Domino

surely the responses (or lack of) denote a lack of knowledge of English food ??
OK so many things are taken from other countries/cultures in the cooking and presentation, but isn't that to be expected.

One of my most first foreign meal surprises was a 1kg Steak, cooked to order as you waited, served on red hot metal beef shaped plates
In Singapore
In 1966.

Yes things have moved on since then but to my mind the biggest food snobs are those who close their senses to something different/new from another country. Espcially if they have never even left their own city letalone their country.

rgds

Sylsmum

Don't kid yourselves, our meat is sooo much better than that horribly gristly Italian stuff, and compare our plump, tasty chickens to their skinny, slimy ones !
Their everyday food is 'cottolette' (chicken burgers) but Bernard Matthews does 'em so much better & cheaper than Aia ! Have you driven past the 'Star' factory ? I'd never eat any of their products after that ! As for the fruit, all the decent stuff gets exported ! And we get left with green tangerines you can't peel !
Italians would die for roast beef & yorkshires, their roast is a dry, skinny slice with diced oven potatoes & no veg or trimmings ! They'd love a homemade Shepherd's Pie, proper puddings etc !
All the 'mulino Bianco' biscuits taste the same : why do you think they see Digestives & Walker's shortbread as luxuries !
The restaurant will be a massive success, if it's run by Brits and not Italians trying to cook British,especially if they combine it with a tea shop. Good luck to them !

37100

Wow, where on earth do you buy your stuff! You will never get a 'roast beef' here because of the different cuts. Not saying that the meat is better, but find yourself a decent butcher and learn how to use the different cuts. I'd never eat/buy a chicken burger anywhere! And stock cubes are the same worldwide. Everything ground up together For gravy, make your own. Far, far nicer that any packet gravy you can't buy here.

My friut and veg comes from the Farmer's market or a farm shop. Freshly picked, melons, peaches, tomatoes or Aubergines etc.

Most of my Italian friends love the novelty of UK food once in a while and that's it - as the restaurant in Bologna demonstrated. Run by an Italian yes, but one who lived in the UK all is life. We often go to Bologna with friends, but a fish and chip etc shop would be the last place I'd eat at.

I've certainly never eaten a 'dry' roast served by friends. They do love the cakes I make.

Isakat

Sorry, but I will completely disagree with you. You must change the shops where you get your food from.

-English chickens are bigger, maybe because they are pumped up with water
-there are fantastic chickens here, but go to a butcher
-am I missing something? Cotolette where I live are not chicken burgers
-the fruit and veg here is miles better than the stuff in the UK supermarkets that gets ripened while in transport
-the problem with steaks and roast is that ( as my butcher explained to me), the Italians like their meat fresh, while in the UK meat rests
-get your biscuits from a proper pasticeria or forno, they are fantastic( although I do like the digestives and vanilla cream biscuits now and then.)
-shortbread is tasteless and full of butter, I never ate it even in the UK.

Pulaski

Eating it fresh probably made sense in Italy before refrigeration became available but British beef "hangs" after slaughter, which improves the flavour and the texture. After butchering steaks can be further "aged" which improves the flavour even more!

Isakat

I wonder if this is because of the of the ASL food safety regulations here?

You can get a good Danish or Argentinian steak but pricey in the restaurants and Metro sells meat from all over the world-Argentinian, Brazilian, Angus steak, etc.

modicasa

What can I say - I worked when I was a student for UK firm that provided burgers and meat products - and promptly became vegetarian for 20 years. I would never eat processed meat in the UK - it is filth. Whereas I am a roast beef eater, even as a Yorkshireman the best roast beef I have ever had was in Sicily, from a Modican cow - like an Angus shorthorn. Your fresh fruit and veg in the UK is about 6 weeks old and kept in refrigeration while being driven all over the country from one depot to another. Here its at kilometre zero, even in the supermarkets. Can you honestly say that a tomato from M&S has any flavour compared to one from Italy? Strawberries even taste like they did when I was a kid, instead of coloured balsa wood from UK shops. But... Mulino Bianco is cack. However if you think a Pizza Hut stuffed crust is a pizza then its best to stay in the UK.

