There is a prevailing sentiment around the world that British food is stodgy and bland, that it is largely built on cuts of meat thrust into pies and slabs of beef cooked until grey. The French call us “les rosbifs”. God knows what the Spanish and Italians say, but chances are it isn’t kind.
An enjoyable piece in the i newspaper recently detailed this. It proclaimed our well-trodden culinary lodestone of “meat and two veg” uninspiring. There is some truth to the piece: British gastronomy can be singular, tepid and flavourless. Why, the author argued, sit down to jellied eels when bowls of calamari exist? To that end, fair enough.
