People also forget how significantly the English diet changed as a result of World War 2 rationing and how it was still happening over a decade after the war.
@@stansman5461 Rationing in the UK was between 1940-1954, West Bengal gained its independence in 1947 the two are not related… now I’m not excusing the atrocities of colonialism, heck the Sikh nation and the region around Kashmir were decimated because it was the one time England allied with the French solely because they feared their military might. But that also has nothing to do with rationing in the UK in WW2, nor does the atrocities currently being faced by Indian born muslims under the current nationalist government, they are all awful , all inexcusable, but also have nothing to do with the dramatic changes that occurred to the UK diet following the rationing that occurred between 1940-1954.
@@The_Cloth_Surgeon You lost me with the atrocities faced by Muslims, Christians Hindus and Buddhists have little to no legal protection from Islamist violence in Pakistan or Bangladesh and yet all we hear about is how horrible and oppressive India is, without evidence.
And before the World Wars and their rationing, traditional British food was very spicy. Along with a list of now endangered wild birds, your average rural pie according to 1800s cookbooks had many many cups of nutmeg for example. Enough to seem a lot even by modern spice standards. For a while it was important to spend your money on flavourings. Its just that the peasants never really got to keep the wealth of the empire whenever things got tough, so our food culture is about plain long shelf life cheap stuff and not decadent heaps of imported spice
Thank you, this is exactly it! Old cookbooks from the 18th and 19th century (look them up, many are easy to find on the internet) show that spices were incredibly popular in British cooking, and very different from what would be used nowadays. If there‘s one European cuisine that got rid of most of its spices, it‘s actually French cooking, where it became very fashionable to focus on the quality of the main ingredients and present their natural flavours instead of using lots of spices.
@@OttoStrawanzingerFrench high cooking in modern times introduced that I believe. While in that one old cookbook that made french high cooking, being able to create different flavours was what's more important, hence how it popularised the "5 mother sauces" 😊 Something 'french high-' that really bothers me is french high coutterie, which is basically branded and designer clothes for he upper class. No feature or function needed, just a design launched by a name. And it's bad it got ingrained into modern internationalised culture as well 😢
The problem is that people confused spiced food with spicy food. Vanilla and cinnamon are spices, but no one would call vanilla ice cream or cinnamon babka spicy. Spiciness refers to food that creates the sensation of heat irrespective of its actual temperature through chemical action, mainly through capsaicin, found mainly in hot peppers. And the British were emphatically not after those.
"The problem is that people confused spiced food with spicy food." - Definitely not. As such critics are from society / former colonies that do use more(not just in quantity but also in variety) of spices hence better tasting and variety of foods. In turn i would like educate you that spices doesn't stop with heat being it's predominant after taste / flavor. Spices comes in various varieties including but not limited to vegetables, seeds and leaves. Most of veggie and leaves category are not used for their heat rather to add other flavors, smell and counter effects to any strong flavors in meat or other ingredients. There are tangible evidence to these things. You can't escape from such critics by simply calling us "nobes" / "pessants" anymore...we are no longer your colonies thus have freedom of speech. TY for proving the critics right BTW. That's a novice definition of what spices are.
I should be thanking you for proving me right. I never gave a definition of spices. I gave a couple of examples of spices, precisely to make the point that, as you put it, "spices don't stop with heat". But maybe I should have defined spices for you, because it is clear that you do not know what they are: if it is a leaf, it might be an herb, but it is by definition not a spice. As for your claim that cuisines that use more spices are better, that is, at best, a completely subjective preference. The final part of your comment, though, makes it clear that this has nothing to do with which cuisine might be better, but with the fact that you are clearly resentful that the British (I'm not British, by the way) took over India, and you seem to somehow think that accusing British food of being bland is going to alleviate those negative feelings. That's not going to help you. You should try to find a better way to deal with your emotions. @@sureshkumar-qw9ny
@@redrackham6812 Hmm i never said that you gave definition of it rather your notion that we think there being no distinction between spiced food and spicy food in our critic of British food is flawed. This is a strawman attempt. Actually there is some sensor schenanigans going on with UA-cam. Idk anyway point being it's just a spice...why so much fear and insecurity of it?.
The last line of your comment was "TY for proving the critics right BTW. That's a novice definition of what spices are." So you were necessarily implying that you knew what definition of spices I was operating under, which you could only know if I had provided such a definition. Your attempt to deny this now is as nonsensical as the rest of your comment. The fear and insecurity here is clearly from you: you need feel this need to belittle someone else's culture because you clearly have an inferiority complex about your own culture. Try to find a good therapist to work through these issues. @@sureshkumar-qw9ny
@@redrackham6812 Yeah that's also true and you did this in your last comment too. I actually wrote about this too and YT censored them....idk why. Leaves are herbs but also they are spices. See you are novice. How could you know more about spices than someone who uses more variety of spices than you in his day to day life. "So you were necessarily implying that you knew what definition of spices I was operating under" - no, rather i know that you do not grasp the entire definition of what constitute a spice and by that there is gap in your knowledge simply because you do not use them or even aware of. "Your attempt to deny this now is as nonsensical as the rest of your comment." - Can't deny something which i never spoke about. The core of the argument is still to prove that you people should use more variety of spices. And to prove that i brought leaves and other forms spices that aren't necessarily spicy. It's not about pride mate...that's a weird way to put it. "you need feel this need to belittle someone" - *i'm sorry that's something you are doing by rejecting our criticism of British food and reducing it to our lack of understand on what spicy and spices are.*
Yeah, it wasn't the English who slaughtered and enslaved millions of people for the local spices, only to never use them in their own cuisine. It was the Dutch
Also, stumbling into world domination because of the Spice Trade is more a Spanish empire thing. Isabella I and Ferdinand II sent Columbus to find a new spice trade route.
@@thenablade858 well, everyone was looking for new spice trade routes after Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. But no one believed that Columbus could reach Asia from the East. Except Isabella of Castille. And, in the end, what made the Spanish empire the richest and most powerful in the world was not the spices (we don't have those in the Americas), but the literal mountains of silver that they found
@@fighterguard Of course, they wanted a new spice trade route but they did not expect Columbus to (accidentally) discover a new continent. I meant they ‘stumbled’ as in: ‘Hey, that’s a New Continent we’ve never heard of. Let’s spread Catholicism and get rich’
Hey, if you wanna try something wild, an alternative to black pepper is long pepper. It's grown in India and the Middle East and is what most of your medieval recipes are referring to when they call for pepper. Black pepper like we have now is from Vietnam and is much more recent of a thing. Long pepper is spicier and more floral in taste.
@@yuzuruotonashi659 OK. Couldn't find a decent supplier anyway, but I got a couple of good Indian friends, maybe they can get someone at home to send some.
Great vid, that line has often annoyed me as a historian as well. Another point on top of what you've said: if you look at upper class recipes from early imperial times, they often have so many spices added that they're basically inedible, because spices were seen as such a status symbol. Some of those colonial-era spices remain in winter recipes to this day - e.g. mulled wine, Christmas cake.
The thing is, meant in jest, it’s harmless and a jibe at our colonising ways. When people say it as an insult, it’s odd at best. Like why are you so angry I don’t eat what you eat? Yet would be even angrier if we were still taking the e things we took. They will use the crappest looking food that we ourselves wouldn’t eat and use it as a reference point. 🤭 The irony is, a lot of cultures use spice I find overwhelming to the point you can’t taste anything else, what’s wrong with your food if you’re trying to avoid tasting it? Most cultures have worse issues than food that doesn’t burn your arse. Yet that’s the issue. Had a man laugh at my food and it came out he went to Pakistan to marry a 14 year old. Yet bland food. Yeah? If countries have a pedo law, they don’t get to judge food. They are worse and fighting for for food than their children. Which is disgusting.
Yeah, IIRC the use of spices fell once the price of spice dropped enough that the common man could afford it. So no longer the fancy thing was using a lot of spice, but using fancy ingredients. So high culinary arts in the west went from "I use 14 different spices and can afford it all with ease!" to "I only use a special kind of pig from this specific italian farm"
If you look at medieval recipes, they use **ridiculous** amounts of spices. But that was a huge flex on the part of the host, because spices cost $$$. One thing that happened during this time period is that spices became readily available to just about everyone, meaning that spicing your food was no longer a flex because *the poors* could do it too. Mind you, as far as I can tell, the East India Company was still moving a *lot* of spices. Just the aristocracy was less interested in them because now they were "common." 😂
@@AndrewBarskyBritish people do use foreign spice lol, cumin, coriander, mustard, fenugreek, cinnamon, black pepper, asofoetida, turmeric, paprika… just some of the daily spices in our food that isn’t native to the UK
Cool, cool, Phil. We, the British Asians have been present in the nation for over a century. We're the ones boosting the spice levels around here. And I have to give mad respect to the white English/Scottish/others etc. who absolutely murder curries after a bender or just because it's a Friday night! They even put ME to shame!
I remember my mates giving me shit for ordering curry sauce with my fish and chips, the place made their own and it was beautiful. The guy next me just leaned in and quietly said, "mate, ignore them. I'd have the curry sauce too but my mum cooks it every night." Gave me a fist bump and then I never saw the guy again. Made me proud to have a nation filled with other people's culture. You can take a walk down any town centre street, anywhere in the nation, and you'll find food from every corner of the globe. People acting like we eat nothing but salt and boiled potatoes.
@@AMorphicTool Yeah. Loudmouth Americans talking like we're Victorian urchins on some "Please sir, I want some more" shit. Britain DID get the spices and they got us along with them to show them how it's done right!
One thing thats interesting is this ties into the politics of food as status symbol. If you look at the few cook books we have from the 1500's you can see constant use of cinnamon, nutmeg and other spices. These were writen by courtly cooks, so were meant for the wealthy, as those spices would have been wildly expensive. Then as the empire gets up and running, the cost of those spices goes down dradtically. And over time you see a trend of more working class foods with these spices (ie baked beans), and the upper class food is suddenly now focuses on using very simple high cost ingredients, prepared in such a way as to let the flavour of those ingredients shine, a style that would become haute cuisine. French onion soup is probably a good example of this. Its inspired by working class onion soups that likely were spiced because onion and water dont taste that awesome alone. But, when it became an upper class dish that was swapped for beef broth, and a shit tonne of gruyère, both expensive ingredients that became the focus of the dish.
I'm not so sure there is much evidence for the "great spice class switch" either. Again, a lot of people say it, but the specific version that rich people didn't want spices any more because the poors had them seems to be a bit of a "just so" story. It's just an attempt to turn the US meme about "seasoning" (white people don't use it!!!!!!!!!!) into something that has a moral political base (uses spices=good people).
@@ceterisparibus8966 that how virtuous and good a person is is not determined by whether or not they spice their food or how much they spice their food.
Don’t forget that the European nobility called the peasants and surfs ‘garlic eaters’ because they had to make do with local native plants to season their food.
@@sureshkumar-qw9ny No it's true. They went and conquered the world and it's food and then sold it all because they hated joy. They still hate joy. lol
@@torg2126in order to ban it what does that require? (also the British directly and indirectly (but knowingly) profited off of slavery for hundreds of years after it was finally abolished in the Empire (which only happened in the 1800s, by the way, as especially in central American colonies it was still allowed), AND they allowed indentured servitude during that time, which while objectively not slavery is at least in a similar ballpark of forcing people to work, often with a very limited or no chance of actually getting free of it. They also on many occasions were allied, either de facto through war or by treaty, to nations that allowed slavery. So don't make it sound like some kind of crusade the British waged on slavery)
There's a _lot_ in history that falls into the category of "Quippy and funny in thy moment, but if you think about it, it doesn't really make sense." one of the most frustrating ones in my mind at the moment is that WWI was a family feud. The king of Britain at the time was of course a constitutional monarch who, while he might have technically had the capacity to do something about the war, wasn't really involved in any meaningful way. Kaiser Wilhelm was om a similar position, the government wanted war, he didn't, but coldly really do much about it. Tsar Nicolas was the only one who could really do anything, and even he was basically dragged around by his government.
