\”Every time we are interviewed by a German journalist they always say that British food has a terrible reputation, but that\’s usually because they once went on a school exchange and were served beans on toast every night,\” she said. \”Jim always says, well, no one exactly says \’I\’m going out for a German tonight\’, either.\”
Wasn\’t there a TV show which made exactly this joke? Indian/Pakistani immigrants going off for \”An English\” on a Saturday night?
And I do believe that lots of people do eat \”a German\”….Hamburgers and Frankfurters anyone?
Yep. Goodness Gracious Me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpStoROu0XE
Give me the blandest thing on the menu!
Indeed. You’re thinking of Goodness Gracious Me, methinks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdo79znnHl8&feature=related
NB, however, the ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ sketch featured young people *in Bombay* (not immigrants to Britain), ‘getting tanked up on lassis and going for an English.’ The real subject, of course, addressed by wicked parody, is the behaviour of the English in Indian restaurants in England. My favourite line (only in the live show, afaik) is Nina Wadia’s ‘I can’t decide between the kiddley pie and the toad in my hole,’ after which she understandably gets a fit of the giggles.
Lots of German bars in Moscow.
Nobody’s criticising German beer…
If (like me) you’re a meat/potatoes/dumplings kind of guy then Germany is the place to go. (Not to mention Eisbein.) The pub food is better than the UK too, generally speaking.
Interestingly there are a few German bakeries in Hong Kong, mostly in the underground stations. German bread is good, but it was a surprise to find it’s gone Asian.
I think British cuisine now wallops pretty much everywhere else for six at most levels – from takeaway kebab to three stars, but this wouldn’t be the case if we restricted British cuisine to indigenous stuff, or if the external influences that have always been there weren’t encouraging people to get better at that home-made stuff.
This wasn’t the case even 10 years ago. How far recognisably British cuisine will spread in Germany, I don’t know. Germans are in general hugely Anglophilic, but Germany has yet to discover the fact that there are flavourings other than salt out there.
There is a nice little German sausage place that I visit in London. So yes, going out for a German is possible.
Serf, the one on the corner of Cowcross & St John Sts? I must admit that I prefer the Hope for lunch, though.
Also in the US. Which is funny considering how bland and uninteresting most of their food is.
Having been to the US recently, it was a welcome to back to the UK for a steak and kidney pie. America is mainly Burgers, Cheese Burgers, Pizza, and fries. And you can have the American version of cheese (straight from a squirty can) on anything, including brussel sprouts.
I asked for fish, beans and broccoli at one place – the waiter said that it was the first time he, personally, had been asked for broccoli.
Ah well, if you went for pre-industial British cuisine it was pretty similar to french rustic cuisine, pretty damn good considering what they had to play with. It went downhill post industrial revolution as workers had no time to prepare meals cooked slowly.
“cheese (straight from a squirty can)”
Seriously? That’s bad. Almost end-of-civilisation bad.
Critics of German food often forget German desserts … my favorites.