Why are you people having an argument about cuisine, food, and dining habits on CagePotato? Seriously.

If a fighter bitches 'cause the food was shitty, then that guy should have planned better. Shoulda planned his meals as well as his excuses better. Let's move on.

Just to add my two cents( or tuppence) worth, I love food, good fresh food, prepared well with fresh local ingredients, were pretty lucky down here, especially were I live in Nth Queensland, we have great climate and can access great fresh fruit and vegies, fresh seafood and great meats. We also have a lot of cultures who contribute to the food scene and so youcan get great Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Greek, italian and so on and so on. I also love watching food shows and I beleive that in Britain and USA you guys have pretty good access to the same sort of things, some of the stuff you see Jamie Oliver doing on his shows with fantastic home grown produce look delicous, I also have cousins in Seatlle who have introduced me to different recipes and cooking methods which are all fantastic. We can all make jokes about each others cuisine, spotted dick for the brits, deep fried anything for the Yanks, vegemite or pies with tomato sauce for us, but I beleive each country has great restaurants with access to different cuisines, great fresh food and many great ways of preparing it. Takeaway should be a quick and easy option for rare occasions , but unfortunately, for too many it is now the staple and I think all three of our cultures can see the results of this waddling down the High Streets. I love a kebab or a cuppla Tacos after a big night on the piss, but fresh and healthy is the way to go.

Everyone knows the English just steal food ideas from countries they've invaded and add some gravy or cream. Mmmm Chicken Tikka Masala...

Sounds like we are in agreement! And Shaky, perhaps you are right that it is time to abandon the old stereotypes about English food. You make some good points.

It is funny how we can be so fired up about something, and then realize that most of us are pretty reasonable. Then we can all rally around a universal general dislike for the French. What a beautiful thing!

I fucking love fish and chips, but then again I'm high as shit most of the time.

@Hummus

I like you...I don't know why..but I like you...
actually I do know why, you're a balanced dude
Peace

@RwilsonR: You, sir are a genius and a scholar. Agreed on literally all counts. The sort of people who bring up names like Foucault or Mackinnon to argue the evils of America ought to be hunted for sport until extinct. FTR, though, you can get 5 star restaurants for virtually any cuisine in London, too.
@Shaky: Glad we can all agree on the general shit-headedness of the French.

@DaltonSwayze and RWilsonR

You are both completely right. My point got lost somewhere along the way and a lot of the things RWilsonR said about varied cuisine hold true for England. English food when cooked well is lovely. It is easy to get it wrong as it is not flash, but when you season good ingredients well, then you have great food. I personally have had a lot of great food in America and I love the portions, great value. There are well documented issues with food quality in America in various docs, but obviously there are places you can get good quality ingredients.

My main point is that the stereotype about English food is outdated, and many others are invalid. The same holds true about American stereotypes. I don't care about the spread of American culture or capitalism. I think the free market economy and a lack of trade barriers is the most efficient way for the world to run, comparative advantage etc...
I actually love America (particularly NY, and would love to go to Yellowstone etc) and have many good American friends. I have also come no problem with our decreasing importance and relative wealth. It's a problem the US will have to deal with as well. China, India, Japan etc are taking over. No problem with that. Our total wealth will increase even if the West's relative wealth decreases.

Spotted dick is not so common these days, and seems more alive through jokes. English puddings, cakes, scones are lovely though.

Random debate we have developed here (totally my fault, maybe Ben's a lil bit too)
but closing statement, we have more than sausage and chips we have some damn good food all around the country from all cultures etc.
plus the French are arrogant dicks and their food is overrated.

@ Shaky - Dalton is making a much better case. And England has a very old reputation for awful food, and that isn't just from Americans. If you like bland sausages and fish and chips, you'll do fine there. I personally love a full English breakfast on rare occasion. And in London you can get some of the best Indian food in the world. Beyond that, it is almost uniformly crap. And I love England!

America is simply too large and diverse to lump into a blanket statement about its cuisine. There is definitely a lot of crap. However, it has a greater number of the world's best restaurants than any other country, has done more than any other country to drive the culinary world in the last 30 years, and it is the only country where you can find four and five star restaurants of every type of cuisine in the world. You can go to Japan for a five-star Japanese restaurant, you can go to India for a top rated Indian restaurant, you can go to Italy, France, China, etc. for a top restaurant in each of those cuisines. But you can also go to America and find a top rated restaurant in each and every one of those categories here. There is not a single other country in the world who can claim that.

For those who bemoan the fast food takeover - if people are buying it, then that is what they want. It is fast, easy, cheap, usually reasonably tasty, and most important for much of the world that needs to boil their tap water - it is safe. Let people make the choice in what they want, and not some elitist who cries about losing culture. And if you believe in some Foucault-inspired BS about America's secret and subversive colonialism through exporting its culture via multinational corporations, then you are most likely one of those poor, pathetic Euros with an inferiority complex, from once-great nations that are now stuck whining about their current insignificance.

If you hate American culture. Great. Good for you. I'm not going to argue such a subjective topic. But to talk about food, there are simply more choices, more variety, better options, and more innovation in America than anywhere else. That is an indisputable fact.

Why am I talking about this on an MMA site? Oh well. London is about my favorite city in the world to visit, and I really have nothing against England. The French, however... don't get me started.

@Shaky

It just seemed weird to me that you countered someone being ignorant about good English food with being ignorant about good American food. Stereotypes are, quite frankly, a whole lot of fun, and when you have a national dish called spotted dick, you have to expect a bit of ribbing.

Make that bad food AND bad teeth!
XD

@DaltonSwayze
You talkin' to me?
I do cook sir, very well. I just don't understand Americans judging English food. I understand those with a culinary tradition like the French or Italians judging it, but it is not like it was 30-40 years ago, but it seems strange for Americans to have this stereotype. A lot of our street takeaways are not so nice, but there are some good chippies. Pizza is obviously, on average, better in America (which numerous exceptions) but we have a lot of cultures who have brought a lot of good food over. This is without mentioning the wealth of cookery programmes on tv. Probably about a third of tv shows seem to be cooking shows.

why does a guy named Carlos not have an accent? I am severely disappointed. From now on we should refer to him as Karl Condit.

Sounds to me like you guys have a pretty limited experience with decent food. Get outta the strip mall and get out a cookbook, dudes

I agree with you there, Shaky. Americans complaining about food in other countries is just plain stupid. And almost as bad is the influence American fast-food is having on other countries, such that other countries are starting to lose their original cuisine in order to imitate the American way of eating.

The bad food? Really?..Coming from America where you can buy a pancake with ice cream wrapped around a hot dog on a stick. We eat some good food over here unless you only visit takeaways. The weird thing for you Americans is probably that we cook with actual food rather than 'food alternatives' that are drowned in preservatives and are processed and packaged to shit. I walked into a supermarket in LA and there was literally no actual fresh food. Anyway, I just don't get it, I suppose we actually cook over here too. But whatever, considering America has the worst food reputation around the world, I should probably just ignore these statements.

disclaimer: some people eat shitty food here, no doubt, but there is very good food available and plenty of diverse restaurants in terms of price and types of cuisine.

NBK all the way.
The outlaws 15 minutes of fame are up.