Wilhelm himself gave assurances to the Habsburgs that it the went to war, hed join them. On that note, saying it was a family feud leaves out the Italians, the French, the Austrians, the Ottomans, the Japanese, the Bulgarians & the actual reason for the war, the Serbians.
@@connortheandroidsentbycybe7740 Je gave his assurances to the Austrian government at any rate. Though that was _several_ weeks before the war actually broke out, when he thought it would just be Austria kicking Serbia's teeth in. Later he and Nicole exchanged a flurry of telegrams and set about doing they're best to stop things, until someone stabbed Nicholas' fragile pride.
@@Great_Olaf5 oh, 100% but saying "he didn't want war" leaves out important context. Also leaves out that he 100% wanted war with Russia. It was the French he was wary of. Had Franz Joseph went to war when Wilhelm said to go to war, Wilhelm likely would've got the war he wanted
The Germans also sent the Bolshevik party back into Russia, as many of them were expelled from the country after arguing for communism. The Germans saw how outnumbered they were, so having this one political group take care of the Russian royals was actually a stroke of genius. The rise of the communist movement was backed by Germany as a psy op
Also, they did. They totally did. Way more than France, for example. English 4 spice mix was pit everywhere, and still is in traditional recipes (even if mostly Christmas stuff nowadays). Clove, black pepper, dried ginger, nutmeg, mace, allspice, cinnamon, I mean, who roasted a roast without cloves!? Madness. I think people confuse spices and chilis.
English four-spice = pumpkin pie spice. A fine combination with variations galore. Sweet or savory dishes can use it to splendid effect. I have a family recipe out of Quebec where it's the core set in a spiced meat pie filling.
I'm so glad you've addressed this comment because I'm sick to death of reading it everywhere. We have had spices in our cuisine for centuries; that's why all our traditional puddings have them in. Plus in modern times- I know far more British people who eat Indian food regularly in comparison with Americans.
?? If Americans wanted spicy foods, why on earth would we eat the less fresh imported Indian cuisine regularly instead of the local continentally (every country south of Canada) grown spices we have here? There's a reason why latin-american cuisine has such a chokehold on our society and even outside of latam, the American South and Caribbeans have their own native spice culture that's been thriving. This isn't a jab at Indian cuisine btw, this is just explaining that that niche of spiced foods is already taken up by native cuisine.
@citrus_sweet that's not the point I'm making. It would weird if you didn't eat chillies, given that literally originate from the Americas. But it's really fucking strange that so many of you lord it over British people going "mehmehmehmeh _spices_ " ignoring the huge quantities of Indian food we eat here.
I also think our biggest use of spice is in our baking. We have a huge tradition of sweet spiced cakes and puddings and a history of throwing cinnamon on just about anything...
It's interesting we Indians use our cinnamon primarily for meat based dishes and masala tea, never heard of it being used for our sweet or baked dishes.
"One of those things that is funny, quippy in the moment but if you think about it, it doesn't really make sense".. Best way to sum up a lot of social media posts I've heard in a while.
Britain had food rationing until 1954. Apart from the war deaths, British people got healthier due to the food rationing system implemented during WWII. Spices were not rationed, ie. guaranteed to be supplied by the government. Food got more nutritious, but blander during WWII.
Excuses, excuses. After America saved the British from certain destruction, perhaps the British could have figured out a well defined national cuisine that isn’t from a former occupied area?
@Barsky I mean, all the British people, and the Irish too, have very well defined and historic cuisines? Maybe the Americans could learn something and have a cuisine that isn't shit stolen from immigrants for a change. Also Britain was never under "certain destruction", the USA was important in the war don't get me wrong, but the United Kingdom was hardly under threat of destruction.
@@AndrewBarsky ahh yes, another ridiculous American claim. Thanks so much to our saviours who turned up for the second half of the game, and made sure to generously sell us all that gear. Such charity! Such bravery! Such complete lack of self interest! We doff our caps to you sir.
People always bring up the spice trade of the British empire when they are talking about how white people can’t handle spicy or how they don’t season their food when the spices that were part of the trade were black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg all of which are very commonly used in a lot of baking. Notable mention is also saffron which barely has any flavour.
The people that say it always refer to powders being the “spices”/“seasoning” (like garlic powder, onion powder) but then reject the thought of fresh garlic and fresh onion being seasoning as well
One really important export from Bengal was salt petre, a key ingredient in gunpowder. Bengal produced so much of the stuff that it was actually a large reason for the success that the British military found in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Well, the 'Vikings' used imported Indian steel rather than make their own (as did lots of Europeans). The silk road and spice routes were a thing. Trade has been really international for thousands of years. Britain exported tin to the middle east. Everywhere has resources.
This "Bengali Cotton" you are talking about is called "Muslin" it was one of the most lucrative products to be made in Bengal in presently Bangladesh the fabric was manufactured in Dhaka and the surrounding areas it is one of our country's biggest pride ❤ Proud to be Bangladeshi 🇧🇩
Something I think is funny that I’ve learned since I’ve moved to the Netherlands is that this statement ca. be actually be better said for them than the English. They absolutely cornered the market on mace and nutmeg in Bengal and Indonesia - and nutmeg for a very long time was worth more than its weight in gold. Either way, you’re absolutely right - mercantilism was all about what made them the most money, and unfortunately all the major european powers found enslaving people to be more profitable than any spice, sweetener, or stimulant they could get in their west or east India companies.
@@plushie946 Firstly, making a valid point about other circumstances is not whataboutism. Whataboutism is asking about a similar but different circumstance specifically to distract your debate opponent from a topic you don’t want to discuss. It’s like “Bait and Switch” but with blame-shifting. Secondly, I’m not trying to distract from the topic, hence why it’s not whataboutism, but rather a natural progression of the topic. Specifically, towards discuss Imperialism as a whole, and how every instance of it has caused horrific experiences for all involved, regardless of the National Government that is Empire-building, or the size of that Empire.
It's been parroted so many times now that it just makes me roll my eyes. There's lots of "traditional" English food which is hearty and delicious, who cares if it doesn't have spices that weren't introduced until centuries after people started making it?
@@juliabarrow-hemmings6624 People also forget that spicy things were called "deviled" for centuries. Deviled eggs have a taste kick thanks to paprika and pepper. Deviled ham is still sold as a spread in little cans. We deviled things in the US and the UK with great joy and abandon outside of areas where chile peppers were commonplace.
You mean the African people were selling their own people to the Brits and anyone who could pay 💀 we didn't just steal them mate they got sold by their own
@@user-ep1tg8jr6o where in the world did you get that from? she's done plenty of videos pointing out and laying bare the horrors of british slavery, racism and classism
American anthropology major here: Agreed, and to be fair, spicy food was a mega flex in the UK back in the olden times. As I'm sure you know the key to the spice box was a VERY important totem of household power and responsibility going back to early post Roman times Also, British takeaway curry is a culinary jewl of budget options worldwide. There is curry and there's brit curry, both are beautiful things
It's just like me insisting all American bread is bad because of the sugary standard loaf from Walmart or Subway's 'bread'. There's plenty of good food in America, you just have to make sure you're in the right restaurants. Which you have to do in literally every country, even as a native. I'm well aware there's plenty of bad food in the UK, but it's rarely the dish itself, it's that you went somewhere that doesn't do it properly. Which again, is the same everywhere.
...Do you mean curry as in curry, or do you mean curry as in curry sauce? Just so I know if you mean the thing I'd get on my chips from the chippy and or if you mean the stuff I'd make and have with couscous or rice.
The whole "British food is bland," thing annoys me so much because it just shows that someone heard the dumb joke, thought it was serious, and did no further investigation. It's a concept that came about after 2 world wars and the loss of many traditional British recipes. Also the British Empire didn't conquer the world for food, though that was certainly a benefit, wealth and power were the primary motivators. Turns out you can make a lot of money exporting food stuffs as well though. Many traditional British recipes used herbs and spices, many of which have been around for hundreds of years. They also used a wider variety of meats as well. Pigeon was very much common on the menu, as was rabbit, things that have long fallen out of style in Britain. Even for the things that have survived, they aren't commonly eaten as much any more apart from well fish & chips or shepards/cottage pie really. Even with fish unless you live in a coastal town the variety of fish you'll see served has gone down. River trout used to be common but as stocks have decreased due to the privatisation of water companies who then flush sewage into rivers, the few remaining stocks have become less safe to eat. Traditional vegetables are also less of a thing, mostly replaced with peas & sweetcorn & carrots. Which as much as I like the modern veg due to being unable to eat a lot of other greens, it's a shame we don't promote the use of native vegetables in British meals.
I always try to explain to people that most of Britain’s bad reputation when it comes to food, comes from ww2 rationing, and its aftermath. Lots of foreigners, specifically Americans, in the uk during the war. Their only experience for British food was during rationing. They all went home with horrible stories about the food. And the reputation has just stuck. It sort of became a meme before there were memes. 🤷🏻♀️
@@user-co6ww2cm9k rationing continued into the mid 50s. The food in Britain is better now, much better. All I’m saying is the old reputation has stuck, because it became an oft repeated joke. 🤷🏻♀️
The British food people often ridicule for not having spices (beans on toast for example) is often poor/working class people food, a loaf of bread and can of baked beans is cheap and can fill a family's stomachs for a few days but yes country that invented spray cheese tell me more about how bad our food is
Most of us don't touch that spray plastic in a can. But, your comment is how stereotypes start. So, I do understand where you're coming from, stereotypes get real old and tiresome, don't they? They are just plain ignorant. All over the USA, beans in every shape and form are a staple and from many cultures. People have made fun of a Southern States staple food of beans and biscuits. ( a savory, fluffy baked item here). Beans and biscuits got a lot of poor folks through long, lean hard times. Especially when there was no meat available. It was a hot, stick to your ribs , kind of meal, that kept many people alive. It's still a standard for many people in daily life, especially because it tastes like home.
@@Genevieve1023 idk, for example with vindaloo, it's meant to be very spicy/hot so it's expected that that's the main draw of the Dish even if there are other nice tasting ingredients in there. Some people definitely like hot spice as it's own "flavour" (not really thought of as a flavour but you get what I mean)
Yep. That's how much their ego needs to feel special. Anything to give it a boost, no matter how irrational 😂 I like the taste of the things I eat. I often basically mono (ish) eat and savour each item, being in full presence 😌
Sorry but love how you turned a joke about colonialism into a defensive reel. Usually love your vids but these feels like youre defending the British Raj.
It’s not about defending, it’s about teaching. People actually think the British Empire was about spices, when this is the work of other slave empires. People attack the British so much that they forget: Bombay was given to them by the Portuguese and the Portuguese exported the most slaves to the New World. No hate to Portugal, but they were the ones concerned with spice.
@@thenablade858 As someone who grew up in Bombay, I am well aware of the history of my city. The point is, all European colonialism is wrong and exploitative. Should we just forget about the Bengal famine? And how Churchill exasperated the situation? Should we forget about the farmers whose lands went barren because of the forced over farming of indigo and tobacco? Such jokes are a way for people and cuktures with colonial trauma to reason with, confront and accept our history. So this does come across as really defensive. Its like saying "Oh we didn't exploit you for JUST THE SPICES. There is so much more we forced you to produce and didn't pay you fairly for!".
@@jankinair99341. It’s usually Americans who make this joke. So the idea that “people are just using it to forget their trauma!” Is weak. 2. Education is not defending. Considering you took great offence to someone educating people on the history of British cuisine and actually exploring the implications of that joke, maybe you need to take a look at yourself and calm down. Education isn’t offensive. You can make the joke if you want. It sounds like you’re angry that people are disproving it though, which is weird and pathetic. 3. The joke makes no sense. It’s fine to acknowledge the horrors of the British empire. But on a practical level, people who spew that know nothing about Britain or its history. There’s nothing wrong in admitting that. You can make smarter jokes if you want to “get back at your oppressors” (aka, modern British people who didn’t do anything wrong).
