| 26. Tuesday, March 11, 2008 7:55 PM |
| Raymond |
RE: Oh no! Not that! |
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I'm just joking with you Bud. 
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| 27. Wednesday, March 12, 2008 2:01 PM |
| Montana |
RE: Oh no! Not that! |
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I felt I had to make a rare intervention on the Off-topic board. I would like to point out that Ireland was until 1919 part of Great Britain and the cuisine is virtually indistinguishable from British cuisine. It is no coincidence that Britain has one of the worst diets and highest rate of obesity in Europe and is also the closest European country to USA in terms of culture, language, attitudes etc. I know there are some great foodstuffs in America but McDonalds doesn't sell them.
I should point out a couple of points for non-UK members. A large measure of the UK's food problems stem from WWII. After the war there was a push for high-yield, low-cost food and high-intensity agriculture. A lot of Britain's small regional producers of wonderful food went to the wall because they could not produce enough in bulk for supermarkets to take. EU food regulations also damaged food diversity here. Britain went from rationing (which continued well into the 1950s) of powdered egg, ersatz coffee and little (imported) fruit straight to supermarket white bread, frozen food, mash in a can (DON'T even ask...), tinned beans and sausages (yes, boys and girls, in the SAME can). Latterly, junk food and ready meals have taken matters further. Food education and cooking in school was neglected because of the restricted variety of ingredients and the drive towards convenience foods and a drive towards measurable qualifications rather than life skills. School food was also notoriously bad.
Britain has a bad reputation for food which is both deserved and undeserved. Yes, British food since 1939 has been poor but before then there were wonderful cheeses, pies, desserts, relishes, a huge variety of fruits that are now nearly extinct and so on.
Climate only has an influence in so much as British diet is naturally high in fat because the cooler climate means bodies used to burn it up more when working outside in a chilly environment. Now of course we have central heating, travel in hot cars etc. Southern European countries have a distinctly different environment and crops and hence diet. The British diet is very similar to German, Scandanavian ones.
We don't have a problem growing vegetables - just getting people to eat them! We are not exactly arctic tundra here. We had a huge variety of fruit (pears, apples, berries etc.) and have a good climate for root vegetables, pasture for grazing etc, arable grows pretty well too.
One of the saddest things is that the post-War intensification of agriculture led to the neglect (and in some cases extinction) of a number of low-yield varieties of apples, pears (as well as breeds of cattle and sheep) etc because they were a less economically viable. Many of these were very local and had developed over a thousand years of breeding but were sent to the wall by economic pressures. British food has been impoverished by losing these varieties and also by the loss of regional dishes. Britain consists of at least four different countries and within those countries areas which had very specialised food and cooking cultures which had developed over a thousand years, in some cases back to the Roman occupation. A lot of that has been lost not necessarily due to government/EU pressure to standardise but simply due to neglect. And then suddenly people realise that the old recipes and varieties are gone because no one thought to preserve them. I guess it happens everywhere but on an island with so many cultures and a diversity of landscape it is particularly noticeable.
If we had retained more of those foods and cuisines then we wouldn't be in such a terrible state now.
The message about balanced diets and healthy eating is well established here, via the government, media etc. (Yep, we got "Supersize Me" here.) But a problem is that if children are raised on junk food, they are difficult to get on to better food - natural conservatism, timidity, laziness etc. And if their parents don't know any better and cannot even cook vegetables then how can families change, even if they had the inclination?
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