• Skua@kbin.earth
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    4 months ago

    Pfft, you think we invaded everyone for spices to eat them? Absolutely not. We did it so that we could sell them to the French, thereby making the French poorer by exploiting their degenerate addiction to food that tastes nice

    • nyctre@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Your comment made me wanna google the two economies and related stats. They’re a lot more Similar than I expected. Pretty cool. So I guess UK’s plan failed? xD unless France used to be richer.

      • Skua@kbin.earth
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        4 months ago

        While I was joking, of course, France’s economy actually was quite a lot more bigger and more powerful than the UK’s up until the industrial revolution and the about a century of everything going very badly for France. France was the most populous country in Europe by a wide margin, and back then that basically was the whole economy. It has quite a lot more land than the UK, and that land is a lot more productive too; the north of Wales and most of Scotland do not make for good farmland. Unlike Germany and Italy it united and centralised quite early, and it just outweighed Spain and the Low Countries the same way it did the UK, so for a long time France had the edge over all of its neighbours.

        During the Napoleonic wars, France managed to raise forces that matched the UK, Prussia, Austria, and Spain combined in number. Some of that was due to other factors like how he organised it, but you’ve still got to have the people available somewhere if you want to match four major powers at once

      • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        That website is so neoliberal brained it makes me want to puke.

        “Property Rights Index” “Investment Freedom Index”

        What’s next? “Oppression of Working Classes Index”

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Was gonna say, didn’t the Brits basically invent some curry dishes? Still, there ain’t any British restaurants, tells me what I need to know.

      • Skua@kbin.earth
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        4 months ago

        I mean if you take it seriously we do have plenty of good and interesting food, both in traditional and modern cuisine. Hot spice isn’t often a part of it, but there’s lots of usage of herbs and milder spices. Laverbread, black pudding, haggis (yes, seriously), Worcestershire sauce, and Cornish herby pasty are all solid examples of very traditional foods that are pretty seasoning-forward without even touching the enormous amount of stuff we picked up from other cultures (like the curries)

        That’s not to say that we don’t frequently earn our terrible culinary reputation. We do. Next to our neighbours like France, Spain, and Italy we just do not have the same level of widespread passion for food, and our habits reflect this. A general lack of adventurousness plagues our palates on a national level

      • arudesalad@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        My favourite part of British food is the way it has merged with foreign food, like the curry dishes for example.

        That does also mean there aren’t any British restaurants since they are usually labelled with the culture that shows there is actual flavour and not the culture famous for eating wartime food in the 21st century…

        • Worx@lemmynsfw.com
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          4 months ago

          I would say that British restaurants are pubs. Things like pie and chips, burgers, bangers and mash, shepherd’s pie etc. Or maybe a carvery with roast dinner. Or fish and chips places (although that’s not exactly a restaurant)

      • nyctre@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Well, there’s no “British cuisine” per se, but there are British restaurants. For example a pretty famous and influential one. Also, most pubs serve food and those are now pretty much everywhere in the world, that’s quite British, isn’t it? Dunno the history, but I always associated it with the Brits, maybe I’m wrong.

      • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        There’s plenty of British-created curries or ones that have been heavily modified in the UK. If you went to India and wanted a tikka masala. I imagine it would be pretty hard to find one, and if you did it wouldn’t be like it was in the UK.

        Personally I do prefer Indian curries because they get more interesting with the veggie ones though.

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I understand why Europeans don’t like pineapple pizza, for some reason all the restaurants here put it on after baking. Genuinely insane

      • arc@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Stole it? I think adopted is more apt. And curry isn’t one thing and varies from region to region in India. But Britain loved it so much that there is an Indian (or Pakistani) restaurant practically everywhere. And while Indian / Pakistani chefs have invented new dishes (e.g. chicken chasni is the best goddamned curry ever), I wouldn’t call it cultural appropriation.

        • cattywampas@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          I’ve never heard of English mustard, but I don’t Americans as a whole are afraid of spicy mustard.

          • SouthEndSunset@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            I was taking the piss.

            I know some USAians like spicy sauces, on chicken wings for example. There’s also the guy I used to work with who said his favourite meal was lamb and vegetables with gravy. The most vanilla thing on earth.

  • arc@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    British people love curries and other spicy things. For most people curries, biriyanis are going to be in the rotation. Even “traditional” British food will usually have things like black pepper, nutmeg, mace, ginger, cumin, cloves, mustard, bay leaves, juniper berries in it. More recently cumin, paprika, tumeric, coriander, curry powder might be thrown into dishes.

  • ryedaft@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    You need spices for mince pies and fruitcake. Worcestershire sauce and HP sauce. Cakes and sauces basically.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      I’ve always joked that you could batter a bunch of cardboard, soak it in buttermilk, cover it in spicy breading, do it again and deep fry it … and you could base an entire restaurant chain around it.