The weird thing is how at the time people didn't have a moral issue with trading in opium (same with slavery really, we have entire cities built on the slave trade it wasn't just one man who was honoured for his generosity). We missed an opportunity with Hong Kong by not asking its people who they wanted to belong to.
Yup, the atrocities that Muslims cause in the UK nowadays importing and selling Heroin (opium) in the UK is horrendous. They employ as young as 8yr old white kids to sell it for them and also pay prostitutes in heroin for sex in their communities. I work for drug and alcohol services in Preston Lancashire and everytime a dealer is mentioned it's always a Muslim and prostitutes always say they are at risk the most from Muslim men.
@@perhaps1094 That's exactly what I was referring to as that's how Hong Kong was ceded to us in the first place. We gave it up far too easily. Should have called China's bluff when they said they didn't recognise the previous agreement.
People seem to forget how popular curry is in Britain. There are many varieties of curry that originated from Britain. Sure curry was originally brought over via immigration, but the British recipes were invented over time to account for local taste and ingredient availability
The British empire destroyed nations, they didn't just "get" spice/cotton etc. they looted, starved, enslaved etc. Britain today benefits and depends on the suffering and oppressions of the countries that it stole from
I used to hate British government but Existence of all the fundamentalist group like Taliban, ISIL and others made me think may be they are somehow right to hoard them there At least they are cared for But then I remember neo liberals who just wants to destroy them cuz they hate history and establishment So my view is I don't care
I had some British friends vist the US. I cooked them steaks and they were asking what I was putting all over it. I said, "steak seasoning?" they were horrified at how much. When they tasted it they were amazed at how much flavor there was and how good it tasted. The entire week and a half was totally centered around food after that. It was a really fun experience to share our way of doing things with them. I hope to visit them next year to have my own experience with thier culture!
Taking jabs at Britain for its imperial past is one thing, but why are we forever being picked on for our food based on unrepresentative low point in cuisine due to rationing following a war? Also I live in the Netherlands and whenever I hear comments about British food I always wonder how these fuckers dodged a similar reputation. These people spend a fortune on kitchens fancy but as little as possible on ingredients. The one culinary contribution I will grant them is the bitter ball which is the best accompaniment to beer (preferably not Heineken).
I know it's not a moral point, but it is funny. I think my favorite british food insult is that "The British eat like they're still in WW2." For those talking about spices, we're not meaning spicy hot, but spiced as in herbs, garlic, ginger, and all that mess. If anyone has an American insult, to be fair, I'm all ears. I don't know one about our food, but I do see us being called egocentric or uncultured. Which, yes. Many of us can be. And one thing that I find entertaining to compare the countries, "England thinks 100 miles is far away. The US thinks 100 years is a long time." Okay I'm done. I love learning your country's history and hope to travel to it at some point. But alas, I'm poor.
The normal line to take on American food is that it's insulting enough on its own. Craft singles, pizza in a can, sugary bread, meat so covered in hot sauce you may as well just drink hot sauce etc. Seeing as Americans love to rag on British extreme cheap food (beans on toast, for example), American cheap "food" like cheese in a can is also fair game
The DUTCH invaded the world for its spices. Hence the Dutch East Indies forming the basis for modern Indonesia. It always bothers me that luke the English basically left the Spice trade before the English Civil War. They moved on to Indian products and Chinese tea in the East. Leaving the Dutch to their spices. Also these people saying "Why don't they have spices in their food?" And then you point out the traditional role of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, saffron, aniseed, star anise, allspice, turmeric etc and then they go no the otger spices! They mean chillies. They just mean capsaicin. They're saying that a traditional English spiced bun with 5 different spices isn't spice, but a chilli bowl with one single type of one single plant is spice. Because it's capsaicin and nothing matters unless you can't feel your mouth and your arse burns like lava afterwards. Sure Jan.
The thing is, the English *loved* capsaicin spiced food as well, that's why there are so many dang Indian curry shops in the UK still, that's why there is a significant amount of Anglo-Indian cuisine compared to our other colonies. So many dishes people see as just "Indian" are actually things the British invented based on *actual* Indian cuisine, vindaloo, tikka masala, and many more. Hell, the Indian food industry is the literal *biggest* form of take away in the UK and makes over 3.2 *billion* pounds a year. Sure we can't really claim that's *our* cuisine, but we sure as hell like hot food. (Hell, Thai food is also starting to take over nowadays as well and that's also fairly hot)
What bothers me is the ignorant anglocentrism posing as history. Ironically the high risk high reward colonial trade was the only one the English could somewhat compete in with the Dutch. The Dutch had more merchant ships than the rest of Europe combined and the English couldn't make a buck from the far bigger, far more frequent European bulk shipping. For the Dutch the colonial trade started to take the war for independence and religious tolerance with Spain and Portugal to their overseas income and it always remained a tiny cherry on a huge cake. The spices were the backbone of the VOC's Asian trade, ignorantly named the Dutch East India company in English, because the Chinese, Indian and Japanes were far to sophisticated to take any interest in Dutch or other European products. Most of what the VOC did was trade within Asia, with the trip to Europe taking one year as the obvious reason. Chili peppers aren't even native to Asia. The Portuguese planted them in the archipellago that is now Indonesia. The difference in foods has very little to do with spices but rather with contrasting flavours vs enhancing flavours. European spice use is therefore more subtle, less overpowering than the contrasting flavours in which the taste of the main nutritients is dominated by added spices.
@@DenUitvreter 100% absolutely. Though calling it the Dutch East India Company is fine considering VOC is short for Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, which is Dutch for United East India Company. It's just translated. And it's just defining witch it is. Saying the Dutch East India Company vs the English East India Company or French East India Company or hell the Danish East India Company. I think the Swedes had one too. It was a thing.
@@Willothemask No, it's just named after the British East India Company like it was a similar thing, only Dutch. It's not, and Indies instead of India would make a lot more sense. Just like considering the Dutch colonial history a some minitiature version of the British Empire for example. Empire is very questionable name since it was very different in nature, at least until the very late 19th century. And the 17th century Dutch colonialism should certainly nog be confused with 18 and 19th British colonialism because the power of the Europeans over the rest changed very much throughout 3 centuries. The Dutch did not have the ambition to rule lots of land and people nor did they have the manpower for it.
@@DenUitvreter They both were chartered companies that traded with the east indies, they both were direct competitors, they both fought for the spice trade and they both used various stock methods, though the Dutch invented the continuous stock system which now is the basis for the modern stock market. They were both East Indies/East India companies. Because what defined India and what defined the Indies was basically unknown. The only definition is between the East Indies and West Indies. The English East India Company didn't set out to conquer india. Just as you claim I am misrepresenting two near identical organisations that operated in rhe same way in the same field, you are misrepresenting the English East India Company. It didn't care about empire building for almost half of its history, nearly 200 years. It was focussed on actual trade. And it only stopped trading in spices because the Dutch invaded and conquered the spice islands and much of the rest of Indonesia. And you ask the native population of those places how they felt. Discussions of the massacre of natives by Dutch colonial powers before the EIC had even established their first colony in India is still a sore subject with many of the locals today. So don't "Oh we were different we didn't want empire we were the good guys" with me when you had a literal and substantial empire in both east and west and frequently treated the native population just as brutally as any other colonial power. The English East India Company traded more with the Indies than with India for the first 50 years of existence. Only after the two Anglo Dutch wars and losing their last claim to the spice trade in return for England keeping Manhattan did they really start focussing on India, and even then it was more than 100 years before Clive of India fucked it all up by starting to take over large territories of India. The EIC was focussed on trade over colonialism for a LONG time after the Dutch. So just like claiming the British took over the world for spices, it's shockingly historically inaccurate to claim the VOC was a nice friendly neighbourhood trading organisation that never wanted to be a colonial power and was utterly different than the EIC because it traded in Indonesia rather than India. Since it was the FIRST trading company to be a major colonial power. Before the EIC, before the Hudson Bay Company, before the French East India company (who btw spent a lot of their time trading with southeast asia rather than India and are yet still one of the East India Companies). Don't think you can whitewash history and claim the British were the bad guy colonial power in the same breath as claiming anglocentrism.
They act like spicing means pouring half a bottle of just one spice into their food. We still wanna fucking taste the food. We use a little bit of multiple spices to get the right taste. Why do think KFC is so good?
It ain't called england fried chicken. Honestly if you're trying to argue in favor of english food, it would be smarter to keep The Colonel's name outta your mouth! 🤐 KFC never would have happened in britainland
The more Brits describe what they think means "spicy" and why their cuisine is flavorful, the more they just show how bland and sad their cuisine really is. It's okay. You have other nice things to offer. But good savoury food with complex flavors isn't one of them.
And here I thought the Empire was about insuring tourism for centuries to come, since people have to travel to London to see their national treasures in the British museum.
The Ashanti stuff they whine about was taken by force to make them give up human sacrifice, and cannibalism. Read the accounts of the people who were there .
Hi, I usually love your videos. This time is not the case. You speak as a colonialist, with disregard of all the suffering of the colonised. You left out the atrocities, specially slavery perpetrated for centuries. It's offensive.
To be fair I think the quip is used more as a funny way to highlight how despite holding dominion over 1/4th of the world, mainstream British cuisine is still (at least on the surface) very plain. Contrast this with the U.S however which has to a much larger degree assimilated the culinary products of its different ethnicities e.g. Mexican food, Chinese food, etc. I agree the argument is not flawless, for example Chicken Tikka Masala is a great example of culinary, cultural cross pollination. Though I think people are wondering why there isn’t more.
In what way? Many British people use heaps of spices in their cooking. And some of the most renowned British dishes are praised for their flavour (fish and chips, Sunday roast, shepherds pie, full English breakfast). Plus if it’s not used in cooking, it’s usually added after cooking so people can flavour it to their liking.
@@ericktellez7632 except they are heavily praised, actually. I’ve seen these dishes eaten all over the world with great feedback. Sounds like you just live under a rock
I don’t know about elsewhere, but in my Canadian elementary school, we were taught that Britain’s takeover of everything they could was for spices. It proceeded to not get talked about again for the rest of the time i was in school. So it would make sense for people to have an incomplete picture and come to this conclusion if they never ended up coming across further information on it
Did the British empire expand across what's now modern Canada is search of spices? I hope your teachers taught you a little more about British colonial history than that 😂
Also, a lot of spices are used within traditional British puddings, cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, star anice, rosemary, nutmeg, ginger, etc are all found in plenty of British puddings, I think it’s because many people associate spices with savoury food which caused this notion
I think the irony they are pointing too is all those times Britain said they are the superior culture, then people would come to your island and wonder why the "superior" peoples cooking was so bland by comparison. Kinda like how Britain said they were superior in culture, but also made a museum based on other people's arguably cooler cultures and refused to give the artifacts back to those cultures. Just a jib at british cultural supremecy in the past
Weirdly enough I think America is now the one trying to claim superiority over others (not all Americans, but I've definitely noticed it more as a trend than amongst people from other countries/locally in Britain). Obviously there's lots of cool Americans as well, but there are also the USA, USA, No1 chanting stereotypical ones, which we don't have as much of here.
food and old art is how you define something as superior? Creating the modern world and like 70% the innovations and technologies you use every day seems like a superior move, we could have kept that shit to ourselves but instead we shared it all. But keep pretending that taking old statues from countries that don't respect and actively destroy their past are better than the people that created the device you are currently using to share your worthless thoughts with the world.
@@redlight3932 they admit it. It’s the rest of the world that likes to ignore it and make the stupid joke that they colonise the world for spices and don’t use them when the number 1 food in the uk is literally masala. They had a taste of Indian spices and decided they should own the world for it
I wonder how much of our perception of bland food can be blamed on the power of national food corporations. They offer consistency, but bland things down to appeal to a larger audience. Compare to the rise of the mega breweries in the US where the distinctive local brewing is wiped out by blander national brands. The response is to import flavors from other countries (in both beer and food) and so you get more Chinese, Indian, and Italian restaurants, which are novel, rather than reviving traditional flavors.
