Fnaar said:
Brits take stuff from abroad and mould it to their own tastes. Language, for one. This is good. It works well. Sometimes it works for food (most Indian and Chinese restaurant fare, deep pan pizza (but not stuffed-crust pizza).
Sometimes the originators simply don't understand what we do with their ideas though... the average Italian simply can't understand the British liking for cappuccino, and the odd times of day it is drunk, or the idea of having it in a paper cup. Likewise the Spanish are a bit befuddled by the British liking for sangria...
Arguably! Personally, I think deep-pan pizza is vile, and most Chinese and Indian restaurant fare is fine for a cheap feed-up or a ritual experience but not
really very good food. You can confirm this by saving some overnight and looking at it again in the cold light of the morning. And I'd be very surprised if the restaurateurs themselves eat much of the stuff they serve to us.
If it were just a matter of people eating what they like in their own homes, then I wouldn't mind, but food is a culture, and the British misunderstanding of, say, Italian food, means that it's virtually impossible to order a pasta dish with any confidence that it won't be disgusting - always overcooked and overdrained, smothered in gloopy sauce and full of boiled onions. It's very telling that Brits are so baffled by spaghetti aglio, olio - the dish that more than any other lets pasta state its case.