linseed oil

the fresh products are much better the toms are misshapen but delish the taters even have muck on them all in much better
if you want good hung steaks talk nicely to a local bucher tell him what you want hey presto , as for the chickens being better in the uk tosh utter tosh , her they live longer heather lives n ot nine weeks in large sheds fed constant antibiotics or eating one another . buy local buy fresh buy good

Sylsmum

We're just an ordinary family on a budget, so can't afford fancy pasticceria biscuits etc or top quality butchers. If you're in the same position, Asda or Tesco compares much more favorably to the Italian equivalents, in terms of quality, choice and value. Thank goodness for Lidl ! Do your KIDS really prefer Italian food ? Mine certainly don't except for a few random items. It is certainly very expensive if you have a large family to feed in Italy. We don't like stuffed crusts, but certainly prefer thin pizzas with lots of toppings from our local Turkish takeaway in London, rather than the awful thick crusts and measly toppings served up by the local takeaways in our village in Lombardy.
Do you really like pancetta and lardo ? Where's the proper bacon ? I am a teacher and have taken children on trips to 'agriturismi ' when we lived in Emilia Romagna .Horrendous ! Why the heck are'nt the cows outside ?

37100

Another ordinary family here, too. With a few exceptions, my now adult kids hate UK food. Can't comment on biscuit because we do not eat them, but you don't need a top quality butcher for meat. Just a good butcher and learn how to use the different cuts. Wander round the hills here and you will see the cows in the fields. Pancetta and lardo? Actually, I do like them. Maybe because my family ate bread and dripping. And I'd rather have an Italian sausage than a crappy Asda one made manly from bread. But you don't have to like everything. I for one, can't stand pearà, but also hate baked beans.

Our friut and veg from the farmer's market etc is no dearer and often cheaper than the supermarkets. And a better quality.

I don't mind thick takeway pizzas - not too thick, but our local takeway does lovely thin crust natural yeast pizzas with loads of topping.

linseed oil

we getting very Italian don't talk about the weather talk about food ,
my whife who is celiac cant eat most of the so called sousages in England cus they full of rusk , dryed bread crumbs put in inlyn cos bread is cheaper than meat , here she can eat sousages and enjoys them ,
no need to pay fancy prices for good food here we shop at erospin which has a farm home kill butcher who has a consesion best meat in the world .
for pizias you take your choice not Americanised but gen Italian of the region , and yes we can get bacon smoked from erospin not full of water but flavour you don't have to spend a lot to eat in abruzzo just use your eyes and look about

Isakat

Maybe because the agriturismi usually have smaller animals and mainly concentrate on olive oil production?

modicasa

Well I reckon there are three possibilities:
1. It's Lombardy - everyone who lives south of Rome would never agree with an assertion that Italian food is crap.
2. Its a generational thing - I grew up in a small town where there was a fish and chippy and thats it. Didn't see an Indian or Chinese till I was 18 and left home. So brought up on a diet of English grub, and where spaghetti hoops were a bit of foreign. I love Italian food - (also I was a veggie for years so Italian food is easy) and apart from the convenience, think its fresher, tastier and better value for money than in the UK, where even a trip round Morrisons makes me shudder at the prices. Wish we could get parsnips though here.
3. You're pulling our plonkers

HADENOUGHPIZZA

I must agree with the remark on agriturism / farms generally in Emilia Romagna . The cows are very rarely in fields or kept in vast covered barns . I have never seen pigs outside either.

Sylsmum

All I know is that if Asda opened in Italy everyone would go bonkers for it. Not only for the food. Ditto Primark for clothes. And my Italian friends in London admit it, and shop for all their relatives here. The Italian economy is not strong enough to support effective distribution of food and everything else. That's the only reason there are small shops and farms etc. I love Italy for the weather, history, landscape, beaches, etc etc but get real and accept for shopping it's crap. So many Italian families head to London just to shop !