Wow. Bold move explaining why people making fun of British Colonialism are wrong because the British didn't JUST do Colonialism for spices certainly was a choice that you made and posted to the internet.
@@Shitting_pissing_farting People don't say that line because they literally think British people conquered the world for spices, people say that line to make fun of Britain for being a colonising empire with shit food. I was born in England but my family are Irish/Indian - so when a white brit tries to recontextualise a joke about British Imperialism by pretending they don't get what the joke is and talking about all the stuff the British Empire did via slavery (without once mentioning slavery) that's a red flag, Hun.
Congratulations, you missed the point so badly that you flew the planes into the towers accidentally. It isn’t defending British colonialism, but mocking bad history. The Dutch and Portuguese were more interested in spices, and the Spanish ‘stumbled’ upon their empire trying to find a new trade route… for spice.
I saw a short recently about some Brits trying American pumpkin pie for the first time and rating it, and they both said it was "too spicy". Practically every comment was this.
@@WunderwaffePrime As an American, I'm also not really a fan, but calling it spicy is like calling ice cream spicy. In the pie's defense, they did get it from a grocery store. The best stuff is homemade!
The problem is that 'spicy' has two meanings. Brits like their nutmeg, sugar, and other sweet and savory spices. They don't have any capsaicin tolerance though and in that usage British food is not spicy at all. People confuse these a lot. It's more a class issue than a broader national culture issue. Smack barm pey wet isn't a high society delicacy. When you do get spicy food in Britain it's rarely a hot spicy even in the finest restaurants. Heavens help you if you want good Mexican food in London.
Plenty of Brits do like spicy food though. That's why there's a stereotype of bald guys sweating through a vindaloo or a kebab with loads of chilli sauce, then going back next week after the pub and doing it all over again
@@Rumade That's not a stereotype with which I am familiar but ok. There are always going to be people who like different things and there's little that's true of any entire demographic. These are broad trends and broadly speaking the UK doesn't have a lot of capsaicin consumption.
@SAOS451316 You obviously never had a proper "British indian" vindaloo or "British Bangladeshi" phall then. The "inability to handle capsaicin" is hillarious because my nan of 87 years old eats nothing but chilli based hotsauce. Sure, there's not as many people doing insane billion scotsville challenges as on US TV for kicks, but honestly are those people even normal?
Britain doesn't have a lot of Mexican food it must be said, but plenty of Indian and middle eastern, all of which can be as spicy as you like. But yes, I guess traditional british food isn't very spicy in the commonly understood sense of spicy...
Spicy food is extremely common thanks to classic Indian restaurants/take aways. We also have some insanely good middle eastern and african food spots that also slap on the hot spice. Most Brits I know are pretty good with spices, even the white folk. Not really sure were you're making this assumption that Brit's don't have a tolerance for it. Mexican isn't the only type of spicy food in existence.
"Eating spiced or non-spiced food isn't a moral category." Best thing I've ever heard. I enjoy spice in food, but sometimes I just want a nice simple pasta. People need to stop acting superior because they eat spicy food.
Frankly, I don't think a lot of stereotypes are funny, no matter the country. As an American that has heard far too many to count over 5 decades, it's so tiresome, not original at all and very worn out. If I were British, I would be sick of it too. No country likes to be routinely picked at or picked apart decade after decade. Many Brits have said the worst to me, but it's so out worn and in no way helpful, I never respond to the insults to my face, (insults made because I am a convenient smiling american nearest to them), it comes across as ignorant from a country known for its excellent educational opportunities.
@@anitapeludat256 completely agree! My boyfriend and a lot of my friends are american, and obviously i get a lot of jokes at my bri'ish-ness, and people over here talking badly of americans in general. It does get so tiresome.
Instead of just shoving a youtube video at them, try to engage with them? Maybe they don't like you because you act holier than thou and shove youtube shorts from random people in their faces when they make a joke?
@@RDR911 dang dude, i said they're my friends, not that they hate me. They do it in jest, but don't take on board that it gets tiring to me when I tell them.
Beans on toast is a very cheap comfort food, mostly eaten by the working class. Saffron is very expensive. Plus we do know how to use it... although just in Indian food lol
Speaking about colonialism positively, to it's benefits without mentioning the people who died and what evils the British did while getting their increased menu at home. She should dig into the dirt and remind people of the great losses of colonialism
@@CosmicStuff she wasn't speaking of colonialism positively, she just wasn't speaking poorly of the British empire. You don't have to make everything negative.
@@CosmicStuff what did you expect her to say "ugh guys a little disclaimer the British empire sucked". Most people acknowledge that colonialism is a bad thing, she was just responding to a comment, like it's not that deep.
We use tons and tons and spices, often in very old fashioned and traditional recipes. Every single Christmas dish is full of cloves, mace, nutmeg... haggis, black pudding and British sausages use spices... what they mean is we don't use garlic granules, and that is because they taste like stale feet
No need of white validation, our hate towards them is justified. Britishers used to cut thumbs of handloom workers , so that they couldn't not produce locally textiles , so that they can sell their London material to us .
I like how the joke is that the english don't use spices and this defense amounts to "That's not the reason we did colonialism anyway" Like, as long as you're still committed to not seasoning your food 😂
If you weren't aware, baked-in british classism actually forces people to learn the RP accent the further they're educated, and it tells nothing about their actual home dialect or background.
Girl, learn to listen. Pepper is one of the only spices that the British empire mass traded in. Hence why she said they use pepper. The Dutch and Portuguese traded in other spices. Use your brain for once.
It took a video like this after years of rumors for you to defeat America. I still see this as an American win. 🇺🇸 For real, most of us don’t actually care. It’s just funny is all.
I don't know much about British food but I've never seen any well seasoned ones. I mean they never put anything other than salt and pepper in fish and chips. And please do not say chicken tikka masala.
@@Grizzly01-vr4pn Dude I have obviously tried British food, I just don't live in England. I have tried a lotta stuff like fish and chips, full English breakfasts etc. Some of them I have even liked, like Shepperd's pie. But yea the point still remains that they're not as well seasoned like Asian or south American cuisine. The stereotype just doesn't come out of nowhere. And there's no need to take offense for that. Some things are just simple. Doesn't mean they're bad.
I appreciate the comments pointing out that much of what is considered English cuisine today is a reflection of rationing from wwii, I never made that connection but it makes a lot of sense now
People also forget how significantly the English diet changed as a result of World War 2 rationing and how it was still happening over a decade after the war.
Yep my great aunt and uncle, both still alive and in their 70s, were born during rationing and my grandma was born the year after rationing ended.
Diet of people of Bengal also changed in WW2. Interestingly, once the British colonization was over, the spices came right back
@@stansman5461 You know that's a really dumb comment, right?
@@stansman5461 Rationing in the UK was between 1940-1954, West Bengal gained its independence in 1947 the two are not related… now I’m not excusing the atrocities of colonialism, heck the Sikh nation and the region around Kashmir were decimated because it was the one time England allied with the French solely because they feared their military might. But that also has nothing to do with rationing in the UK in WW2, nor does the atrocities currently being faced by Indian born muslims under the current nationalist government, they are all awful , all inexcusable, but also have nothing to do with the dramatic changes that occurred to the UK diet following the rationing that occurred between 1940-1954.
@@The_Cloth_Surgeon You lost me with the atrocities faced by Muslims, Christians Hindus and Buddhists have little to no legal protection from Islamist violence in Pakistan or Bangladesh and yet all we hear about is how horrible and oppressive India is, without evidence.
And before the World Wars and their rationing, traditional British food was very spicy. Along with a list of now endangered wild birds, your average rural pie according to 1800s cookbooks had many many cups of nutmeg for example. Enough to seem a lot even by modern spice standards. For a while it was important to spend your money on flavourings.
Its just that the peasants never really got to keep the wealth of the empire whenever things got tough, so our food culture is about plain long shelf life cheap stuff and not decadent heaps of imported spice
this
Thank you, this is exactly it! Old cookbooks from the 18th and 19th century (look them up, many are easy to find on the internet) show that spices were incredibly popular in British cooking, and very different from what would be used nowadays. If there‘s one European cuisine that got rid of most of its spices, it‘s actually French cooking, where it became very fashionable to focus on the quality of the main ingredients and present their natural flavours instead of using lots of spices.
@@OttoStrawanzingerFrench high cooking in modern times introduced that I believe. While in that one old cookbook that made french high cooking, being able to create different flavours was what's more important, hence how it popularised the "5 mother sauces" 😊 Something 'french high-' that really bothers me is french high coutterie, which is basically branded and designer clothes for he upper class. No feature or function needed, just a design launched by a name. And it's bad it got ingrained into modern internationalised culture as well 😢
Yup ❤❤❤❤
I tend to overdose on nutmeg, pepper and vinegar...
...well it's not overdosing for me.
😂😂
The problem is that people confused spiced food with spicy food. Vanilla and cinnamon are spices, but no one would call vanilla ice cream or cinnamon babka spicy. Spiciness refers to food that creates the sensation of heat irrespective of its actual temperature through chemical action, mainly through capsaicin, found mainly in hot peppers. And the British were emphatically not after those.
"The problem is that people confused spiced food with spicy food." - Definitely not. As such critics are from society / former colonies that do use more(not just in quantity but also in variety) of spices hence better tasting and variety of foods.
In turn i would like educate you that spices doesn't stop with heat being it's predominant after taste / flavor. Spices comes in various varieties including but not limited to vegetables, seeds and leaves. Most of veggie and leaves category are not used for their heat rather to add other flavors, smell and counter effects to any strong flavors in meat or other ingredients.
There are tangible evidence to these things. You can't escape from such critics by simply calling us "nobes" / "pessants" anymore...we are no longer your colonies thus have freedom of speech.
TY for proving the critics right BTW. That's a novice definition of what spices are.
I should be thanking you for proving me right. I never gave a definition of spices. I gave a couple of examples of spices, precisely to make the point that, as you put it, "spices don't stop with heat". But maybe I should have defined spices for you, because it is clear that you do not know what they are: if it is a leaf, it might be an herb, but it is by definition not a spice. As for your claim that cuisines that use more spices are better, that is, at best, a completely subjective preference. The final part of your comment, though, makes it clear that this has nothing to do with which cuisine might be better, but with the fact that you are clearly resentful that the British (I'm not British, by the way) took over India, and you seem to somehow think that accusing British food of being bland is going to alleviate those negative feelings. That's not going to help you. You should try to find a better way to deal with your emotions. @@sureshkumar-qw9ny
@@redrackham6812 Hmm i never said that you gave definition of it rather your notion that we think there being no distinction between spiced food and spicy food in our critic of British food is flawed. This is a strawman attempt.
Actually there is some sensor schenanigans going on with UA-cam. Idk anyway point being it's just a spice...why so much fear and insecurity of it?.
The last line of your comment was "TY for proving the critics right BTW. That's a novice definition of what spices are." So you were necessarily implying that you knew what definition of spices I was operating under, which you could only know if I had provided such a definition. Your attempt to deny this now is as nonsensical as the rest of your comment. The fear and insecurity here is clearly from you: you need feel this need to belittle someone else's culture because you clearly have an inferiority complex about your own culture. Try to find a good therapist to work through these issues. @@sureshkumar-qw9ny
@@redrackham6812 Yeah that's also true and you did this in your last comment too. I actually wrote about this too and YT censored them....idk why. Leaves are herbs but also they are spices. See you are novice. How could you know more about spices than someone who uses more variety of spices than you in his day to day life.
"So you were necessarily implying that you knew what definition of spices I was operating under" - no, rather i know that you do not grasp the entire definition of what constitute a spice and by that there is gap in your knowledge simply because you do not use them or even aware of.
"Your attempt to deny this now is as nonsensical as the rest of your comment." - Can't deny something which i never spoke about. The core of the argument is still to prove that you people should use more variety of spices. And to prove that i brought leaves and other forms spices that aren't necessarily spicy. It's not about pride mate...that's a weird way to put it.
