Fried Food Nation

I certainly won't be the first foreign observer to comment on British cuisine, but that isn't going to stop me. Yes, the rumors of it being relatively bland and, some might say, bad, are not exactly exaggerated. I tend to automatically and liberally dose all my food from the dining hall with pepper, ketchup, vinegar, hot sauce, or whatever flavo(u)r booster I can get my hands on. It's not that they aren't trying, its that they have been raised with a different palette. The "spicy pork and veg bake" that was my lunch a couple days ago was not spicy in the least, having perhaps a small dose of garlic thrown in among the stewed tomatoes and other assorted vegetable/pork slurry that was then covered in "white sauce" and baked til hot. Just for reference, that is an all too typical food preparation method on this soggy island. Combine that with a propensity to eat baked beans (more tomatoey here, not sweet like the American version) and some form of potatoe at least twice a day leads to a diet that is somewhat uniform in color and flavo(u)r.

This long chain of food fauxs-pas is neither the inspiration nor the point of this post, the television chef known as Jamie Oliver is. Jamie is best known States-side for his stint as the "Naked Chef" while in Britain, in addition to having achieved full-blown celebrity chef status, he is widely known for his down-home Essex accent and massive campaign to get healthier lunches in public schools, as well as a general opposition to everything Britons like to put in their mouths. He has now launched a brand new Channel 4 (they are creative naming tv networks) show, and social crusade, called Jamie's Ministry of Food, in which he is attempting to get fat/poor/lazy/unhealthy/unknowledgeable about cooking/any combination of the above (which works out to about everyone in the country it seems) cooking "good, honest, affordable food" for themselves and their families. The common person in Britain just isn't eating nutritiously, regardless of what you might see friends and others of the "educated band" of society eating in London.

Which brings us to the point: British cooking/eating is not all that healthy. As much as America is slammed for being the heartland of the obesity pandemic, the food here is often less nutritious and prepared in less healthy ways. Frying, of everything from meats to potatoes to desserts, is about as common here as in parts of the deepest South in the US. My dining hall has menu items that have been fried available at every meal of the day. Oftentimes, veggie burgers here are little more than lumps of breadcrumbs, beans, and other vegetable matter held together by a sort of tomatoe-ish paste, and then deep fried. With a side of chips (thick cut french fries..). Oh, and your green vegetable will be peas. You might see a string bean if lucky. And so on, and so forth, until your GI tract is so chock full of nutty foods that you will need a colonic immediately upon return to the US. Fresh vegetables here, rather than the kind that come in cans or frozen, seem to still be a treat for the rich or better off, as Jamie Oliver finds in his new television program.

Of course, a huge chunk of the US population eats similarly poorly, often as a result of socio-economic factors. We might have lots of food available cheaply, but people are still under-nourished when it comes to the vitamins and nutrients necessary for a health-ful life. The striking thing here, and with confirmation from British friends who have been to the US, is how much less fresh and green a lot of the food available even in middle quality restaurants is. That, and the acceptance of frying as a main method of cooking, will only keep British food with its dogged reputation. Its surprising to me, expecting "the Europeans" to clearly know how to eat better and healthier. If anything, this leads me to believe that people really are connected more by "class" across nations, at least when it comes to food. Average income Americans and average income Britons are eating themselves to death for economic, social, and cultural reasons that must be addressed if we are to pride ourselves on living in fair, modern societies committed to the health of our citizens.