England is renowned for its distinctly bland and unimaginative cuisine. The default answer to the question “name an English dish” is, for most people, 'fish and chips', or in American parlance, fishsticks and fries. I've had it once or twice here, and found it soggy and inferior to what you can get at Ivar's.
But England does not totally deserve its culinary reputation. I think a lot of it stems from their failure to give dishes appealing names: mushy peas, egg-in-a-basket, toad-in-the-hole (seriously.) The latter is a breakfast sausage in a bun, with gravy – not bad. Egg-in-a-basket is simply toast and a fried egg with the advantage of both being fried together, in butter. Mushy peas aren't nearly as repulsive as they sound; in fact, they have their own sort of salty deliciousness. They eat a lot of peas here, actually, and carrots too. After my first week here eating exclusively fast food and scrambled eggs, I went to a proper restaurant, craving some green veggies; the 'vegetable side' turned out to be boiled carrots and cabbage. Corn is called 'maize' and locals sometimes reveal their misunderstanding of its properties by putting it on pizza.
The English Breakfast isn't bad, partially because it's always really big. It involves a toad in the hole, a roast tomato, eggs, toast, and beans. You know those Heinz baked beans, in the retro-blue can, that people in America stopped eating sometime during Andy Warhol's career? Very popular here, along with Heinz mayonnaise, which is similarly retro-packaged. If you've seen Pulp Fiction you know that they put mayo on their fries here, which is pretty good, actually. Though the bacon, strips of which are termed 'rashers', is weirdly both thick and stringy.
But there are some definite bright spots. Meat pies abound, especially in pubs, and they usually come with stewed meat and potatoes and veggies in a buttery crust with some gravy to pour over the top – chicken pot pie meets beef bourguignon.
The foreign cuisine here is awesome as well, and only partially for its exotic variety. There's a place near campus called Brick Lane, a somewhat famous strip of South Asian restaurants and shops where restaurant promoters will try to lure you in with meal deals as you walk past – naan, curry, entree, two pints for ten pound! Free jasmine rice also! Three pint! I haven't managed this yet, but my flatmate recommended trying to get two of these guys into a bidding war. The little fast food places offer a bizarre mix of burgers and fries, 'dixie chicken', and halal (the Muslim equivalent of kosher) lamb and chicken kebabs.
Perhaps most fascinating to me is the beer. The market is very different – for one, they don't tend to sell cases larger than a dozen cans or bottles. And almost everything comes in a tall pint-size can; I have yet to see a twelve-ounce (or whatever metric equivalent) can of beer, although they do have bottles. The pricing is really interesting; what we tend to think of as upscale imports, such as Heineken and Beck's, cost less than Budweiser, which is very popular. Stella Artois and Grolsch occupy the PBR niche, and taste worse than they do at home. A Guinness will cost about as much as a Bud here, which is as hilarious as it is excellent. Brits also drink a lot of hard cider; 'Strongbow' is the biggie. It comes in tall cans and 1-liter plastic bottles, which get consumed by a demographic roughly equivalent to drinkers of malt-liquor 40s back home. I've begin to become acquainted with British Ales too, which tend to be fairly light, smooth, mild and creamy, like blond versions of Guinness. I'm personally inclined to beers with bolder flavor, but they have their own merit.
There are a number of stereotypical English delicacies I haven't yet sampled. Tea and biscuits, for one. Black pudding is another, and I don't think I will. It's got this menacing black-purple color which offers visual confirmation of its ingredients. I have had hot cross buns, but was disappointed to find out that the cross is not made of frosting, and that they taste sort of like spicy fruitcake. But, I'm going to Paris next weekend, so maybe I'll have a more uplifting post on cuisine in the near future.
