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.
Ham or ham hocks are alright occasionally. But I prefer just a strip or 2 of bacon in them for seasoning, plus some potatoes fried in bacon grease, mmmmmmmmmm.
She obviously wasn't dining at Peter Luger when I was there last Friday.
I know she's never stepped foot in a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, or even a Copeland's...
Thanks for reminding me that my last trip to Peter Luger's was over a year ago. I need to get back there again.
I found this on the internet, pretty damn funny:
"In Search of Good English Food"
"English Food - A Mini-Theory"
"English cooking has been the butt of so many jokes that I decided to dedicate my last two trips to London to a search for the very best of English culinary fare. After too many typical English meals my stomach was rebelling, my palate was rapidly becoming numb and, instead of developing an appreciation for English food, I found myself developing a theory that would explain just why, with one or two notable exceptions, so much of the food I had received was so appallingly bad. Before I enter into this, however, let it be known that mine is an attack full of humor and intentional exaggeration and no true insult is aimed at any of the residents of the Sceptered Isles.
It all starts, so my mini-theory goes, during the earliest days of childhood when the English insist on feeding their infants mush, the kind of tasteless, textureless, characterless stuff that a Frenchman would give only to an undiscriminating chicken. Unlike American, French or Israeli parents who feed their babies on tasty fruits and vegetables, each of which has its distinct color and flavor, most of what the English give their children is pale white in color and, regardless of the ingredients, tastes remarkably like sticky, unsalted oatmeal.
When the children grow up a bit and go to school, the situation takes a decided turn for the worse. The foods served in most English schools are famous precisely because they are so horrible. So grey, sad and mysterious is the stuff they eat at school that most English children never even know precisely what it is that they are trying to eat. School cooks have mastered the art of making lamb chops, broccoli and ice cream all taste exactly alike.
All of this culinary deprivation means that by the time they are old enough to cook themselves or to dine at restaurants, most English men and women have such sadly uneducated palates they simply cannot discriminate between what is good and what is bad. Although many London pubs are picturesque and charming, the food served in them is good only as a sponge for beer and many real restaurants suffer from what can only be called "illusions of adequacy". They specialize in overcooked meats and pies, many of which have been put through the electronic purgatory of a micro-wave oven, and others of which are served in gravy so thick and full of salt that the real taste of the food underneath is completely hidden. To make matters absolutely insulting, these so-called restaurants then have the nerve to present their clients with outrageously high London-sized bills. Robert Courtine, for many years the respected restaurant critic of the French newspaper Le Monde, wrote that "only the rich can eat well in London, and then only if they dine on French food"."
That is tasty - but I still like a big, lean chunk of meat on my plate, next to the beans (served over a base of cornbread, of course). Those taters sound good - I think I know what I'm making for dinner tonight. :)
What did this woman say about American food being unhealthy?
LOL, I ate at the Cheesecake factory for my b=day. Yes the portions were HUGE, but I took the food home and had a second meal out of it.
Also purchased a 25th anniversary Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake and we shared it for 4 nights. and YES, each piece has 1200 calories, but we didn't eat it all at once.
So what. If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it. It is a free country after all. This is only the second time in my lifetime I have been to the Cheesecake factory.
Bah, I didn't notice that someone had resurrected an old thread -- it was in the "Latest Posts" list, so I presumed it was new. The FreeRepublic software should warn you when you're replying to a post over a certain number of days old. Hmm, I think I'll send that in as a suggestion.
When ketchup is used for salsa....well, I'd say they have reached the point of no return.
*shudder*
Thanks again for the link, I'll make use of it.
You're welcome. Penzey's is *great*, and although they're primarily a catalog-based vendor, I'm lucky enough to have one of their few storefront locations in my city. It's wonderful to wander in and just take a deep breath. They also have "testers" for all of their spices, cannisters of each type that you can pick up, pop the lid, and take a sniff. We've got over 50 of their products in our kitchen, and will probably get more. I'll never go back to mass-market spices again.
Those show up a lot at food vendors at Renaissance festivals and other kinds of fairs. And yes, they're very tasty.
Kudos to this thread for still going strong. I had to go back and reread the original article. Anyway, here's raising a glass of orange juice to a big fat breakfast helping of Scrapple, and a few grilled slices of corn meal mush, smothered in syrup. Yum!
We discovered this delicacy in Scotland many years ago after a round of golf at a wonderful Scottish links near the coast in central Scotland. A lovely little pub walking distance from the links. It was heaven on a plate, with a good pint of Scottish ale.
I did try the steak and kidney pie. It was good but I had to apply a fair amount of salt and pepper. You give me that recipt and I'll make you something that will make you slap your mamma. The Brits don't have the spice for cooking that we do. But I wouldn't touch the wonderful Scottish egg.
Just Albertson's. Nary an HEB to be found!
That's one of the things I miss about Texas...
Midwestern towns fight over titles like ‘home of the peanut’, ‘birthplace of the corndog’, ‘Krispy Kreme Kountry’.
I don't think peanuts grow in the mid-west, do they? Krispy Kreme donuts may be sold there but they are definitely a Southern invention. And I think corndogs originated in TX at the State Fair. 3 strikes, she's out.
It's better than the donkey meat soaked in tiger urine some restaurant in China was serving.
Count yourself lucky they could have ruined your toast by putting unheated baked beans straight from a can on it.
YES! Fried corn meal mush, butter and maple syrup -- one of my favorite breakfasts -- or anytime meal.
All of Europe wants our jeans, our tennis shoes, our food---including coffee and ice cream---our cigarettes, our whiskey, and our toilet paper.
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