In the 1950s and 60s, the 'jet age' meant that more and more people were visiting Britain. And many declared the food to be bad. And yet the British Isles has a long and illustrious history in cuisine. What had gone wrong?
Before Victorian times, British cuisine was regarded along with French; at the top of the scale. But a young woman in her twenties ruined that reputation forever. How?
Samuel Beeton was a Victorian publisher of magazines and newspapers. Increasingly, books were becoming affordable to the general public and he had the idea of creating a household compendium; a book on tips and advice on how to run an efficient household.
His young wife, Isabella, had written columns in his magazines and the book was a compliation of these, plus the addition of other subjects - including cookery and recipes.
Unfortunately for the reputation of British cuisine, Isabella Beeton preferred very bland food - I suspect a stomach problem - and therefore her cook produced only the simplest of fare.
Mrs Beeton herself couldn't cook, so she filled her book with recipes from other people, plus from the cook in her own household. And because books were now affordable, her book had a great influence in middle-class households and inexpensive restaurants.
The richer British, of course, we still eating fine British cuisine at home and eating out at such places as Simpsons in the Strand and the Criterion.
But an ill-researched book by a young woman who could not cook, damaged the reputation of British cuisine for ever. The majority of her readers imagined her to be a rosy-cheeked, grey-haired cooking guru. In fact, this image was so firmly entrenched, that Samuel Beeton kept her column going in magazines and newspapers after Isabella's death at the age of 28.
Mrs Beeton's influence was enormous and the average visitor to Britain might be served boiled mutton with parsley sauce, boiled cabbage and mashed potatoes, whilst the richer British continued to eat as well as before and country-dwellers feasted on the bounty of the land. No wonder the cuisine fell into disrepute.
Add to this the privations of the first ans second world wars, when Britain had to ration its foodstuffs and it's easy to see how the reputation became tarnished.
Comments