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Dining
Guide / British Cuisine
There is no
cuisine in the world about which there are as many jokes
as there are about British cooking. Particularly the French are
great in making jokes about British cuisine. For example, according
to one French comic, hell is a place where the cooks are British.
Or did you
know why the British serve mint sauce with lamb? According
to French food critics, mint must be the only plant not eaten by
sheep.
Of course,
these all are exaggerations. The British bear them with their superior
sense of humor. And probably it's their preference for understatements
why they haven't cracked similar jokes about French cuisine.
It's granted
that British cuisine cannot present as wide an array of internationally
renowned dishes as does French cuisine. But British cuisine has
contributed a lot to the world's steak culture, and there
are a number of inventions in British cuisine which are even adopted
by the French - as for example the creation of sandwiches.
As for steaks,
that has in the past been so British that British elite troops were
referred to as beefeaters. And the term Porterhouse
for a special large kind of steak cuts has nothing to do with porters
or luggage carriers but originates from British pubs where a special
brand of dark beer, Porter beer, was served, and where a
snack consisted of a steak some 2 lbs (about 900 grams) by weight
- a single portion for a single man.
Talking about
snacks: the first association is a sandwich, and the origin
is as British as it could be. The name refers to the Earl of
Sandwich who lived 1718 to 1792.
The British
have always been betting and gambling buffs. It's in accordance
with their idea of sports and sportsmanship - basically
a British philosophy.
But the Earl
of Sandwich overdid it even by British standards. During his
gambling days, taking meals was considered by him as highly unwelcome
interruptions. He therefore invented a kind of meal not requiring
him to exchange the gambling table for the dinning table: sandwiches.
It's a character
trait of the British not to be overly proud of their cuisine. This
is a state of mind that makes one open to learn. In the case of
their foods and drinks, the British did learn quite a bit from the
colonies conquered by the beefeaters all around the world.
From East Asia (China) they adopted tea (and reexported the
habit to India), and from India they adopted curry-style
spicing.
However, they
didn't just copy these food and drink habits but combined them with
their own foodstuffs: tea with milk, and curry with pastry
(to make curried pies).
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