"you need feel this need to belittle someone" - *i'm sorry that's something you are doing by rejecting our criticism of British food and reducing it to our lack of understand on what spicy and spices are.*
Yeah, it wasn't the English who slaughtered and enslaved millions of people for the local spices, only to never use them in their own cuisine. It was the Dutch
Also, stumbling into world domination because of the Spice Trade is more a Spanish empire thing. Isabella I and Ferdinand II sent Columbus to find a new spice trade route.
@@thenablade858 well, everyone was looking for new spice trade routes after Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. But no one believed that Columbus could reach Asia from the East. Except Isabella of Castille. And, in the end, what made the Spanish empire the richest and most powerful in the world was not the spices (we don't have those in the Americas), but the literal mountains of silver that they found
@@fighterguard Of course, they wanted a new spice trade route but they did not expect Columbus to (accidentally) discover a new continent. I meant they ‘stumbled’ as in: ‘Hey, that’s a New Continent we’ve never heard of. Let’s spread Catholicism and get rich’
DING DING DING. Indonesian restaurants are popular in the Netherlands, but mix those with their own cuisine? You don't see it much.
I'm sure the British did their share. Just ask the Indians and my Irish ancestors.
Hey, if you wanna try something wild, an alternative to black pepper is long pepper. It's grown in India and the Middle East and is what most of your medieval recipes are referring to when they call for pepper. Black pepper like we have now is from Vietnam and is much more recent of a thing. Long pepper is spicier and more floral in taste.
It's what the Romans used, so their dishes were more flavorful than people think.
Damn, now all I want to taste is long black pepper. I'm gonna look around on Google.
@Diovanlestat just long pepper, black pepper and long pepper are separate and you don't call the latter long black pepper
@@yuzuruotonashi659 OK. Couldn't find a decent supplier anyway, but I got a couple of good Indian friends, maybe they can get someone at home to send some.
I actually dislike black pepper, but enjoy some other peppers like white pepper. I'll have to look this up.
Great vid, that line has often annoyed me as a historian as well. Another point on top of what you've said: if you look at upper class recipes from early imperial times, they often have so many spices added that they're basically inedible, because spices were seen as such a status symbol. Some of those colonial-era spices remain in winter recipes to this day - e.g. mulled wine, Christmas cake.
The thing is, meant in jest, it’s harmless and a jibe at our colonising ways. When people say it as an insult, it’s odd at best. Like why are you so angry I don’t eat what you eat? Yet would be even angrier if we were still taking the e things we took. They will use the crappest looking food that we ourselves wouldn’t eat and use it as a reference point. 🤭 The irony is, a lot of cultures use spice I find overwhelming to the point you can’t taste anything else, what’s wrong with your food if you’re trying to avoid tasting it? Most cultures have worse issues than food that doesn’t burn your arse. Yet that’s the issue. Had a man laugh at my food and it came out he went to Pakistan to marry a 14 year old. Yet bland food. Yeah? If countries have a pedo law, they don’t get to judge food. They are worse and fighting for for food than their children. Which is disgusting.
Yeah, IIRC the use of spices fell once the price of spice dropped enough that the common man could afford it. So no longer the fancy thing was using a lot of spice, but using fancy ingredients. So high culinary arts in the west went from "I use 14 different spices and can afford it all with ease!" to "I only use a special kind of pig from this specific italian farm"
@@kirstybrown1185wow someone really holds a grudge
@kirstybrown1185 the USA doesn't have a federal minimum marriage age either. 😶
Curry was seen as pretty upper class spice in ye olde british empire. It was in a ye olde cookbook for cooking things for henry viii i think
If you look at medieval recipes, they use **ridiculous** amounts of spices. But that was a huge flex on the part of the host, because spices cost $$$.
One thing that happened during this time period is that spices became readily available to just about everyone, meaning that spicing your food was no longer a flex because *the poors* could do it too.
Mind you, as far as I can tell, the East India Company was still moving a *lot* of spices. Just the aristocracy was less interested in them because now they were "common." 😂
You’re going back to the Middle Ages to say British people used to use spices? 😂😂😂
No wonder we threw that subpar tea into the harbor.
@@AndrewBarsky Please continue to ignore all the curries the British invented, it makes you look oh so smart.
@@AndrewBarskythe Tea in question was thrown in the Harbour by other Tea importers it was nothing but self interest
@@AndrewBarskyBritish people do use foreign spice lol, cumin, coriander, mustard, fenugreek, cinnamon, black pepper, asofoetida, turmeric, paprika… just some of the daily spices in our food that isn’t native to the UK
@@AndrewBarskyyou are aware this makes you look ignorant right?
Cool, cool, Phil. We, the British Asians have been present in the nation for over a century. We're the ones boosting the spice levels around here. And I have to give mad respect to the white English/Scottish/others etc. who absolutely murder curries after a bender or just because it's a Friday night! They even put ME to shame!
I remember my mates giving me shit for ordering curry sauce with my fish and chips, the place made their own and it was beautiful. The guy next me just leaned in and quietly said, "mate, ignore them. I'd have the curry sauce too but my mum cooks it every night." Gave me a fist bump and then I never saw the guy again.
Made me proud to have a nation filled with other people's culture. You can take a walk down any town centre street, anywhere in the nation, and you'll find food from every corner of the globe.
People acting like we eat nothing but salt and boiled potatoes.
@@AMorphicTool Yeah. Loudmouth Americans talking like we're Victorian urchins on some "Please sir, I want some more" shit. Britain DID get the spices and they got us along with them to show them how it's done right!
You can just use natives for white English/Scottish etc
One thing thats interesting is this ties into the politics of food as status symbol. If you look at the few cook books we have from the 1500's you can see constant use of cinnamon, nutmeg and other spices. These were writen by courtly cooks, so were meant for the wealthy, as those spices would have been wildly expensive.
Then as the empire gets up and running, the cost of those spices goes down dradtically. And over time you see a trend of more working class foods with these spices (ie baked beans), and the upper class food is suddenly now focuses on using very simple high cost ingredients, prepared in such a way as to let the flavour of those ingredients shine, a style that would become haute cuisine.
French onion soup is probably a good example of this. Its inspired by working class onion soups that likely were spiced because onion and water dont taste that awesome alone. But, when it became an upper class dish that was swapped for beef broth, and a shit tonne of gruyère, both expensive ingredients that became the focus of the dish.
I'm not so sure there is much evidence for the "great spice class switch" either. Again, a lot of people say it, but the specific version that rich people didn't want spices any more because the poors had them seems to be a bit of a "just so" story. It's just an attempt to turn the US meme about "seasoning" (white people don't use it!!!!!!!!!!) into something that has a moral political base (uses spices=good people).
What does she mean by "moral category"?
@@ceterisparibus8966 that how virtuous and good a person is is not determined by whether or not they spice their food or how much they spice their food.
Don’t forget that the European nobility called the peasants and surfs ‘garlic eaters’ because they had to make do with local native plants to season their food.
For those in the States like me, they renamed the book to, The Taste of Empire: How Britain's Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World.
Well that's a load of BS.
@@sureshkumar-qw9ny No it's true. They went and conquered the world and it's food and then sold it all because they hated joy. They still hate joy. lol
@@williamlevy6964 where's the global hegemon now are adult children that hate peace.
By spices they mean "drugs and slaves"
The Brits not only banned the practice, they directly fought it
@@torg2126in order to ban it what does that require?
(also the British directly and indirectly (but knowingly) profited off of slavery for hundreds of years after it was finally abolished in the Empire (which only happened in the 1800s, by the way, as especially in central American colonies it was still allowed), AND they allowed indentured servitude during that time, which while objectively not slavery is at least in a similar ballpark of forcing people to work, often with a very limited or no chance of actually getting free of it. They also on many occasions were allied, either de facto through war or by treaty, to nations that allowed slavery. So don't make it sound like some kind of crusade the British waged on slavery)
@@plushie946 The West Africa Squadron, which suppressed the slave trade at gunpoint.
@@torg2126you completely misunderstood my point, which is that in order to ban something it inherently needed to be allowed prior to being banned
@@plushie946 cool. The only nations that never practiced slavery are the ones too young to have practiced it.
There's a _lot_ in history that falls into the category of "Quippy and funny in thy moment, but if you think about it, it doesn't really make sense." one of the most frustrating ones in my mind at the moment is that WWI was a family feud. The king of Britain at the time was of course a constitutional monarch who, while he might have technically had the capacity to do something about the war, wasn't really involved in any meaningful way. Kaiser Wilhelm was om a similar position, the government wanted war, he didn't, but coldly really do much about it. Tsar Nicolas was the only one who could really do anything, and even he was basically dragged around by his government.
Wilhelm himself gave assurances to the Habsburgs that it the went to war, hed join them.
On that note, saying it was a family feud leaves out the Italians, the French, the Austrians, the Ottomans, the Japanese, the Bulgarians & the actual reason for the war, the Serbians.
@@connortheandroidsentbycybe7740 Je gave his assurances to the Austrian government at any rate. Though that was _several_ weeks before the war actually broke out, when he thought it would just be Austria kicking Serbia's teeth in. Later he and Nicole exchanged a flurry of telegrams and set about doing they're best to stop things, until someone stabbed Nicholas' fragile pride.
@@Great_Olaf5 oh, 100% but saying "he didn't want war" leaves out important context. Also leaves out that he 100% wanted war with Russia. It was the French he was wary of. Had Franz Joseph went to war when Wilhelm said to go to war, Wilhelm likely would've got the war he wanted
What does she mean by "moral category"?
The Germans also sent the Bolshevik party back into Russia, as many of them were expelled from the country after arguing for communism. The Germans saw how outnumbered they were, so having this one political group take care of the Russian royals was actually a stroke of genius. The rise of the communist movement was backed by Germany as a psy op
Also, they did. They totally did. Way more than France, for example. English 4 spice mix was pit everywhere, and still is in traditional recipes (even if mostly Christmas stuff nowadays). Clove, black pepper, dried ginger, nutmeg, mace, allspice, cinnamon, I mean, who roasted a roast without cloves!? Madness. I think people confuse spices and chilis.
English four-spice = pumpkin pie spice. A fine combination with variations galore. Sweet or savory dishes can use it to splendid effect. I have a family recipe out of Quebec where it's the core set in a spiced meat pie filling.
@@lysanamcmillan7972 exactly, French Canadian here 😂
I'm so glad you've addressed this comment because I'm sick to death of reading it everywhere. We have had spices in our cuisine for centuries; that's why all our traditional puddings have them in.
Plus in modern times- I know far more British people who eat Indian food regularly in comparison with Americans.
?? If Americans wanted spicy foods, why on earth would we eat the less fresh imported Indian cuisine regularly instead of the local continentally (every country south of Canada) grown spices we have here? There's a reason why latin-american cuisine has such a chokehold on our society and even outside of latam, the American South and Caribbeans have their own native spice culture that's been thriving. This isn't a jab at Indian cuisine btw, this is just explaining that that niche of spiced foods is already taken up by native cuisine.
@citrus_sweet that's not the point I'm making. It would weird if you didn't eat chillies, given that literally originate from the Americas. But it's really fucking strange that so many of you lord it over British people going "mehmehmehmeh _spices_ " ignoring the huge quantities of Indian food we eat here.
@@Rumade My mistake. Yeah, I don't know why so many people use this line. I don't personally have an issue with British cuisine.
@@RumadeI LIKE FISH AND CHIPS
it's called a joke because it's funny to make fun of uk food
I also think our biggest use of spice is in our baking. We have a huge tradition of sweet spiced cakes and puddings and a history of throwing cinnamon on just about anything...
It's interesting we Indians use our cinnamon primarily for meat based dishes and masala tea, never heard of it being used for our sweet or baked dishes.
"One of those things that is funny, quippy in the moment but if you think about it, it doesn't really make sense"..
Best way to sum up a lot of social media posts I've heard in a while.
