AH.com greatest challenge of all: Make England a 20th Cuisine Superpower

When fine dining is discussed, English cuisine is seldom mentioned--except as an example of what good food is not. The world wide reputation of twentieth century English cuisine makes the combat reputations seem of the Boulton-Paul Defiant and Fairey Battle seem enviable. Meanwhile, across the narrows of the Channel lies France, possibly the greatest culinary power in the world. Even Italy, the weak sister of the Axis, can crush England in a contest of cuisine. What would it take to transform English food into not just palatable food but great food?
 
Better weather and better soil, leading to more diverse crops. With a wider range of home grown plants, they're able to have reasonably diverse and non-bland cuisine fairly early. Once the spice trade starts rolling in, they're able to improve on an already good base.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
We have discussed France cuisine position, before and their impressive position are to some point result of Frances centralism and absolutism as much as geograpic postion, that brought the best chefs from France Italy and the westen HRE to Paris. As often in a absolutism much of the rest of the dinners of the court was shared among the servant and subjects, which meant that the common Parisian knew how royal food tasted, and they could do their best to duplicate it. In UK there's both the geograpic problem* that they don't get chefs from the mainland so we get a smaller starting base for cuisine, and it wasn't like the Hanover could give UK something radical different. The next problem are the agricultural policies of UK in the 18-19th century, which destroyed much of the unique cuisine of the British Isles, the industrialisation helped by creating a need for proto fast food, easy and cheap food for a growing urban population. So what we need are no glorious revolution and a greater centralisation of the union and at last maybe a industrial revolution which begin in the Netherlands and Rhineland (trough for that we may need a 16th century POD). The result may not be one of the best cuisine in the world, but we may get one which isn't a synonym for bad food :)(sorry to the British, but British food tend to be the butt in jokes about food)

*North European climate make quantity a quality in itself, and give a focus on root plants, pork, beef and fish.
 
C'mon folks, what sort of changes would be required in the 20th century?

The spice trade is already established. You can't change the soil or climate easily.

Compare England with another northern European industrial nation--Germany. The Germans, when they are not eating ersatz foods, had wonderful cuisine. And they make the greatest pastries. Certainly, the climate of Germany is not any better for agriculture than the United Kingdom. Further, England has the advantage of much more easily available seafood--plus, England had the spice trade with India and elsewhere.

Consider this: England was able to develop a thriving soul, blues, and rock music scene even with a dearth of old Mississippi blues masters, hillbillies, and the Motor City. Making good food a part of the culture should be as possible as making decent pop music.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
C'mon folks, what sort of changes would be required in the 20th century?

The spice trade is already established. You can't change the soil or climate easily.

Compare England with another northern European industrial nation--Germany. The Germans, when they are not eating ersatz foods, had wonderful cuisine. And they make the greatest pastries. Certainly, the climate of Germany is not any better for agriculture than the United Kingdom. Further, England has the advantage of much more easily available seafood--plus, England had the spice trade with India and elsewhere.

Consider this: England was able to develop a thriving soul, blues, and rock music scene even with a dearth of old Mississippi blues masters, hillbillies, and the Motor City. Making good food a part of the culture should be as possible as making decent pop music.

The difference are that the Germans hasn't destroyed their local cuisine like UK, while absolutism and the many courts spread new cuisine around, plus German cuisine are split in three main areas, French-like in south west, Central European in south east and Scandinavian-like in the north. UKs problem are that you have mostly only general standardised food back, of course it's changing with the multi-culturalism of British cities, but it will take you decades if not centuries to raise British cuisines status, because the good food you have aren't seen as British, it seen as Caribbian, Indian, Chinese or African. You may get some of the best food in world in London, but it is fundamental not seen as British.
 
I assume this is a DBWI, as from the late '90s onwards the UK has developed one of the best fine dining food cultures in the world.

Now, domestic cooking across much of the country is less than brilliant, but the creation/renaissance of a top end restaurant ecosystem has been quite amazing.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
I assume this is a DBWI, as from the late '90s onwards the UK has developed one of the best fine dining food cultures in the world.

Now, domestic cooking across much of the country is less than brilliant, but the creation/renaissance of a top end restaurant ecosystem has been quite amazing.

Yes but your problem are that it isn't seen as British food by anybody outside Britain, the best dumplings may be made in Britain but it's seen as British as frog legs. It may look differently in 20-30 years but not now.
 
Easily done, with a little imagination. Any monarch or even your average insanely wealthy industrialist develops an obsession with gourmand...ation? Let's put it near the beginning of the century for greatest effect.

In the spirit of the recently re-founded Olympics, he sets up a real-life Iron Chef style tournament. It starts out fairly small, but grows and mutates to incorporate a month-long celebration of food in whatever city it happens to be in (Edinburgh Festival parallels here, natch.)

