Posted on 08/19/2004 7:01:22 AM PDT by Pokey78
My American friends in England never stop complaining about the food here. It’s all ‘gloopy’, they say, and they bitch about the warm beer, grey curries and unidentifiable soups. Sometimes their longing for US comfort food — beefburgers, hotdogs, cookies, tacos and dairy queen ice cream — becomes so strong that some of them even resort to a company called the Food Ferry, a British Internet site that delivers Skippy Peanut Butter, beef jerky and Oreo cookies.
My solution is a little different. I tell them that American food is overrated, unhealthy and revolting, and the sooner they wean themselves off it, the better they will feel.
American food seems pretty impressive at first sight, but during a four-year stint in the US I realised that it is basically a con trick: bigger isn’t necessarily better; brighter colours don’t mean more intense flavours; sugar tastes good, but leaves you feeling depressed, sick and still hungry.
British cuisine may be considered bland but at least, by and large, you know what you’re putting in your mouth. One of America’s bestselling snacks is a cheese dip designed to be scooped up with nacho chips. It’s runny, it’s orange, it tastes like cheese, but a label on the jar says that it’s a ‘non-dairy product’. Then there are Twinkies — small yellow sponge cakes found in the lunchboxes of most US children. Twinkies are made of such mysterious stuff that they don’t have a best-before date and are subjected to scientific tests. ‘A Twinkie was left on a window ledge for four days,’ says one Internet report, ‘during which time many flies were observed crawling across the Twinkie’s surface but, contrary to our hypothesis, birds — even pigeons — avoided this potential source of sustenance.’
Even the food that’s made of food is a challenge. A pastrami sandwich comes with a good six inches of meat in the middle — how do you get your mouth around something that’s nearly as big as your head? After a few attempts, any appetite you might once have had is gone. Have you ever tried an American apple? They look perfect — enormous, red and shiny — but have the consistency of cotton wool. It’s the same with the meat: huge, juicy-looking steaks, and chops, perfectly grilled, pink inside, but tasting of wet paper.
The Cheesecake Factory is one of the most popular family food chains in the US — and for me the most grotesque example of American food. A single slice of cheesecake is as big as a brick and would more than suffice for a meal. An entire cheesecake could quite easily put a small child into hyperglycaemic shock. It must put a strain on family life, having to watch your nearest and dearest eating this gunk. The cheesecake is just one of the ‘factory’ specials whose metal menu lists hundreds of other dishes, like the Tons of Fun burger: ‘Yes, It’s True! Double Patties, Double Cheese, Triple Sesame-Seed Bun with Lettuce, Tomato, Red Onion, Pickles and Secret Sauce. Served with Fries’ and the Mile-High Meatloaf Sandwich ‘Topped with Mashed Potatoes, Crispy Onions and Barbeque Au Jus. Served Open-Faced on Extra Thick Egg Bread.’
The labelling of dishes in American restaurants provides an interesting challenge to both menu-writer and reader. Ordering from the food encyclopaedias of restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory is rather like resitting one’s SAT tests. There is a full page dedicated to every beast, bread and starch as well as every national cuisine; also ‘fusion’ dishes. Whatever I chose, I was always left worrying whether I’d made the wrong decision. And despite the bewildering variety of foodstuffs on offer, any attempt to veer from the menu is greeted with blank incomprehension:
‘Just the turkey, please.’
‘The dish comes that way.’
‘But I only want the turkey, thanks.’
‘I’m sorry, miss, that’s not possible.’
‘But I know you’ve got grilled turkey — it says so right here.’
‘That’s our Grilled Turkey Sandwich, miss. Our Grilled Turkey’s on our dinner menu.’
‘But surely you can just remove the bread?’
‘No — I’m sorry. Like I told you before, the Grilled Turkey Sandwich comes with the bread.’
‘You make it sound like it’s born with the bread.’
So you decide to eat in, but this involves a trip to the supermarket and hours spent trying to spot the microscopic differences between thousands of identical brands. Whereas in England we would have an aisle of grains and jams and cereals, Americans will dedicate an area the size of a tennis court just to varieties of bread: loafs of every shape and shade, bagels and buns, waffle mix. Often, in desperation, I’d just go for the most adventurous option. ‘Coconut-sprinkled sweet potatoes’ made one appearance in my flat, but only one.
Half the problem, I think, is that food isn’t just food in the States — it’s an obsession. Not only does Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple Cheesecake exist, it can be gawped at online. The Krispy Kreme website features a five-minute video with a jaunty electronic soundtrack showing rows of little doughnuts browning slowly on a conveyor belt, before being lovingly glazed, bought and eaten. Food even provides whole states with a sense of history and identity — Midwestern towns fight over titles like ‘home of the peanut’, ‘birthplace of the corndog’, ‘Krispy Kreme Kountry’.