Britain had food rationing until 1954. Apart from the war deaths, British people got healthier due to the food rationing system implemented during WWII. Spices were not rationed, ie. guaranteed to be supplied by the government. Food got more nutritious, but blander during WWII.
Excuses, excuses. After America saved the British from certain destruction, perhaps the British could have figured out a well defined national cuisine that isn’t from a former occupied area?
@Barsky I mean, all the British people, and the Irish too, have very well defined and historic cuisines? Maybe the Americans could learn something and have a cuisine that isn't shit stolen from immigrants for a change.
Also Britain was never under "certain destruction", the USA was important in the war don't get me wrong, but the United Kingdom was hardly under threat of destruction.
@@AndrewBarsky ahh yes, another ridiculous American claim. Thanks so much to our saviours who turned up for the second half of the game, and made sure to generously sell us all that gear. Such charity! Such bravery! Such complete lack of self interest! We doff our caps to you sir.
@@AndrewBarskybro you're all over the comments making a fool of us, cut it out
@@AndrewBarskyI mean you guys over there can’t talk, name something actually good food from the US that doesn’t come from recent immigration
People always bring up the spice trade of the British empire when they are talking about how white people can’t handle spicy or how they don’t season their food when the spices that were part of the trade were black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg all of which are very commonly used in a lot of baking. Notable mention is also saffron which barely has any flavour.
Saffron does have flavour and aroma! It’s not punch you in the face like cinnamon
Britishers don't have good taste buds lol
The people that say it always refer to powders being the “spices”/“seasoning” (like garlic powder, onion powder) but then reject the thought of fresh garlic and fresh onion being seasoning as well
One really important export from Bengal was salt petre, a key ingredient in gunpowder. Bengal produced so much of the stuff that it was actually a large reason for the success that the British military found in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Does that have anything to do with the Indian spice, gunpowder?
@@asterismos5451 No, literally gunpowder.
@@franzfanzWell yeah but does the spice name come from that salt petre somehow
Well, the 'Vikings' used imported Indian steel rather than make their own (as did lots of Europeans). The silk road and spice routes were a thing. Trade has been really international for thousands of years. Britain exported tin to the middle east. Everywhere has resources.
@@asterismos5451what the hell are you trying to say here
This "Bengali Cotton" you are talking about is called "Muslin" it was one of the most lucrative products to be made in Bengal in presently Bangladesh the fabric was manufactured in Dhaka and the surrounding areas it is one of our country's biggest pride ❤ Proud to be Bangladeshi 🇧🇩
These Britishers were the reason of Bengal famine in whole Bangal region. 🤬🤬
Dude saw a meme once and decided that must be the truth
More like saw it five hundred times.
Something I think is funny that I’ve learned since I’ve moved to the Netherlands is that this statement ca. be actually be better said for them than the English. They absolutely cornered the market on mace and nutmeg in Bengal and Indonesia - and nutmeg for a very long time was worth more than its weight in gold. Either way, you’re absolutely right - mercantilism was all about what made them the most money, and unfortunately all the major european powers found enslaving people to be more profitable than any spice, sweetener, or stimulant they could get in their west or east India companies.
I love the implication that britain conquered 3 different continents just for some paprika
Paprika was invented in Hungary, anyway, so that’s even worse lmao
I mean, the real reasons why they did isn't any more legitimate...
@@plushie946
At the least, no more legitimate that Rome, China, Mongolia, Russia, France, Holy Rome, or literally any other Empire in history ever.
@@ExhaustedScarfah so whataboutism is the justification then
@@plushie946
Firstly, making a valid point about other circumstances is not whataboutism. Whataboutism is asking about a similar but different circumstance specifically to distract your debate opponent from a topic you don’t want to discuss. It’s like “Bait and Switch” but with blame-shifting.
Secondly, I’m not trying to distract from the topic, hence why it’s not whataboutism, but rather a natural progression of the topic. Specifically, towards discuss Imperialism as a whole, and how every instance of it has caused horrific experiences for all involved, regardless of the National Government that is Empire-building, or the size of that Empire.
It's been parroted so many times now that it just makes me roll my eyes. There's lots of "traditional" English food which is hearty and delicious, who cares if it doesn't have spices that weren't introduced until centuries after people started making it?
There is also a lot of traditional English food that is heavily spiced... Its just, you know, not chilis, so it doesn't count apparently.
🤮
@@TheRealMycanthropewhat does this mean bro
@@juliabarrow-hemmings6624 People also forget that spicy things were called "deviled" for centuries. Deviled eggs have a taste kick thanks to paprika and pepper. Deviled ham is still sold as a spread in little cans. We deviled things in the US and the UK with great joy and abandon outside of areas where chile peppers were commonplace.
In Africa were talking people! 😂😂😂
You mean the African people were selling their own people to the Brits and anyone who could pay 💀 we didn't just steal them mate they got sold by their own
Human capital
The sheer entitlement to make a video like it’s a prize 😅
@@user-ep1tg8jr6o where in the world did you get that from? she's done plenty of videos pointing out and laying bare the horrors of british slavery, racism and classism
American anthropology major here:
Agreed, and to be fair, spicy food was a mega flex in the UK back in the olden times. As I'm sure you know the key to the spice box was a VERY important totem of household power and responsibility going back to early post Roman times
Also, British takeaway curry is a culinary jewl of budget options worldwide. There is curry and there's brit curry, both are beautiful things
It's just like me insisting all American bread is bad because of the sugary standard loaf from Walmart or Subway's 'bread'. There's plenty of good food in America, you just have to make sure you're in the right restaurants. Which you have to do in literally every country, even as a native. I'm well aware there's plenty of bad food in the UK, but it's rarely the dish itself, it's that you went somewhere that doesn't do it properly. Which again, is the same everywhere.
@@jonevansauthor nuance is lost on the english they only speak in sarcasm and passiveagressive comments
...Do you mean curry as in curry, or do you mean curry as in curry sauce? Just so I know if you mean the thing I'd get on my chips from the chippy and or if you mean the stuff I'd make and have with couscous or rice.
The whole "British food is bland," thing annoys me so much because it just shows that someone heard the dumb joke, thought it was serious, and did no further investigation. It's a concept that came about after 2 world wars and the loss of many traditional British recipes. Also the British Empire didn't conquer the world for food, though that was certainly a benefit, wealth and power were the primary motivators. Turns out you can make a lot of money exporting food stuffs as well though.
Many traditional British recipes used herbs and spices, many of which have been around for hundreds of years. They also used a wider variety of meats as well. Pigeon was very much common on the menu, as was rabbit, things that have long fallen out of style in Britain. Even for the things that have survived, they aren't commonly eaten as much any more apart from well fish & chips or shepards/cottage pie really. Even with fish unless you live in a coastal town the variety of fish you'll see served has gone down. River trout used to be common but as stocks have decreased due to the privatisation of water companies who then flush sewage into rivers, the few remaining stocks have become less safe to eat.
Traditional vegetables are also less of a thing, mostly replaced with peas & sweetcorn & carrots. Which as much as I like the modern veg due to being unable to eat a lot of other greens, it's a shame we don't promote the use of native vegetables in British meals.
English cuisine is an oxymoron.
Just like you and smart or original and joke@@BatTaz19
You're an oxymoron.@@BatTaz19
And Americans have more than just burgers. It's a joke.
@@gyorkshire257Take out the oxy and you’d be right.
I think the brits conquered the world to escape the dreary weather.
I always try to explain to people that most of Britain’s bad reputation when it comes to food, comes from ww2 rationing, and its aftermath.
Lots of foreigners, specifically Americans, in the uk during the war. Their only experience for British food was during rationing. They all went home with horrible stories about the food. And the reputation has just stuck. It sort of became a meme before there were memes. 🤷🏻♀️
I can undesrstand during the blitz but the problem is that was 70 years ago and y'all are still cooking like that 💀
@@user-co6ww2cm9k rationing continued into the mid 50s. The food in Britain is better now, much better. All I’m saying is the old reputation has stuck, because it became an oft repeated joke. 🤷🏻♀️
@@user-co6ww2cm9kno we’re not lmao.
The British food people often ridicule for not having spices (beans on toast for example) is often poor/working class people food, a loaf of bread and can of baked beans is cheap and can fill a family's stomachs for a few days but yes country that invented spray cheese tell me more about how bad our food is
its from the wars, not just working class collectively England's cuisine took a down turn to become what amounts to college dorm concoctions.
I'm from the country that invented spray cheese, and I sh*t on BOTH countries equally 👌
Oh can do,
Your food is so shit and awful you can’t go anywhere but at least we Americans can go to another state.
Your stuck with what you have’
Most of us don't touch that spray plastic in a can. But, your comment is how stereotypes start. So, I do understand where you're coming from, stereotypes get real old and tiresome, don't they? They are just plain ignorant.
All over the USA, beans in every shape and form are a staple and from many cultures. People have made fun of a Southern States staple food of beans and biscuits. ( a savory, fluffy baked item here).
Beans and biscuits got a lot of poor folks through long, lean hard times. Especially when there was no meat available. It was a hot, stick to your ribs , kind of meal, that kept many people alive. It's still a standard for many people in daily life, especially because it tastes like home.
what about cucumber sandwiches, commonly eaten at high tea. an activity that is considered posh.
So so bored of this take online. Especially when it comes from americans who have no leg to stand on criticising other nations cuisines 🤦🏼♀️
When you show your mother a meme, and she turns it into a life lesson.
There are definitely people who think eating spicy food makes you morally superior, which is an…odd take
Yep, for them, apparently, drowning the natural taste of food in spices and aromas is the height of culture and civilisation.
@@remilenoir1271 They can still taste the natural taste of the food. I guess thier taste buds aren't as sensitive to spices, so they can taste a lot.
I've never heard that, however, as an American, spicy food that will literally burn my taste buds off, is definitely NOT a super power ! 😅.
@@Genevieve1023 idk, for example with vindaloo, it's meant to be very spicy/hot so it's expected that that's the main draw of the Dish even if there are other nice tasting ingredients in there. Some people definitely like hot spice as it's own "flavour" (not really thought of as a flavour but you get what I mean)
Yep.
That's how much their ego needs to feel special. Anything to give it a boost, no matter how irrational 😂
I like the taste of the things I eat. I often basically mono (ish) eat and savour each item, being in full presence 😌
Sorry but love how you turned a joke about colonialism into a defensive reel. Usually love your vids but these feels like youre defending the British Raj.
It’s not about defending, it’s about teaching. People actually think the British Empire was about spices, when this is the work of other slave empires. People attack the British so much that they forget: Bombay was given to them by the Portuguese and the Portuguese exported the most slaves to the New World. No hate to Portugal, but they were the ones concerned with spice.
@@thenablade858 As someone who grew up in Bombay, I am well aware of the history of my city. The point is, all European colonialism is wrong and exploitative. Should we just forget about the Bengal famine? And how Churchill exasperated the situation? Should we forget about the farmers whose lands went barren because of the forced over farming of indigo and tobacco?
Such jokes are a way for people and cuktures with colonial trauma to reason with, confront and accept our history. So this does come across as really defensive. Its like saying "Oh we didn't exploit you for JUST THE SPICES. There is so much more we forced you to produce and didn't pay you fairly for!".
@@jankinair99341. It’s usually Americans who make this joke. So the idea that “people are just using it to forget their trauma!” Is weak.
2. Education is not defending. Considering you took great offence to someone educating people on the history of British cuisine and actually exploring the implications of that joke, maybe you need to take a look at yourself and calm down. Education isn’t offensive. You can make the joke if you want. It sounds like you’re angry that people are disproving it though, which is weird and pathetic.
3. The joke makes no sense. It’s fine to acknowledge the horrors of the British empire. But on a practical level, people who spew that know nothing about Britain or its history. There’s nothing wrong in admitting that. You can make smarter jokes if you want to “get back at your oppressors” (aka, modern British people who didn’t do anything wrong).
