British Food is Awesome. Really.

I got back from the UK last week, and it was my most delicious trip there to date (see “England: Good Food, Horrible Death“).  When I first traveled around the UK in 2000, I actually lost weight because I couldn’t find much I wanted to eat, but this time around, I stuffed my face happily and had a list of food destinations that was too long to get through in one trip.  And we’re not just talking London – I gorged myself in Yorkshire and Wales, too.  I was curious to see what had caused such a dramatic turnaround in a relatively short time period, so I did a bit of research.  It turns out that British cuisine has been on a steady rise for a while now (admittedly, in 2000 I was a broke backpacker so that’s probably the last demographic to benefit from this food revolution), and canned meat and heavy sauces are slowly being edged out by Michelin-starred restaurants and an emphasis on fresh, local ingredients.

Food in Britain tends to be the butt of jokes the world over, with everyone maligning the boiled meat and drab vegetables they presume to still be the standard.  When a recent survey announced that chicken tikka masala was now Britain’s most popular dish, many foreigners sniggered – even British people don’t like their own food!  But once upon a time, Britain actually enjoyed a reputation for fantastic food.  Feasts were notorious for delicious pheasant and game, and the British weakness for cakes and puddings ensured that there was always something sweet to enjoy at the end of a meal.  Things changed with the age of the Industrial Revolution and its ensuing population boom.  Most growth centered in cities, but the infrastructure needed to sustain an urban food supply was practically nonexistent; at a time when London’s population had swelled to over a million, food was still being transported by horse-drawn barge.  Thus, the move away from the land rushed in the advent of canned and preserved foods that didn’t require refrigeration, not to mention a growing disconnect between people and the origins of their meals.

British cuisine was dealt another blow by World War II – food rationing policies enacted by the government may have ended in 1954, but the kids who grew up during this period were used to being frugal about food.  Considering that rations during the worst times of the war included one egg and two ounces of cheese per week, this is unsurprising.  As that generation grew up, their main concern was value, and processed foods fit the bill nicely.  Poor-quality sausages, bad meat pies, mushy peas – this is the food that has been internationally stereotyped for ages, and rightly so.  It was nasty.  But a revolution is brewing; Britain is coming out of its war- and urbanization-induced haze and remembering its roots, and the future is looking tastier than ever.

So what is modern British cuisine?  Sure, it’ll still include famous dishes like fish and chips, bangers and mash, and steak pies, but increasingly, more attention is being paid to the quality of ingredients and where they came from.  Celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are distancing themselves from the food of their parents’ generation and paving the way for buzzwords like ‘local’ and ‘sustainable.’  But unlike the U.S. where ‘local’ and ‘sustainable’ often translate into ‘unaffordable’ and ‘inaccessible,’ the local food movement has seen success with all economic classes.  Vegetable box deliveries from local farms are becoming more and more common, there’s been a surge of Brits growing their own food on allotments and rooftop gardens, and even supermarkets are making it a point to buy local - Marks & Spencer will go so far as to tell you the UK farm from which your food came.  British cuisine is also increasingly ethnic; waves of immigration in the 1950′s brought with it the cuisines of Pakistan, Bangladesh and the West Indies, but more recent travel to far-flung countries such as Thailand and Australia started a love affair with curries, chilies and barbecued meats.  These are commonly found in grocery stores across the country, quite a feat considering that fifty years ago, pineapples and bananas were considered luxury goods because of how difficult they were to find.

Like any food movement, British cuisine still has a long way to go.  A friend of mine in London warned that, despite the growing number of farmers’ markets and gastropubs all over the country, shit food is often the norm outside cities; the majority of Brits will still eat food of appalling quality.  Indeed, in her book “Bad Food Britain: How a Nation Ruined Its Appetite,” Joanna Blythman states that since 2003, Britain has eaten more ‘ready meals’ than the rest of Europe combined, and more than half of the savory snacks and crisps eaten on the continent as a whole.  But the movement is thriving, and it could be only a matter of time before a critical mass is reached and British cuisine becomes, dare I say, on par with the best the French and Italians have to offer. Well, maybe that’s a bit strong, but in any case, my days of being starved for delicious food options in the UK are long gone.