cross buns (ancient, possibly from the 14th century, spiced) and wild garlic porchetta (obviously an Italian cut but from a native Middle White pig breed and foraged wild garlic). None of which can be described as "bland".

Stephanie wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 5:51 pm The context for the sociologist is that she posted a picture of red beans and rice and a British person called it "cat sick"

I'm assuming no one read my post.

A British person told an American that their food looked like cat sick. The American then responded in kind, and the whole thing blew up from there. I feel like that context is important, because when someone is just rude off the bat like that, you're probably not going to be responding in the most charitable way. Particularly when other people pop up to continue the argument

People on the internet can be dicks for various different reasons, which is why I tend not to get wound up by things like the OP. So yeah, someone was being a dickhead about beans and rice, and someone else was a took umbrage and insulted them and their nation right back. It’s school kid level he said/she said outrage of not great consequence.


However I was pleased to find that some else knew mediaeval recipes that I knew, but was unsurprised it was Ivan.

Stephanie wrote: Wed Apr 23, 2025 6:49 pm

Stephanie wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 5:51 pm The context for the sociologist is that she posted a picture of red beans and rice and a British person called it "cat sick"

I'm assuming no one read my post.

A British person told an American that their food looked like cat sick. The American then responded in kind, and the whole thing blew up from there. I feel like that context is important, because when someone is just rude off the bat like that, you're probably not going to be responding in the most charitable way. Particularly when other people pop up to continue the argument

I read your post. The issue isn’t that she was rude in reply. If she’d replied “yeah, well your food looks like dog sh.t” that would be one thing. It’s that for an anti-racist she seems to assume descendants of immigrants can’t be fully British.

Stephanie wrote: Wed Apr 23, 2025 6:49 pm

Stephanie wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 5:51 pm The context for the sociologist is that she posted a picture of red beans and rice and a British person called it "cat sick"

I'm assuming no one read my post.

A British person told an American that their food looked like cat sick. The American then responded in kind, and the whole thing blew up from there. I feel like that context is important, because when someone is just rude off the bat like that, you're probably not going to be responding in the most charitable way. Particularly when other people pop up to continue the argument

I read it, and it is useful context, but for me the wider trend of Americans (and other nationalities) dunking on British food is a common enough one that it's a fair example to respond to on that basis, even if the ethno-nationalism argument is possibly where the intended debate was.

I don't object to discussion on the wider point of Americans misunderstanding British food, but I maybe less see the point of singling out one post by someone that is part of a day of them getting stupid comments.

Stephanie wrote: Wed Apr 23, 2025 6:49 pm

Stephanie wrote: Fri Apr 18, 2025 5:51 pm The context for the sociologist is that she posted a picture of red beans and rice and a British person called it "cat sick"

I'm assuming no one read my post.

A British person told an American that their food looked like cat sick. The American then responded in kind, and the whole thing blew up from there. I feel like that context is important, because when someone is just rude off the bat like that, you're probably not going to be responding in the most charitable way. Particularly when other people pop up to continue the argument

I didn't understand it. When I read it, I thought "the sociologist" was any sociologist might find a point of interest in this, not the same person as "she". But from your second post, I'm now guessing that "she", ie, Tressie is "the sociologist".

Tristan's post said American sociologist so I assumed it would be clear from that context. But hey ho, apologies, I only look at this forum on my phone and write fairly quickly and casually.