davethegrinch.net

Dave Says:
Guide books of Britain say this about food: “Britain is not known for its cuisine but things are picking up” and “Britains still eat to live rather than live to eat”. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy wisely avoids a separate category for British cuisine but one could apply its short entry for Earth directly to the general apathy surrounding restaurants in England: “Mostly Harmless”. Not since Malaysia have we seen such a widespread malaise when it comes to dining out.

The pub has always been the focal point of British life. In the old days a pub may or may not have served food and if it did, it may or may not have been of digestible quality. There was always a certain charm to this hit or miss type of dining experience - a good old fashioned stiff upper lip was initially required but a jubilation of the palette or a revulsion of the GI tract was soon to follow. In either case washing down the meal with a couple of pints made everything right. Over the last ten years a revolution has happened in pub life in Britain. The chain pub now rules supreme. Conglomerates now own vast swaths of British tradition and tudor oak beams and have dictated that uniformity should be the plate du jour. The menus are basically the same, uninspired but with fancy names or just plain uninspired. You may be lucky and find a pub that serves Thai food!! Table service has vanished. Find a table and then find the table number, read the laminated menu, go to the bar, give your order and table number and some sixteen year old will throw your food at you in 15 minutes. Repeated drinks mean repeated trips to the bar whilst your half eaten dinner gets cold patiently awaiting your second glass of wine.

This may be a typical phone conversation between two Brits whilst arranging a night out down the pub:

“Let’s grab some dinner at the Royal Oak.”
“Oh - the Royal Oak is a Weatherspoons pub. How about the Four Horseshoes - it’s a Chef and Brewer?”
“OK - great idea, Chef and Brewers do the best Banoffee pie”
Excuse the pun but it appears to be a chicken and egg situation - I’m not sure if the British public demanded this bland uniformity first or if the conglomerates realized bulk buying power and therefore increased profits by telling the Brits to know what they like and like what they know and all for a cheap price. In either case, it appears to be a reciprocal agreement spurred on by the culinary disaster and national obsession that is Banoffe pie (A sickly sweet mess of toffee and banana that has as much subtlety as consuming a pound of sugar followed a 3 second squirt of Coolwhip straight from the can into one’s mouth). To add insult to injury, one is wise to make reservations at these places on a Friday or Saturday night or Sunday lunchtime. I morally object to having to make a reservation for a pub.
Even the fine art of alcohol has had its romance removed in favor of surgical sterility. The pint struggles on but is rapidly being replaced by “extra cold” variants. By making the beer extra cold ones’ taste buds are told to take a coffee break so the alcohol content of the beverage can glide by them without the brain having to register the actual taste. Wine is now served from screwtop bottles, in size large or small with the world’s varietals ranging from red all the way to white (without even stopping for Rosé). What a romantic way to spend your anniversary - “Another large red, my dear?”. Don’t even ask about cocktails. They come premixed in a bottle. However, none of this can stop the Brits drinking. The largest social nuisance is currently swarms of drunk twenty-somethings leaving the pubs on a weekend night absolutely blitzed out of their brains. By Britain holding the record for the largest number of CC cameras per-capita in the world, it gives the rest of population the chance to witness their delirious and mainly illegal acts in glorious night vision green - “Look Ma, I’m on TV”. The government increased the hours pubs can stay open to try and stagger the Friday night exodus but binge drinking is now firmly entrenched in British culture and doesn’t look to be going away.
Now, I know what you are saying. You’re sick of me bad mouthing the Brits. Tired of my tirades against my fellow country people. I’m sure that you’d love to point out the US is no better and maybe even worse or perhaps Germany is the same. And it maybe true but it doesn’t make it right. The pinnacle of human evolution is the time we have on our hands to create the finest of food, the most delectable of wines and subtle sophistication of the mixed drink. This is what separates us from the monkeys - the ability to create and enjoy what we have created - what a shame to throw it away on the cheep and cheerful.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 at 4:41 am and is filed under Europe, Global Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.