Just hard to imagine these days that something as ubiquitous as pepper was once a prized commodity.😅
Hot cross buns are full of spices from all over the world and yet they're a quintessentially English food
Spice are more of a Spanish and Portuguese thing.
Honestly I was expecting opium to make an appearance here, those are some classic atrocities
The weird thing is how at the time people didn't have a moral issue with trading in opium (same with slavery really, we have entire cities built on the slave trade it wasn't just one man who was honoured for his generosity). We missed an opportunity with Hong Kong by not asking its people who they wanted to belong to.
Yup, the atrocities that Muslims cause in the UK nowadays importing and selling Heroin (opium) in the UK is horrendous. They employ as young as 8yr old white kids to sell it for them and also pay prostitutes in heroin for sex in their communities. I work for drug and alcohol services in Preston Lancashire and everytime a dealer is mentioned it's always a Muslim and prostitutes always say they are at risk the most from Muslim men.
@@hairyaireyThe Chinese did have an issue with the sale of opium. That’s kinda why every European nation invaded them multiple times.
What?! @@hairyairey did you never learn about the opium wars??? Or even the boxer rebellion which is the continuation
@@perhaps1094 That's exactly what I was referring to as that's how Hong Kong was ceded to us in the first place. We gave it up far too easily. Should have called China's bluff when they said they didn't recognise the previous agreement.
People seem to forget how popular curry is in Britain. There are many varieties of curry that originated from Britain. Sure curry was originally brought over via immigration, but the British recipes were invented over time to account for local taste and ingredient availability
Immigration 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 , I fucking can’t bro immigration
The British empire destroyed nations, they didn't just "get" spice/cotton etc. they looted, starved, enslaved etc. Britain today benefits and depends on the suffering and oppressions of the countries that it stole from
1 billion indians exist today, the brits clearly didn't do a good enough job.
@@asinine4636 that's something you surely wouldn't say to my face lol
@@asinine4636 it's funny they tried but we just reproduced until there's enough people to take over the whole of Britain..who knows maybe one day
@@TruthAlwaysWins786 I think your unwashed indian stench would knock me out before you could.
@@TruthAlwaysWins786 Your strong indian stench would repel me that's for sure
Yup, as a west Indian with grandparents and parents from Guyana, they tell me stories of how they worked on sugar cane farms, specifically Demorara.
“This wasn’t just like brining stuff back to Britain and hoarding it,”
The British Museum has entered the chat.
I used to hate British government but Existence of all the fundamentalist group like Taliban, ISIL and others made me think may be they are somehow right to hoard them there
At least they are cared for
But then I remember neo liberals who just wants to destroy them cuz they hate history and establishment
So my view is I don't care
it applies more to the Dutch
I had some British friends vist the US. I cooked them steaks and they were asking what I was putting all over it. I said, "steak seasoning?" they were horrified at how much. When they tasted it they were amazed at how much flavor there was and how good it tasted. The entire week and a half was totally centered around food after that. It was a really fun experience to share our way of doing things with them. I hope to visit them next year to have my own experience with thier culture!
Also, English food is great and people should stop insulting it. Especially when they get their history wrong at the same time.
Taking jabs at Britain for its imperial past is one thing, but why are we forever being picked on for our food based on unrepresentative low point in cuisine due to rationing following a war?
Also I live in the Netherlands and whenever I hear comments about British food I always wonder how these fuckers dodged a similar reputation. These people spend a fortune on kitchens fancy but as little as possible on ingredients. The one culinary contribution I will grant them is the bitter ball which is the best accompaniment to beer (preferably not Heineken).
Your government starved millions in Asia less than 70 years ago, take a joke and be glad they are not looking for retribution.
It's not about accuracy, it's about the funny
Thw book reccomendation at the end really encourages me to follow, this is an awesome way to historically educate whilst still having fun! ❤
Not you trying to gloat about East India Company
It’s like praising devil for emancipating the fallen angels
Is mentioning its global, very real effects the same as gloating?
"hahaha, silly people, we didn't conquer the world for spices.... ***It was so much worse than that*** 😈👿"
The quip may not be very accurate historically, but is more so epicuriously.
i like how she didn't even try to defend the food or say it's actually really good
'We didn't just pillage spice. We genocided for so many reasons and still do!'
I know it's not a moral point, but it is funny. I think my favorite british food insult is that "The British eat like they're still in WW2."
For those talking about spices, we're not meaning spicy hot, but spiced as in herbs, garlic, ginger, and all that mess.
If anyone has an American insult, to be fair, I'm all ears. I don't know one about our food, but I do see us being called egocentric or uncultured. Which, yes. Many of us can be.
And one thing that I find entertaining to compare the countries, "England thinks 100 miles is far away. The US thinks 100 years is a long time." Okay I'm done. I love learning your country's history and hope to travel to it at some point. But alas, I'm poor.
The normal line to take on American food is that it's insulting enough on its own. Craft singles, pizza in a can, sugary bread, meat so covered in hot sauce you may as well just drink hot sauce etc.
Seeing as Americans love to rag on British extreme cheap food (beans on toast, for example), American cheap "food" like cheese in a can is also fair game
We use absolutely loads of spices. There's a whole range of cuisine which is British but called "indian" because it's all using indian spices.
Money was the reason. Lots of spices are not appetizing to many people.
The DUTCH invaded the world for its spices. Hence the Dutch East Indies forming the basis for modern Indonesia. It always bothers me that luke the English basically left the Spice trade before the English Civil War. They moved on to Indian products and Chinese tea in the East. Leaving the Dutch to their spices.
Also these people saying "Why don't they have spices in their food?" And then you point out the traditional role of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, saffron, aniseed, star anise, allspice, turmeric etc and then they go no the otger spices!
They mean chillies. They just mean capsaicin. They're saying that a traditional English spiced bun with 5 different spices isn't spice, but a chilli bowl with one single type of one single plant is spice. Because it's capsaicin and nothing matters unless you can't feel your mouth and your arse burns like lava afterwards.
Sure Jan.
The thing is, the English *loved* capsaicin spiced food as well, that's why there are so many dang Indian curry shops in the UK still, that's why there is a significant amount of Anglo-Indian cuisine compared to our other colonies. So many dishes people see as just "Indian" are actually things the British invented based on *actual* Indian cuisine, vindaloo, tikka masala, and many more. Hell, the Indian food industry is the literal *biggest* form of take away in the UK and makes over 3.2 *billion* pounds a year. Sure we can't really claim that's *our* cuisine, but we sure as hell like hot food. (Hell, Thai food is also starting to take over nowadays as well and that's also fairly hot)
What bothers me is the ignorant anglocentrism posing as history. Ironically the high risk high reward colonial trade was the only one the English could somewhat compete in with the Dutch. The Dutch had more merchant ships than the rest of Europe combined and the English couldn't make a buck from the far bigger, far more frequent European bulk shipping.
For the Dutch the colonial trade started to take the war for independence and religious tolerance with Spain and Portugal to their overseas income and it always remained a tiny cherry on a huge cake. The spices were the backbone of the VOC's Asian trade, ignorantly named the Dutch East India company in English, because the Chinese, Indian and Japanes were far to sophisticated to take any interest in Dutch or other European products. Most of what the VOC did was trade within Asia, with the trip to Europe taking one year as the obvious reason.
Chili peppers aren't even native to Asia. The Portuguese planted them in the archipellago that is now Indonesia. The difference in foods has very little to do with spices but rather with contrasting flavours vs enhancing flavours. European spice use is therefore more subtle, less overpowering than the contrasting flavours in which the taste of the main nutritients is dominated by added spices.
@@DenUitvreter 100% absolutely. Though calling it the Dutch East India Company is fine considering VOC is short for Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, which is Dutch for United East India Company. It's just translated. And it's just defining witch it is. Saying the Dutch East India Company vs the English East India Company or French East India Company or hell the Danish East India Company. I think the Swedes had one too. It was a thing.
@@Willothemask No, it's just named after the British East India Company like it was a similar thing, only Dutch. It's not, and Indies instead of India would make a lot more sense.
Just like considering the Dutch colonial history a some minitiature version of the British Empire for example. Empire is very questionable name since it was very different in nature, at least until the very late 19th century. And the 17th century Dutch colonialism should certainly nog be confused with 18 and 19th British colonialism because the power of the Europeans over the rest changed very much throughout 3 centuries.
The Dutch did not have the ambition to rule lots of land and people nor did they have the manpower for it.
@@DenUitvreter They both were chartered companies that traded with the east indies, they both were direct competitors, they both fought for the spice trade and they both used various stock methods, though the Dutch invented the continuous stock system which now is the basis for the modern stock market. They were both East Indies/East India companies. Because what defined India and what defined the Indies was basically unknown. The only definition is between the East Indies and West Indies.
The English East India Company didn't set out to conquer india. Just as you claim I am misrepresenting two near identical organisations that operated in rhe same way in the same field, you are misrepresenting the English East India Company. It didn't care about empire building for almost half of its history, nearly 200 years. It was focussed on actual trade. And it only stopped trading in spices because the Dutch invaded and conquered the spice islands and much of the rest of Indonesia. And you ask the native population of those places how they felt. Discussions of the massacre of natives by Dutch colonial powers before the EIC had even established their first colony in India is still a sore subject with many of the locals today. So don't "Oh we were different we didn't want empire we were the good guys" with me when you had a literal and substantial empire in both east and west and frequently treated the native population just as brutally as any other colonial power.
The English East India Company traded more with the Indies than with India for the first 50 years of existence. Only after the two Anglo Dutch wars and losing their last claim to the spice trade in return for England keeping Manhattan did they really start focussing on India, and even then it was more than 100 years before Clive of India fucked it all up by starting to take over large territories of India. The EIC was focussed on trade over colonialism for a LONG time after the Dutch.
So just like claiming the British took over the world for spices, it's shockingly historically inaccurate to claim the VOC was a nice friendly neighbourhood trading organisation that never wanted to be a colonial power and was utterly different than the EIC because it traded in Indonesia rather than India. Since it was the FIRST trading company to be a major colonial power. Before the EIC, before the Hudson Bay Company, before the French East India company (who btw spent a lot of their time trading with southeast asia rather than India and are yet still one of the East India Companies).
Don't think you can whitewash history and claim the British were the bad guy colonial power in the same breath as claiming anglocentrism.
They act like spicing means pouring half a bottle of just one spice into their food. We still wanna fucking taste the food. We use a little bit of multiple spices to get the right taste. Why do think KFC is so good?
It ain't called england fried chicken. Honestly if you're trying to argue in favor of english food, it would be smarter to keep The Colonel's name outta your mouth! 🤐 KFC never would have happened in britainland
The more Brits describe what they think means "spicy" and why their cuisine is flavorful, the more they just show how bland and sad their cuisine really is. It's okay. You have other nice things to offer. But good savoury food with complex flavors isn't one of them.
The Dutch empire was the one that cared about spices the most
People who say that obviously know nothing of the UK.
And here I thought the Empire was about insuring tourism for centuries to come, since people have to travel to London to see their national treasures in the British museum.
did they have a flag? mmm well no.......ah well then.........
The Ashanti stuff they whine about was taken by force to make them give up human sacrifice, and cannibalism. Read the accounts of the people who were there .
Hi, I usually love your videos. This time is not the case. You speak as a colonialist, with disregard of all the suffering of the colonised. You left out the atrocities, specially slavery perpetrated for centuries.
It's offensive.
Agree😢
Same. Really disappointed and probably won’t be watching their content again :(
The idea that you took a joke seriously enough to respond to it earnestly is hilarious😂
Whatever they stole, they are still robbers.😂
So you're a slave then ?
To be fair I think the quip is used more as a funny way to highlight how despite holding dominion over 1/4th of the world, mainstream British cuisine is still (at least on the surface) very plain. Contrast this with the U.S however which has to a much larger degree assimilated the culinary products of its different ethnicities e.g. Mexican food, Chinese food, etc. I agree the argument is not flawless, for example Chicken Tikka Masala is a great example of culinary, cultural cross pollination. Though I think people are wondering why there isn’t more.
