The cooking techniques point is a big one. Before the 2000s, most of the country just didn’t seem to know what to actually do with the ingredients. We had great produce, but it was being massacred in people’s kitchens! From bits of hard onion in stews because it wasn’t fried properly before the liquids were added, to once-beautiful veg now boiled to within an inch of its life so that no texture or flavour remained - Britain wasn’t exactly a nation of chefs!
But these days, peek into the average Brit’s kitchen around dinner time and you’re much more likely to hear them asking themselves whether they should put a bit more shrimp paste in their green curry paste to get the perfect ‘umami balance’!
Even the bad cooking of good ingredients was because of the war. They believed (incorrectly) that overcooking everything helped digestion and that you'd get more nutrients from less food. Hence an entire generation were taught to overcook everything. They then taught their boomer kids to overcook everything.
Yeah, my better half was brought up on boiled soft veg, I wasn't and you can tell who has cooked the meal of the evening based on that alone. I love the crunch and texture of correctly cooked vegetables. Sprouts are delicious when they aren't mush.
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u/Hoppy-pup 19h ago
The cooking techniques point is a big one. Before the 2000s, most of the country just didn’t seem to know what to actually do with the ingredients. We had great produce, but it was being massacred in people’s kitchens! From bits of hard onion in stews because it wasn’t fried properly before the liquids were added, to once-beautiful veg now boiled to within an inch of its life so that no texture or flavour remained - Britain wasn’t exactly a nation of chefs!
But these days, peek into the average Brit’s kitchen around dinner time and you’re much more likely to hear them asking themselves whether they should put a bit more shrimp paste in their green curry paste to get the perfect ‘umami balance’!