Location as an Ingredient: The Authenticity Trap of Food?

Hear! Hear!

Honestly? I have largely given up on the topic. The Internet has made discourse divisive and toxic, and people use the subject to just bash my country unnecessarily.

The strangest part is people will earnestly say that British food is awful and Irish food is excellent - the two are practically identical. But at the moment, one country is considered on trend, and one is not. I am very old and remember when the opposite was true.

OliviaHoughton - I completely understand that frustration. The trope is just more of that unnecessary noise. I’ve spent years with 16th and 17th century English cookbooks, and it’s clear that the cuisine has always been a sophisticated, evolving language. Personally, I’ve never had a bad meal in the UK. I've had a blast trying out BBQ in the UK wherever I can. I still think about a simple lunch I had in Ironbridge, grilled mushrooms on toast topped with blue cheese. It was wonderfully honest and perfect in its simplicity.

Recall from your very first rhetoric course that the argument from novelty and the argument from tradition were right next to each other in the list of fallacies. Both "This is new!" and "This is how we've been doing it forever!" are common reasons, and often wrong or irrelevant.

OTOH I often scratch my head when someone posits a critic who disses something because it isn't like at home, or it isn't authentic because it's done differently over there than it is here. I rarely run into such critics. "I like it thicker" or "I like it sweeter" is more of a legit position to take, but I can understand how that often is communicated by saying that it's too thin or it's too bland. See, for example, how people (by which I mean thin women) say "It's so cold in this room with the air con running that I need to button up my sweater" when what they should be saying is that they feel colder than they would prefer, while those of us wearing office blazers and neckties (and an extra 20 pounds of flab) feel just fine with the air con running.

To be furtherly contentious, we tried a new Italian place a few weeks ago based on the website and yelp reviews, and it turned out that the staff, from top to bottom, were all Filipino. The dishes we had were all tasty and presented attractively, but the atmosphere, the vibe, was neither Italy-Italian nor Italian-American, nor even California-Italian. We probably won't return.

And regarding the British/English vs. Irish culinary stereotypes, the issue may not be the narcissism of small differences or the trending trends, but more of a dedication to cuisine issue:

I was having a plate of bangers and mash at a decent English chain outlet, and when the server checked on me, I asked for some more onion gravy, It didn't appear. When I asked again, the server explained that they would have to shave a portion off of a big frozen block of already prepped gravy and then microwave it in some container that they don't have handy for that size. So they aren't going to go through that kind of trouble. Sorry. (Shrug of the shoulders)

Wow.

The people in that restaurant's kitchen do not come across as aspiring career cooks. It's like the people in the back at a comedy club -- no one there is there because they want to become a great chef. They are there because they want to be around comedy, or they need work (obviously that would go together).

At least that's my feeling about why English dining is so much less pleasant than French or Italian, especially at a given price point. At the croque monsieur price level the English options are pretty awful. Ditto a good pastry versus a sausage roll. There have to be more than simply economic explanations for this -- something about the English food ways is wobbly. What's with the number settings on cookers instead of temperatures? It goes on and on...

IF I'm travelling, especially if I'm far from home, the food I eat in restaurants had better not taste like what I get at home. If I wanted that, I'd stay home. On more than one occasion we've enjoyed an Indian meal in London, an Italian meal in Munich, or Japanese in Vienna. I don't care that the meal isn't completely authentic to either the country I'm in or the country the dish originated in. Or we may eat in a place serving dishes typical or traditional in that country. If it is well presented and tastes good, that's all I care about. The location is irrelevant to me. And when discussing food, I don't conflate it with service. I've just as often experienced indifferent or worse service in New York as I have in European cities. An "authentic" label means nothing to me. It says nothing about its taste. Don't know what that says about me. Don't know that I care

Tldr? I don't care if it's 'authentic' as long as it tastes good.

My rule, in most cases, is "eat local, drink local."

If I wanted it to be like home, I'd stay home.

I've had good meals in every country I've visited and bad meal in every country I've visited. It's not the country, it's the restaurant and who they cater to as customers.

The only thing I compare to home is price. Not so much of restaurant food but markets, shops, etc.

I don't care that the meal isn't completely authentic to either the country I'm in or the country the dish originated in.

My two favorite restaurants in Prague were a Mexican restaurant and a BBQ restaurant, and they were Czech.

What's with the number settings on cookers instead of temperatures?

What sort of cooker have you been using? Every cooker I've ever used has temperature settings.

A lot of ovens here have "gas mark" numbers instead temperature numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_mark

I think the take away from avirosemail's post is that with enough determination you can always fins justification for your prejudices. Their first post bemoans other peoples lack of specific food complaints but to justify their opinion of British food they use a single example of poor service in a chain restaurant and a random thing about domestic appliance labeling.

Ah well.

Service in British restaurants is really bad. You will frequently have to chase up your order and find out it wasn’t put through, have to chase up missing items, struggle to get attention from waiting staff, have ridiculous waits for food etc etc. It’s just normal here.

What an excellent post...lots go "food for thought."

Service in British restaurants is really bad. You will frequently have
to chase up your order and find out it wasn’t put through, have to
chase up missing items, struggle to get attention from waiting staff,
have ridiculous waits for food etc etc. It’s just normal here.

I'm sorry but it really isn't. I've eaten out a lot over the years at all levels of restaurant and for the most part service has been absolutely fine, often good, sometimes excellent.

There is good food, mediocre food and bad food everywhere. I don't think the standards in a UK chain restaurant are likely to be any worse, or better, than in a comparable chain restaurant elsewhere.

I'll take criticism that gas ovens traditionally had numbers rather than temperatures when US recipe books stop using cups and embrace the amazing invention that is the weighing scale! :-)

Influencers, saying 'British food is bad' or 'British food is actually good...who knew?' has become a bit of an industry. The usual obsessions are a slightly irrational aversion to baked beans, complaints that we don't have decent mexican food and total confusion that eggs aren't stored in the fridge. There are obviously British influencers in the US posting similarly that barbecue is good, everything is too sweet and the inability to get a decent cup of tea is a crime.

One positive about British food culture is that we are generally very open minded to food from other places and are happy to adapt it to fit our tastes, we aren't precious.

Thanks, VAP, glad the dessert thread gave you 'food for thought'!

Food is a snapshot in time, a living language, constantly edited by
trade, time, necessity, and location, not a permanent rule.

Ahhhhh so true! It reminds me how often I sit down to a meal (or dessert) outside of the US for so much more than the food.... for the atmosphere, for the interesting menu, for things I've not seen before, for the people sitting around me. I will stop here, before I start waxing lyrical about my favorites spots, regardless of cuisine! PS, Uppsala has an excellent Japanese restaurant, it might be the best I've eaten outside Japan.

Emma I really disagree. Maybe it’s just Bristol but more than half the time I eat out I have to ask about my order in some capacity when I’d prefer it to be a nice relaxing experience. Recently I was told ‘dishes come out when they’re ready’ at an upmarket tapas style restaurant when chasing up items. Ok, but I clearly don’t want a plate of bread served to me when I’ve finished everything else.

I was having a plate of bangers and mash at a decent English chain outlet

Why not name it? I for one would be interested to know where it was and have a some real context for your complaints. British people could have probably predicted it was going to be a bit rubbish by the name. The situation sounds like something you'd get in a pub to me, rather than a restaurant.

I can't think of a single "authentic English" restaurant near me at all. Pubs aren't restaurants. They don't count.

I'd never come across the term "ethnic restaurant" until I started reading here. It would be funny to lump everything that isn't meat and potatoes English under that term. Doing that has never occurred to me. What counts as an ethnic restaurant in the US?