And with the excesses of American food comes a national fixation on dieting: as Eric Schlosser reports, McDonald’s has attempted to cash in on this with a McLean burger for dieters. We may not go to the gym so often in Britain, but our food doesn’t demand that we do. I flew back from America looking forward to shepherd’s pie and pints of beer only to be confronted by an upsurge in American fast food in London — not enough to keep my US friends happy, but still worrying. Perhaps we and the Americans should pay more attention to global gastronomy. We could form a food think tank to wean the US off sugar and on to snails, squid and sushi. It would make us all healthier — and happier.
Some people are impervious to British splendor...LOL
Big Digger, I am sure they do, I occassionaly like a Scone. Just got back from Gulf Shores, Alabama, the Seafood there superb. I had Fried whole soft shell crabs, steamed oysters with cajun seasoning, red snapper in a wine cream sauce with shrimp, and Oyster po boy...MIND YOU THAT WAS NOT ALL IN ONE SETTING...it was spread out over a few days.
I remember Sherlock Holmes mentioning how only a Scotswoman made the best breadfast. Of course Conan-Doyle was from Edinburgh.
But for the cheese, it seems bland, did you omit some spice or something?
I have to say, this summer's crop of newbies has been pretty disappointing. Their general argument style seems to be to call everyone a poopyface.
I'm more of a wine than a beer person, but I'm 100 percent behind the Campaign for Real Ale. (Britain has its awful mass-produced beer too.)
I have. I have eaten and 'drunken' my way across Britain, from Kent, England to Fort William, Scotland.
There is some wonderful British food out there: shepherd's pie, Faggots 'n' peas, blood puddin', bangers 'n' mash, Lincolnshire sausage...
And of course the late-night fare after a bender to be had at the chippies and carts--Donner kabobs, shwarma..
However, this snobby chick need only look north of England to Scotland to see the most extreme culinary examples of excess in the world:
Battered and deep fried slices of pizza
battered and deep fried polish sausage
battered and deep fried hamburger patties
battered and deep fried white pudding (oh, God...)
battered and deep fried black pudding
battered and deep fried haggis
battered and deep fried fish
battered and deep fried Mars bars (yes, I have eaten one at a chippie in Stirling)
I have happily eaten all of the above with chips, salt and vinegar and washed it down with Irn Bru!
Not to mention that Britain has the most extraordinary selection of potato crisp flavors: prawn cocktail, onion soup, green onion, roast beef, pot roast, curry, kidney pie, cheese and, of course plain.
Having said all that, I pose you the question:
Cheeseburger with everything or chip buttie?
American food sucks? What about Chow Mein, Pizza, Borscht, Burritos, Goulash, Schnitzels, huh?
Haggis.
That says it all.
Well, I'm not a fan of everything my northernly neighbors cook, but I like their meat pies and rarebits. As for the beer, well, it's hard to live near all these breweries !
If you come to Texas, please let us know. You are welcome at Chez B-Chan! I'll take you to some places with food so good you won't know whether to eat it or take off your pants and make love to it! Barbecue, chili (our national dish), fried chicken at Earl Abel's, Louisiana cookin', great beef, Southern soul food, the best Mexican food anywhere, and even Japanese — we have it all here in the Lone Star State. And afterwards, I'll take you to The Koffee Kup in Hico, Texas for a hot cup of good coffee and a slice of their excellent pecan pie.
Add some fried okra to that and man oh man, you have Food for the Gods.
"I came to this forum because it seems to be blessedly free of a lot of europeans.
don't you have anything better to do than post in a conservative AMERICAN forum?"
You must be kidding. Don't you have anything better to do than behave like a spoiled child?
The L&P sauce is pretty tart, and you're right - I did put in a dash or two of Tabasco.
"So when I drink a bottle of Bud in London, is it American Czech or British?"
No idea, but American Bud and Czech Bud are different companies.
Budweiser is Czech ? I thought it was a US product ?
You may be on to something there. I can understand complaining about sandwiches "as big as your head" when one's head has only two teeth in it.
The original Budweiser is Czech (and some consider it to be the best beer in the world). American Bud, though decent enough, isn't qualifed to hold the jockstrap of the original.
IIRC, there was a flap a few years back as to whether American Budweiser could be called that in Europe. I seem to remember some agreement that it can only go by "Bud" when being sold in Europe.
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