Its funny how people assume colonization benefitted all Brits equally, and spices, tea (& riches) weren't hoarded by royalty and the gentry.
How the hell do you think the East India Company got so rich? It wasn't by selling it to... shudder ... normal and... wretching... poor people. They can stick to their traditional true British spice, Salt & vinegar! /s
We invented one of the world's most popular cheese, Cheddar, which is actually named after an English village. Also our national dish is Chicken Tikka Masala. I dare you to say we don't use spices. We invented several varieties of spiced sausage, spiced cakes and fruit bread, even some kinds of spices rum.
Don't get me wrong, lots of British cuisine is lackluster for sure, and I don't think we can compete with the likes of Thailand or Italy. That doesn't apply to everything we do though, and some of our deserts and cheeses are top tier. Thailand is literally known for diplomacy through food as well, so hardly a fair comparison.
Anglo-Indian cuisine is a product of the British colonization of India and the fusion of British and Indian culinary traditions. This unique blending of flavors and techniques creates a cuisine that is both savory and flavorful, while remaining distinct from traditional Indian or British dishes.
They used them for tea
I'm from Portugal, who together with Spain started the so-called "Age Of Discovery" back in the late 14th century and for a long time had sugar plantations in Brasil.
Not only does the local culinary have an insane variety of cakes and sweets (I suspect that, whilst monks in convents in other countries were finding new ways to brew beer, the ones in Portugal were just inventing new desserts) but most traditional culinary dishes use one more spices that do not grow locally or at least did not originate locally (you also see a similar effect when it comes to other ingredients: for example the frequent use of tomato that originate from the Americas or Oranges that originate from China)
I also lived in both England and The Netherlands, both countries which were much more successful at trade with and conquest of the "discovered" lands than Portugal, and the local culinary tradition in both is way smaller and blander.
Well the popularity of Indian food kind of puts the lie to this. Though I suppose it makes more sense to simply switch to Indian food, rather than to try to tart up the wretched crap that passed for food in the UK before colonialism.
Hey, don't bad mouth salt seasoning! Portugal uses plenty of it (due to using salt preservation in the old days) and i think their food is pretty damn good!
This meme reminds me of the "Going for an English" sketch: https://youtu.be/H-uEx_hEXAM?feature=shared
Is that why they withdrew from our country? Damn
I vaguely remember some TIL post awhile back that essentially blamed some aristocrat with a sensitive stomach for the meme version of traditional British cuisine, under the auspices of WWII rationing. He apparently recommended cutting spice and overcooking veg both for "health" and import cost/availability reasons during wartime rationing, and this got swept up in the unified national "keep calm and carry on" wartime rhetoric as quintessentially British. Supposedly prior to the war, traditional cuisines in the isles generally were more flavorful and varied
This is outrageous, it's unfair. How can you have tasty spices and not use them in your cuisine?
