Spotted dick. Bangers and mash. Clotted cream. Blood pudding. Leave it to the Brits to invent menu items that sound more like terminal diseases. If I were in a foul mood I would say that the term "bad British food" is redundant. Well, I am in a foul mood, because I've been thinking back on the time I spent as a travel writer in southern England.
I went to England for the first time in 1994 as a writer for the Berkeley Guides, a student-oriented offshoot of Fodor's travel guides. My assignment was to navigate through the region for six weeks and update a guide to Great Britain. I had a decent daily stipend -- enough to cover hostels, inexpensive B&Bs, tourist sites and cheap food -- and a bright yellow and purple backpack.
My culinary misadventures began in the town of Dorset. Dorset is Thomas Hardy country, as the tourist bureau will endlessly remind you. Happily the town itself is a lot more cheery than your average Hardy novel. I made my way to a nice-looking restaurant with a sandwich board out front advertising the soup of the day: split pea. I naively thought to myself, if they have a soup of the day, it must be made fresh. I sat down and ordered the split pea soup. What showed up was thick and green, with a congealed top layer and the unmistakable taste of canned soup.
How is this possible? I thought. How can you offer a soup of the day and then shamelessly heat up a can and serve it? I looked down at the chartreuse liquid and became so angry, so frustrated, I actually started to cry right into the offending substance. Finally a waitress approached my table. "That wasn't really what you wanted, was it?" she diplomatically asked. I started to stutter something about "soup of the day ... can ... don't understand." I managed to ask her for some bread and butter.
A week or so later I took a bus to the town of Rye. I arrived late at my B&B, cold, hungry and dead tired. The friendly innkeeper pointed me toward a pub about a half-mile down the road. It must have been about 10 p.m. as I walked in the direction of the pub. No one was around and it was foggy and desolate. American Werewolf in Rye, I thought to myself, just waiting for a hairy lupine creature to come careening out of the woods and make a few undead jokes before devouring me. But soon I saw lights coming from a building up the road. The pub was still open. My spirits perked up and my stomach lurched to attention, with the feeling that it might soon be fed.
The inside of the pub did a little to alleviate my monster-movie fantasies. A few people were standing around the bar and chatting. They seemed like relatives of the pub owner, with a baby in a stroller. I examined the menu scribbled on a little chalkboard. Beef burger with fries, sausage, fisherman's pie. Thank God for food, I thought.
I had been in England long enough to sense that the kitchen of this pub was not buzzing with trained chefs. There were few customers and even fewer were eating. In fact, no one was eating. But I was starving and I figured I had no choice but to take my chances. I took what I thought was the safest route, ordering a burger with fries and mushy peas and a beer to wash it down.
I sat down at a table, arranged the napkin on my lap and sipped my beer. I had a feeling of well-being that comes from sitting somewhere warm and dry and knowing you will soon be fed.
Soon a plate arrived at my table, but something was not quite right. I sampled a fry. Clearly it was of the Ore-Ida frozen-and-microwaved variety, but it was edible. Next, the mushy peas. Well, I didn't expect a lot from the peas so they weren't much of a disappointment. I picked up the "burger" and took a bite. The patty was grayish with brown specks. Its consistency was that of a shoe pad. The taste was not of meat, yet it was strangely familiar. It took me a while to place it: This was the same burger I'd eaten in the elementary school cafeteria. For 50 cents, growing 8-year-olds were subjected to these patties -- seemingly made of soy and meat refuse -- plus a little Styrofoam cup of red Jello and a carton of chocolate milk. No wonder I never grew past 5 feet!
Though I was fairly disgusted by my meal, which was hardly cheap at five pounds (around $8), I was starving and intent on finishing it. But several more bites into the burger, I felt overwhelmed by emotions. I was alone, in a foreign country evidently populated by barbarians. How could anyone in good conscience charge real legal tender and with a straight face serve this refuse to a customer? Have they ever heard of ground beef? And these were the days before Mad Cow, so they had no public health excuse.
What's more, why would anyone open a restaurant who hasn't the slightest idea of how to cook? This riddle irked me during my entire trip. In the minds of many Brits, it seems, a restaurant is simply a business, like a hardware store, with no specialized knowledge required.
I sat mulling over what lashing words I would use with the pub owner. I was incredibly hungry, and yet the burger was too bad to eat. My dejection must have been all over my face as I stared at the flabby bun, because the pub owner's wife approached my table.
"Are you all right, darling?" she asked. I had a list of invectives prepared, but instead I said, lamely, "The food here ... it's different."
"I understand completely," she said, not understanding at all. "I'm from Ireland and the food's much different there. I know how you feel right now. You're just homesick. You're very far from home." She was extremely kind, and she went on to explain about her own homesickness. She talked to me for about half an hour about how she'd had to run away from her abusive husband in Ireland and how much she missed her home. I listened to her story, asked questions and tried to make her feel better. I was glad I hadn't screamed at her. Clearly she meant well and would never knowingly try to poison someone with hideous food. She just had no idea what a burger was supposed to be. Plus, talking about her problems took my mind off the mushy peas.
For the rest of my trip I developed a strategy. Though at home I would enter a McDonald's only on a road trip -- and even then it wasn't my first choice -- in England the Golden Arches became my beacon. It was often the cheapest and most accessible meal in town -- certainly winning out over microwaved jacket potatoes from a gloomy tea shop. I also started hoarding Cadbury bars in my backpack and eating a few for dinner when desperate. I began to understand why the British have such problems with their teeth.
Finally I arrived in London, where I feasted on Indian food from morning till night. Glorious, deliriously good Indian food. Thank you, tikka masala. Bless you, biriani.
I understand that British food has vastly improved since I was there, with the rise of the gastropub and some truly world-class restaurants in London. But towns outside London just don't have much of a restaurant culture. They possess a practical attitude that says, "Why should I go to a restaurant when I have a perfectly good kitchen right here?" Eating out is something done while on holiday. Even in London, social life after work and on weekends often revolves more around drinking than eating. If you insist on ordering expensive pub food with your pint, your friends might look at you askance and ask if you're trying to be posh.
Maybe I'll have to go back soon and check out some of these new restaurants. This time, though, I think I'll pack an extra suitcase full of PowerBars.
