Buying cheese in England
If you ever fancy a fight with a frenchman, tell them that you can find better food in England than you can in France. If they hang around long enough to even let you finish the sentence before walking of in disgust/hilarity/a gallic shrug of the shoulders, try pointing out that there are over 700 varieties of cheese produced in Britain (according to the British Cheese Board), compared to only about 400 in France.
Actually, the point here is not who produces more cheeses. It’s not even who has better cuisine. The point is that there is actually fantastic food in England, it’s just that British food has a terrible reputation. Or rather it has a dated reputation. That is the only thing that it has in common with French cuisine.
The British food revolution has largely gone unnoticed overseas, despite Jamie Oliver working day and night to spread the word. One of the great things about it is that there is an enormous variety of food available in England. The sweet potato for example is not native to England, but you can get it and many will know what to do with it. There are not many Swiss, French or Italian people who have worked their magic with a sweet potato (I use those examples having lived in those countries). There are not many shops that stock it here. Of course, it’s far from every English person who is on board in this food revolution, but there is a growing culture of awesome food in the UK, despite what you may well hear.
Micro-breweries are celebrating roaring trade, thanks to independent retailers stocking their stuff. The British wine industry is thriving, thanks to soils similar to those in the Champagne region of France, and the lack of snobbery (yet, at least). The cheese is fantastic (although could do with a bit of a marketing boost; the cheese producers in England seem for the main part stuck in an age gone by).
The amount of independent food joints in town and country is proliferating; limited menus scribbled in chalk on grubby blackboards are working their charm in many a city. One thing about Switzerland that is continuously surprising (and a little frustrating) is the lack of decent (and affordable) lunchtime food options that don’t involve going to a restaurant. The UK, in contrast, has a huge number of fresh salad/soup/buffet bar options that you can mix and match for very little. Somewhere like Foodilic in Brighton, or the Grocer on Kings Road in London does not exist in Zurich, or even really in France.
And that is the British Food Revolution; it’s accessible food, awesome ingredients, variety of cuisines & flavours, and a little bit more innovation and creativity than many other places. Vive la revolution!
Jo Goes 