Food for thought - but perhaps not digestion?

 

I've been enjoying two articles at the Telegraph in London, UK over a transatlantic food fight.

First, Simon Parker wrote:  "My British mind boggles at American eating habits".  He discusses what he found on a cycling tour of the USA.

Legend has it that American soldiers stationed in Italy during the Second World War found the coffee so strong they diluted it. Then, when they returned home, the practice stuck. And these days, most American coffee remains so tasteless that cream, sugar and sweetener must be added by the gallon before it can be served in a plastic cup the size of a policeman’s helmet.

Outside a convenience store in Kansas, I got talking to a man eating a “Midwest breakfast”: egg and bacon pizza, accompanied by a 36-ounce soda (containing 120g of sugar) and a pint of “americano”.

. . .

Spend enough time in the USA and you start to notice an unapologetic American trend: bigger is always better. Even if that means diminishing a product’s quality in the process. 

Case in point: The all-you-can-eat restaurant, where piles of stodge drift between tables like UFOs fuelled by MSG. And guess what? Even though you’re doing all the leg- and handwork yourself, you’ll still be expected to leave a tip. Go figure. 

At one such establishment in Nebraska I departed feeling, not just stuffed, but somewhat guilty for mankind. The restaurant’s glutinous patrons (me included) had stacked their plates so high that dozens of wayward wontons and loose prawn crackers had been crunched into the carpet and resembled a fine savoury sand. 

. . .

A community’s main source of sustenance comes from the super-processed aisles of gas stations and dollar stores, where you’re as likely to stumble across a Ming vase as you are a lettuce leaf. 

Most nights I would study the shelves of these brightly lit prefab buildings, searching for products containing the fewest possible E numbers. A good meal would be instant noodles and a can of peas. A bad one might be a microwave burrito and a chocolate bar. And all while, smash-hit TV shows like The Bear portray an American restaurant scene of abundant flavour and freshness.

There's more at the link.

Not to be outdone, Sara Sherwood fired back with "My American mind boggles at British eating habits".

Cheap roadside food in Britain is hardly healthy: budget motorway hotels are uniform in serving fried bread, fried bacon, fried sausage, fried hash browns, fried mushrooms, and fried tomatoes. Sadly, a sideline of the Anglo-American Special Relationship is a kinship in the dedication to ultra-processed, unforgivably bland food.

. . .

If the baguette defines the French, and the hot dog Americans, surely the tinned bean is the ultimate culinary symbol of Britain. They have been named as favoured treats by the current Queen and the late Princess Diana, both of whom presumably had access to a wide range of alternatives. But if you have not been raised on these cloyingly sweet piles of mush, they’re a tough sell.

Although they come from New England, the British collectively consume two million tins of them a day – more than the rest of the world combined. These haricots swim in a tomato sauce laden with 10 per cent of a person’s daily sugar allowance, and 20 per cent of the salt they need. Yet they inspire as much national pride and unqualified praise as the country’s National Health Service. They are served at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and appear on regular rotation in schools for children, on top of jacket potatoes or sponge-like ultra-processed sliced bread (more sugar and salt).

. . .

One thing that makes it difficult to navigate the British dining scene for American visitors is that we may be in pursuit of a different goal. Recently an American cousin with fond memories of atmospheric London pubs in the 70s and 80s, wandered South Kensington, perused local reviews, and settled himself in for what turned out to be an astoundingly disappointing meal. He was served mushy fish and chips, decidedly un-mushy peas (hard as nails, he said), and the beer selection was poor (mainly in cans). “Who eats this stuff?” he asked me afterwards.

Had he asked me beforehand, I would have advised caution when choosing to eat in a pub. Take a recent review of a pub in North London, where the diner noted: “The food wasn’t the best.” Okay, this could be helpful, I thought. What made it bad? “We ordered a pizza and chips with gravy. Unfortunately, they forgot to cut the pizza, and the chips tasted undercooked.”

The mind, as Simon wrote about America, boggles: What would the successful delivery of pizza, chips and gravy look like?

Again, more at the link.

Perhaps I should contribute an article to the series, titled "My colonial-raised mind boggles at both diets"?

Peter