Second choice: something similar to the Nazis emerge with an anti-gaullic focus and a better economic/military situation. They're able to wholly occupy France and begin purging it. The French seek refuge across the Channel and the chefs set up shop.

Or, some insanely austere/puritanical government takes power in France and kicks out all the decadent sinners, who seek refuge across the Channel.
 
Finally, a topic to get the teeth into for those of us interested in food history.

The PoD would need to be fairly early, keeping things in an Edwardian state of culinary development. Prior to the impact of the World Wars (rationing, social changes to menu structures, decline of the ability to keep servants) British food was very much on a level with any other major Belle Epoque nation. Looking at menus from Germany, France, the USA or Britain, they all follow the same model and feature the same types of foods with relatively minor geographical alterations and sauces.

Escoffier did spend a lot of time in Britain, and there was an appreciation for good food, albeit in amounts that seem excessive to most modern appetites.

Changing the events will leave us with a decent cuisine, but not the superpower level curiously referred to. For that, we need to go back a bit.
The tendency to import French chefs and write menus in French requires a PoD well before 1900.

There is no lack of good ingredients, recipes or cooks as compared to other nations, and British food has not always been portrayed in the derisory light that is rather unjustly applied to it. As referred to, there is great seafood, and this is joined by excellent cheese, butter, beef, mutton, pork, game, hams, pies, puddings, fruit and vegetables. The building blocks have never been absent. Nor is it a matter of how they have been put together, more one of when.

It only really started to get that reputation in the 18th century or so in comparison to the intricacies of French and Italian sauces, and with the changes in the demographic structure of society - the move of large amounts of people to the urban areas from rural parts of Britain directly lead to something of a change in the character and quality of cuisine, as mentioned. We really only start to find the nasty reputation from after WW1.

To change the reputation, we'd need to do either of two things
1.) Reduce the comparative reputation of French food and (much more difficult) the niche of French culture in Britain. That simply creates too many butterflies and is difficult to engineer without going way back into the Middle Ages...and that leads to difficulties in finding sources on culinary history.
So, that leaves us with
2.) Change the British approach to food and food culture from the 1700s or 1800s. This would take an active monarch to encourage the trend among the aristocracy and wealthy. The figure to do it would be the Prince Regent/George IV, who did have Careme over working for him for a while.
The PoD would be for George IV to come to the throne earlier and keep Careme in service longer.
This would need to lead to other chefs being employed, and a proliferation of books and enthusiasm on the topic. Setting up prizes, encouraging restaurant development, competitive banquets between the aristocracy and clubs could possibly flow on from this. The next step would need to be an appreciation of British ingredients leading to the beginnings of a form of appellation d’origine contrôlée for key foodstuffs. Keep this environment going throughout the 19th century, which isn't outlandishly impossible given British economic development, and the stage is set for a bona fide food culture in Britain. That creates the environment where grande cuisine recipes are modified to fit local ingredients, and other recipes created to employ them. Then we enter the 20th century, and hopefully avoid wars, rationing and the unfortunate results.
 
England has the misfortune of being regarded as still being in the 19th century.
English food though is really rather good.
London has a bigger share of the world's best restaurants than anywhere else and even on a base level English food is good.

(BTW- Why is it England we're picking on not Britain? Surely the others have just as bad a stereotype if not more so. To the uninitiated haggis sounds horrific)


Yes but your problem are that it isn't seen as British food by anybody outside Britain, the best dumplings may be made in Britain but it's seen as British as frog legs. It may look differently in 20-30 years but not now.
Eh?
Dumplings are one of the main generic British things. Quite a negatively associated one at that.



I guess a lot of the problem could be that the British wrote the book on what is good and not (so to speak) hence British food is the boring generic norm whilst foreign foods with good stuff were to be extolled and foreign stuff which weren't so great just not to be mentioned (Yes, I'm looking at you Netherlands and Scandinavia)
 

Valdemar II

Banned
England has the misfortune of being regarded as still being in the 19th century.
English food though is really rather good.
London has a bigger share of the world's best restaurants than anywhere else and even on a base level English food is good.

(BTW- Why is it England we're picking on not Britain? Surely the others have just as bad a stereotype if not more so. To the uninitiated haggis sounds horrific)

So do some of the prestigeous food in the world, frog legs, snail, caviar (fish eggs). If Haggis was widely eaten among the rich it would have a better reputation, if you look back a century ago lomster was poor man food.

The truth are that haggis would likely be a major pride of the British kitchen in a world where it had a better reputation.

Eh?
Dumplings are one of the main generic British things. Quite a negatively associated one at that.

Sorry wrong translation I mean't spring rolls.


