Restaurants have come on leaps and bounds in the U.K. to the point where some of the most varied and best restaurants in Europe or the world is on our doorstep.
Before the Second World War very few people ever ate out and if staying at a hotel the guest would eat whatever the staff or if boarding house, landlady had cooked. There was no choice and if you didn't like it you did the British thing of politely saying you had had enough.
Landladies of boarding houses were the stuff of pantomime and could only be crossed at your peril. The food really was ghastly and during the war years with strict rationing it only got worse. The problem was that the government grabbed most of what meat was available and the general public were left with offal.
Mind you, the troops weren't much better off with a constant supply of bully beef and custard with crumble all together in one mess tin.
Offal is the bits of the carcase nobody in their right mind would voluntarily eat although there is today an eccentric movement of cookery writers trying to promote the idea.
Right through the nineteen fifties and sixties the food slowly got better although an average sized town would typically have a tearoom with scone and tea and an enterprising Chinese restaurant if one was lucky.
Pubs certainly did not serve food and the only compliment to a pint of ale was a pickled egg with a bag of crisps.
For some strange reason, although on reflection maybe it was just the poor quality that dictated this; the food was always boiled to slush. Fresh cabbage would be boiled for an hour and there was no conception of mixing the right foods on the plate.
Somewhere along the way better food began perhaps with the introduction of television into the homes of Britain and some basic cookery lessons. When you see these programs now it gives an indication of how bad things must have become because the suggestions are still pretty nauseating.
Perhaps it was a mixture of a more cosmopolitan community and equally important the arrival of some decent wine. What is a good meal without a glass or two of vino?
Maybe the Italians who stayed on in the U.K. after the war felt sorry for us and started bringing in pasta, salami and other delights from their homeland. They certainly introduced ice-cream and started opening some popular Italian restaurants.
Now we have between five and six thousand restaurants in London and every type of food is available. Many are serving English foods but cooked properly. There was never anything wrong with the supplies of good food it just seems the native Englishman or woman just lacked the ability to cook it.
What we call organic was available all the time back in the old days as smallholders produced good wholesome vegetables without chemicals. The country has also always had some of the best livestock with Aberdeen Angus beef as one example along with old breeds of pig and sheep.
Somewhere in late Victorian times the art of cooking delicious feasts was lost despite a great heritage of doing so from medieval days.
Think of any country in the world and there will be at least one London restaurant that will cook and serve their dish be it Argentinian steak and wine or Thai green curry. Just take a leisurely look through a directory of restaurants in London to appreciate the full choice.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/restaurant-reviews-articles/good-food-is-at-last-in-the-uk-5681162.html
About the Author
Restaurants in London can be found at the great new site of http://www.onlyuncle.com/.
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