These dishes don't look particularly nice, K! the brits can and do do better.
Also, my (english) bf says that only "chavs" ( a derogatory term I had never heard him use before) would use curry sauce with fish and chips.
we had baked tatties yesterday, but bf had coleslaw and grated cheese(in/on it rather than on the side) and I had it with roquefort.
I must admit that I have seen grated cheese served with salad as "cheese salad" but this does disturbs me greatly.
Although I haven't yet tried it, you erroneously put a pic of "toad in the hole" (sasages in a kind of ? casing) in your "food abomination thread. I don't think it is disgusting at all.
In all fairness, good honest grub all over the world is not always pretty on the plate. I'm thinking of good-tasting but hardly attractive blue plate specials I've had in the south (US) -- a plate covered with white beans cooked to creaminess, a couple of pork chops -- naturally pallid -- and a big hunk of corn bread oozing butter and providing the only touch of color. Another day might feature a slab of meatloaf snugged next to greens cooked down with ham -- delicious, but grimly dark green -- and accompanied by mashed potatoes served from an ice cream scoop, then topped with gravy.
I'm not knocking presentation, nor saying all meals should be so stolidly heavy, but most of what we eat is not preciously, nor even prettily presented.
No, I think our friend kerouac has a bit of le provocateur. That is not uncommon in French culture - it is yours to riposter.
Though I've sometimes found kerouac a bit hard to read "culturally" due to the mix of "Français de France" and non-Louisiana-or-Creole Southern Us, which is novel for me.
In any case, this isn't Jamie, or Delia, or Nigella. But it also isn't the "ploughman's lunch" and a lot of dishes not so far from those of northwestern Franch, and not so gloppy.
I have a hunk of 7-year-old pseudo-Cheddar (not because it is chemical supermarket crap, but because this organic "Cheddar" is Canadian, not from southwestern England. Am thinking that would be the best way to present it.
Meanwhile, I tried Googling things like "disgusting French food" and "I hate French food" and couldn't come up with much -- just the usual 'slimy snails' and 'tripe' -- I would love to find a site devoted to the horrors of French food, and I could probably add a number of items to it.
I'll tell you my problem with British food...It was outrageously expensive!!! I have been to London a few times, but not in the last 15 years. God. Fish and chips (here, 7CDN, were 20CDN in London!). We ended up eating in pubs most of the time. While we enjoyed some pub food, we had not anticipated this being the only food we would eat. It is far easier to eat beautifully and inexpensively in Paris.
I'd love a topic on bad French food, or bad Italian food. Other than certain university restos, mass-produced pâté springs to mind. Italian - the horrid pseudo-croissants in plastic wrap, sweet and filled with sweet gop.
I would, and have. What you fail to think of is that most jobs you get in London will pay you proportionately more than the same job out here in, say, Norfolk. Yes, things are more expensive (of course they are; it's the capital), but it's all proportionate when you look at average earnings.
I can't speak for Paris, as thank god I haven't been there for some time, but I don't think London is any more expensive to go out in than any other major city in Europe (Western Europe, in terms of not looking at the ex-Eastern bloc countries like Prague etc.,)
A serious question ~~ wouldn't the plates shown in the photos be examples of excess? It seems some of them were chosen for their general unattactiveness. The one that's identified as pie and mash, for instance (where's the pie?) -- it's messily slopped onto the plate and the toast is burnt. The next one doesn't really need the meatballs, and the presentation is awful, but the food itself is probably okay.
So ~ are any of the plates above truly typical of British food?
looks like the cooked breakfast pic (scrambled eggs on toast, sausages, black pudding, etc) is a cheap and nasty version of "English Breakfast" featuring no tomato either!
I know fish and chips and mushy peas is traditional, but not really with spam fritters as far as I know.
I've never encountered food like that in my part of England. Perhaps it is served in certain pubs... I forget what they're called but I'm told you can buy lunch in there for Ł1.99 or maybe Ł2.99.
Good on you Gyro. You haven't let K get away with his nonsense.
Jazz was comparing London and Paris, not London and Lyon or Paris and Manchester. I have a good friend in Paris who is a Londoner and who goes back there to visit her family and friends, and sometimes on business, at least twice a year. She agrees that eating out is FAR more expensive in London. Oh, it can be horribly pricy as well in Paris, but there are more decent bistros outside the central tourist and business districts where one can get a decent meal.
Of course there is excellent South Asian and East Asian (mostly Hong Kong Chinese) in London, but the point is sampling quality British food. Some people I know say it is better in the smaller cities.
I have had other bad food in France, besides the industrial pâtés de "campagne", there again it often seems to involve too much nasty sauce. Here is one that is really a question of palate, but I hate the pizzas one gets in French bakeries with too much gloppy tomato sauce that seems thickened with starch. Yeccch!
I propose for myself the challenge of living 6 months in Paris and in London -- not down nor out neither-- flipping a coin to see which one first, and then compare the cuisines.
Then back and forth a few times for a month each maybe in the respective countrysides. THEN I will be in a position to offer an informed opinion on relative merits.
Will need to work out details of teleworking, breaking news to husband, etc.
One of the culinary joys of Phnom Penh is actually the pub grub that's available. They have all that's mentioned above but more nicely presented. For French food I prefer the restaurants that offer dishes 'comme chez maman' to the places that resort to French/Khmer fusion stuff that, to me, always come accross as somewhat pretentious. Italian food is not that well represented, mostly just pizza and pasta, there's just one Spanish place that I linked to on another thread. It's good but enjoys its monopoly. There are two German places, the Edelweiss, that I've not eaten at and the William Tell (not Swiss, inspite of its name). They have the predictable pork- heavy meals that people in Asia seem to like about German food.
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? casing) in your "food abomination thread. I don't think it is disgusting at all. 