In what way? Many British people use heaps of spices in their cooking. And some of the most renowned British dishes are praised for their flavour (fish and chips, Sunday roast, shepherds pie, full English breakfast). Plus if it’s not used in cooking, it’s usually added after cooking so people can flavour it to their liking.
@@xxxmaysilssss690None of those dishes are praised at all they are just the most well known British ones 💀💀💀
@@ericktellez7632 except they are heavily praised, actually. I’ve seen these dishes eaten all over the world with great feedback. Sounds like you just live under a rock
I don’t know about elsewhere, but in my Canadian elementary school, we were taught that Britain’s takeover of everything they could was for spices. It proceeded to not get talked about again for the rest of the time i was in school. So it would make sense for people to have an incomplete picture and come to this conclusion if they never ended up coming across further information on it
Did the British empire expand across what's now modern Canada is search of spices? I hope your teachers taught you a little more about British colonial history than that 😂
@@lovellderrick i really wish they did. But considering they taught that slavery “wasn’t that bad” and that Canada didn’t have it… My scoop was shit.
Also, a lot of spices are used within traditional British puddings, cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, star anice, rosemary, nutmeg, ginger, etc are all found in plenty of British puddings, I think it’s because many people associate spices with savoury food which caused this notion
Love your energy and how passionate you are! Really enjoy your clips.
I think the irony they are pointing too is all those times Britain said they are the superior culture, then people would come to your island and wonder why the "superior" peoples cooking was so bland by comparison. Kinda like how Britain said they were superior in culture, but also made a museum based on other people's arguably cooler cultures and refused to give the artifacts back to those cultures. Just a jib at british cultural supremecy in the past
Weirdly enough I think America is now the one trying to claim superiority over others (not all Americans, but I've definitely noticed it more as a trend than amongst people from other countries/locally in Britain). Obviously there's lots of cool Americans as well, but there are also the USA, USA, No1 chanting stereotypical ones, which we don't have as much of here.
This needs to be pinned. I think too many historians and pro-Brexitz peeps get their panties in a bunch over this
food and old art is how you define something as superior?
Creating the modern world and like 70% the innovations and technologies you use every day seems like a superior move, we could have kept that shit to ourselves but instead we shared it all.
But keep pretending that taking old statues from countries that don't respect and actively destroy their past are better than the people that created the device you are currently using to share your worthless thoughts with the world.
@@ieojama07nothing to do with brexit…it’s just you can only take so much from annoying americans online.
British people literally will put curry sauce on everything. It even comes as a dip in mcdonalds
they found flavor and wont let go and wont admit to it either like a druggie
@@redlight3932 they admit it. It’s the rest of the world that likes to ignore it and make the stupid joke that they colonise the world for spices and don’t use them when the number 1 food in the uk is literally masala. They had a taste of Indian spices and decided they should own the world for it
“Eating spiced or unspiced food isn’t a moral category …” The East India Company, on the other hand…
I wonder how much of our perception of bland food can be blamed on the power of national food corporations. They offer consistency, but bland things down to appeal to a larger audience. Compare to the rise of the mega breweries in the US where the distinctive local brewing is wiped out by blander national brands. The response is to import flavors from other countries (in both beer and food) and so you get more Chinese, Indian, and Italian restaurants, which are novel, rather than reviving traditional flavors.
Wow. Bold move explaining why people making fun of British Colonialism are wrong because the British didn't JUST do Colonialism for spices certainly was a choice that you made and posted to the internet.
Tf are you on Hun
@@Shitting_pissing_farting People don't say that line because they literally think British people conquered the world for spices, people say that line to make fun of Britain for being a colonising empire with shit food. I was born in England but my family are Irish/Indian - so when a white brit tries to recontextualise a joke about British Imperialism by pretending they don't get what the joke is and talking about all the stuff the British Empire did via slavery (without once mentioning slavery) that's a red flag, Hun.
Congratulations, you missed the point so badly that you flew the planes into the towers accidentally. It isn’t defending British colonialism, but mocking bad history. The Dutch and Portuguese were more interested in spices, and the Spanish ‘stumbled’ upon their empire trying to find a new trade route… for spice.
There was so much pepper in the air at the duchess's house it caused Alice and everyone else to sneeze!😂
I had read that British food was made more bland by the world wars. Fewer ingredients made things more bland. So blame germany!
Mfs eat as if the german planes were still flying above london
I saw a short recently about some Brits trying American pumpkin pie for the first time and rating it, and they both said it was "too spicy". Practically every comment was this.
maybe american pumpkin pie sucks 💀
@@WunderwaffePrime As an American, I'm also not really a fan, but calling it spicy is like calling ice cream spicy.
In the pie's defense, they did get it from a grocery store. The best stuff is homemade!
The problem is that 'spicy' has two meanings. Brits like their nutmeg, sugar, and other sweet and savory spices. They don't have any capsaicin tolerance though and in that usage British food is not spicy at all. People confuse these a lot.
It's more a class issue than a broader national culture issue. Smack barm pey wet isn't a high society delicacy. When you do get spicy food in Britain it's rarely a hot spicy even in the finest restaurants. Heavens help you if you want good Mexican food in London.
Plenty of Brits do like spicy food though. That's why there's a stereotype of bald guys sweating through a vindaloo or a kebab with loads of chilli sauce, then going back next week after the pub and doing it all over again
@@Rumade That's not a stereotype with which I am familiar but ok. There are always going to be people who like different things and there's little that's true of any entire demographic. These are broad trends and broadly speaking the UK doesn't have a lot of capsaicin consumption.
@SAOS451316 You obviously never had a proper "British indian" vindaloo or "British Bangladeshi" phall then. The "inability to handle capsaicin" is hillarious because my nan of 87 years old eats nothing but chilli based hotsauce. Sure, there's not as many people doing insane billion scotsville challenges as on US TV for kicks, but honestly are those people even normal?
Britain doesn't have a lot of Mexican food it must be said, but plenty of Indian and middle eastern, all of which can be as spicy as you like. But yes, I guess traditional british food isn't very spicy in the commonly understood sense of spicy...
Spicy food is extremely common thanks to classic Indian restaurants/take aways. We also have some insanely good middle eastern and african food spots that also slap on the hot spice. Most Brits I know are pretty good with spices, even the white folk. Not really sure were you're making this assumption that Brit's don't have a tolerance for it.
Mexican isn't the only type of spicy food in existence.
The British Empire: "It's just good business"
"Eating spiced or non-spiced food isn't a moral category." Best thing I've ever heard. I enjoy spice in food, but sometimes I just want a nice simple pasta. People need to stop acting superior because they eat spicy food.
As a brit with a lot of american friends, they bring this up a lot, so i'm gonna be saving this!! 🙏
Frankly, I don't think a lot of stereotypes are funny, no matter the country. As an American that has heard far too many to count over 5 decades, it's so tiresome, not original at all and very worn out. If I were British, I would be sick of it too.
No country likes to be routinely picked at or picked apart decade after decade. Many Brits have said the worst to me, but it's so out worn and in no way helpful, I never respond to the insults to my face,
(insults made because
I am a convenient smiling american nearest to them), it comes across as ignorant from a country known for its excellent educational opportunities.
@@anitapeludat256 completely agree! My boyfriend and a lot of my friends are american, and obviously i get a lot of jokes at my bri'ish-ness, and people over here talking badly of americans in general. It does get so tiresome.
Americans have some nerve considering what they eat
Instead of just shoving a youtube video at them, try to engage with them? Maybe they don't like you because you act holier than thou and shove youtube shorts from random people in their faces when they make a joke?
@@RDR911 dang dude, i said they're my friends, not that they hate me. They do it in jest, but don't take on board that it gets tiring to me when I tell them.
You conquered India and beans on toast remains a staple. I do feel learning how to use saffron would not hurt you all.
Beans on toast is a very cheap comfort food, mostly eaten by the working class. Saffron is very expensive.
Plus we do know how to use it... although just in Indian food lol
The taste of British food and the face of British women has made the British man the greatest sailor in the world
You say this but British men are the ones that look like badly-animated NPCs in Oblivion.
A much better take than another video I saw on the subject of ww1 I must say.
Context matters and you NAILED it here.
This sounds strangely close to defending colonialism
How so?
Speaking about colonialism positively, to it's benefits without mentioning the people who died and what evils the British did while getting their increased menu at home. She should dig into the dirt and remind people of the great losses of colonialism
@@CosmicStuff she wasn't speaking of colonialism positively, she just wasn't speaking poorly of the British empire. You don't have to make everything negative.
It doesn't matter,someone has to say it when it's not said by the people in the video.
@@CosmicStuff what did you expect her to say "ugh guys a little disclaimer the British empire sucked". Most people acknowledge that colonialism is a bad thing, she was just responding to a comment, like it's not that deep.
We use tons and tons and spices, often in very old fashioned and traditional recipes. Every single Christmas dish is full of cloves, mace, nutmeg... haggis, black pudding and British sausages use spices... what they mean is we don't use garlic granules, and that is because they taste like stale feet
It would make more sense to say this about Dutch cooking
THE SPICE MUST FLOW!
That fkin name: East India Company. Words fail to describe my anger and hatred on hearing this name.
Oh yeah, we in the West have a tendency to give our criminal organizations and operations really stupid names.
Dude, i studied an entire chapter about how the British fucking destroyed our economy and reading that chapter got me so riled up
No need of white validation, our hate towards them is justified.
Britishers used to cut thumbs of handloom workers , so that they couldn't not produce locally textiles , so that they can sell their London material to us .
Nah its true, you already have the british museum for the stolen items that y'all hoarding.
Y'all 💀 it just say it all
@@Shitting_pissing_farting And yet I'm absolutely not from where you think I'm from just because of the words I use :) Now THAT might say something >
@@parajay6575 y'all is a pretty big give away 💀 but do tell
I like how the joke is that the english don't use spices and this defense amounts to "That's not the reason we did colonialism anyway"
Like, as long as you're still committed to not seasoning your food 😂
“Eating spiced or unspiced food isn’t a moral category” I think the Italians and French would disagree.
This lady's accent is too colonial for her to be this into colonialism
If you weren't aware, baked-in british classism actually forces people to learn the RP accent the further they're educated, and it tells nothing about their actual home dialect or background.
I’m sorry, they say you don’t use any spices and your response is, “We use pepper”? XD I’m dead
Girl, learn to listen. Pepper is one of the only spices that the British empire mass traded in. Hence why she said they use pepper. The Dutch and Portuguese traded in other spices. Use your brain for once.
I thought she would say that actually there's a lot of spicy british food but i guess i was wrong 💀
I love that your argument was that you were so much worse than just a spice thief
I mean, she is a history content creator, and that is the history? Should she not say so?
It took a video like this after years of rumors for you to defeat America. I still see this as an American win. 🇺🇸
For real, most of us don’t actually care. It’s just funny is all.
Ah yes the old “British food is bland line”, spoken by ignorant people the world over. 🙄
and they think they're being original and edgy 😂
i got something original but i doubt you have the legal rights to even reply to me
I don't know much about British food but I've never seen any well seasoned ones. I mean they never put anything other than salt and pepper in fish and chips. And please do not say chicken tikka masala.
@@Zach_Pizazz “I don’t know much about British food, but I’m still going to make an ignorant and uninformed comment about it! You betcha!”
@@Grizzly01-vr4pn Dude I have obviously tried British food, I just don't live in England. I have tried a lotta stuff like fish and chips, full English breakfasts etc. Some of them I have even liked, like Shepperd's pie. But yea the point still remains that they're not as well seasoned like Asian or south American cuisine. The stereotype just doesn't come out of nowhere. And there's no need to take offense for that. Some things are just simple. Doesn't mean they're bad.
I appreciate the comments pointing out that much of what is considered English cuisine today is a reflection of rationing from wwii, I never made that connection but it makes a lot of sense now
The contrast is, "Don't get high on your own supply."
We actually did have that rule with opium.