I guess a lot of the problem could be that the British wrote the book on what is good and not (so to speak) hence British food is the boring generic norm whilst foreign foods with good stuff were to be extolled and foreign stuff which weren't so great just not to be mentioned (Yes, I'm looking at you Netherlands and Scandinavia)
You really didn't write the book on that subject the French and Italians did. Beside the primary reason that Duth and Scandinavian cuisine are seldom mentioned are because its cuisine are relative unknown.
 
Why are people bashing English (And Scottish, Welsh, Irish, etc) food?

Our sausages rival the German and Austrian ones.
Our cheeses rival the French.
We have an amazing variety of soups and stews.
We lead the world in pies and mash.
And lets not forget the variety of condiments we have.

But just because we didn't give our food fancy names :mad:...

Ok rant over.
I agree that the reason British food has a bad rep is down to industrialisation. Indeed we practically invented fast food to feed our labourers. This meant that our food became a lot more simplified. And probably fueled the rise in condiments to compensate.
Add in the expanding British Empire and multiculturalism and most new recipes invented got given foreign names to be more exotic. In fact a lot of famous dishes now are simply poor people's food with more and better ingredients: chilli, curry, jambalaya.

I will also point out that the famous indian dish Chicken Tikka Masala was invented in Britain. And we were making roast dinners long before the Italians used tomatoes (can you name an italian dish without them?)
 
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MrP

Banned
Pratchett once said that the English language got where it is not by borrowing words, but by luring other languages into a back alley, smacking them over the head, then rifling their pockets for loose adjectives. British food has undergone a similar transition. Well, so it would appear from the odd juxtaposition of how it is regarded abroad and how it actually tastes, as my fellow countrymen have pointed out. :D
 
Why are people bashing English (And Scottish, Welsh, Irish, etc) food?

But just because we didn't give our food fancy names :mad:...

(SNIP)

And we were making roast dinners long before the Italians used tomatoes (can you name an italian dish without them?)
Actually, the best parts of much of English cuisine are the names: Bubble& Squeak, Spotted Dick,Toad-in-the-Hole, Squid-in-a-Bucket, Felched Badger, Mushy Peas, Bangers & Mash, etc.

Your assertion about Italian cooking is a stereotype. The tomato based dishes tend to be from southern Italy rather than northern Italy. There are numerous roasts made by the Italians, as well as dishes made without tomatoes, entrees such as Veal Marsala, various Orzo and Risotto dishes, seafoods such as Calamari, light meat dishes such as Prosciutto e melone, and various pastas made with white sauces similar to Fettucine Alfredo.

Consider that people rarely say, "Hey, let's get some English food tonight." or "I really feel like cooking something English." There are few restaurants outside of England that specialize in English cuisine beyond "Pub Grub" or maybe the English (or Irish) Breakfast.

Rather than defending current English cuisine, let us discuss a reasonable timeline that would have made English cuisine better so that in the OTL people would say, "Let's eat English food," or "Let's go to an English restaurant." Imagine a world where chefs from other nations go to England to study, the way they now go to Italy, France, or the United States.
 
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You shouldnt ignore Scotland - what other country would invent the deep-fried mars bar?
Merely a pale imitation of the United States' cuisine, which for decades has featured such things as Deep Fried Ice Cream, along with newer culinary innovations such as deep fried Twinkies (an execrable creme filled sponge cake, almost bad enough to be English, which is then battered and fried) and deep-fried whole turkeys.
 
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Leaving aside whether we can claim a pepole who fry Mars Bars are bad cooks...

It occurs to me that britain managed to rule plenty of decent cuisines, and some of the best food in the world are eclectic fusions. So how can we make curry and Cantonese catch on in Britain earlier?
 

MrP

Banned
Leaving aside whether we can claim a pepole who fry Mars Bars are bad cooks...

It occurs to me that britain managed to rule plenty of decent cuisines, and some of the best food in the world are eclectic fusions. So how can we make curry and Cantonese catch on in Britain earlier?

Well, Indian dishes came back with the army and merchants from India, and were certainly appreciated by quite a few people, with mention made in literature of old Colonel Thingummy who specifically brought back Indian chef A to make him the food he'd enjoyed when serving out there. I suspect they were a) often regarded with suspicion for being foreign and b) there's not a relatively small number of people to pass on the culinary tradition/a relatively small number capable of/prepared to pick it up. Certain spices or foods were and to a degree still are not widely available. I mean to go looking in a week or two for some ingredients for Chinese cuisine which I know aren't available in my local stores. Happily, I live near Manchester, so I'm bound to find ethnic shops which will stock things. I think a possible problem is that British food was often judged by whether it was filling rather than whether it was quite as tasty as it could have been.
 
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