For British eaters, the greatest thing that ever happened was World War II. The war brought rationing, which the British accepted with a kind of relief. Rationing relieved them of the burden of having to think seriously about food. It so suited the national temperament that it was kept in force for eight full years after the war ended, long after the rest of the world had returned to exciting dining. As late as 1953, some cabinet members were urging that rationing be continued forever, making Britain the only nation in history to seriously consider legislating monotonous eating.
By the early 1970s, when I first came to Britain, enough of the old wartime spirit was left that the British would eat pretty much anything set before them. Particularly in places like railroad station buffets and museum cafeterias—the very places hapless tourists were most likely to encounter British cuisine—the food was not just unappetizing, it was often unidentifiable. I still wake up nights in a cold sweat from the memory of my first visit to the buffet at Victoria Station in London, where the food all looked as if it had been brought from a storeroom at the Institute for Tropical Diseases and where if you wanted sugar in your tea you had to use a spoon, unwashed at least since the Battle of Britain, attached to the wall with a length of grubby string.
None of that would happen now. I wouldn’t say that the food at Victoria’s Station is worth crossing an ocean for, but at least now you can eat it without wondering if first you should tell someone where you put your will. Today all over Britain public food is infinitely better than it was 20 years ago. The restaurant at the Tate Gallery in London is even listed in the Michelin Guide. To anyone who nibbled one of the Tate’s cardboard sandwiches or leaden cakes 20 years ago, this transformation is nothing short of a miracle.
My formal introduction to British cuisine came in 1973 when I took a job at a psychiatric hospital outside London. There in the hospital cafeteria I was introduced to classic English dishes like shepherd’s pie (“made with real shepherds,” as my English friend Ben used to joke), steak and kidney pie, treacle tart, and the steamed pudding known as spotted dick. The hospital food was cheap, stodgy, ferociously traditional, and surprisingly good. I grew to love it. I love it yet.
Sadly, it is almost impossible to find today. The English so associate their traditional foods with institutions like schools and hospitals that they refuse to eat it voluntarily. With a very few notable exceptions like Simpson’s in the Strand, a justly celebrated establishment where roast meats are served from silver-domed serving carts by waiters in long white aprons and outsized floppy hats, there are hardly any places left where the visitor to Britain can experience the understated glory of British cuisine.
Of the 224 restaurants in London recommended in my 1991 Michelin Guide, only seven feature English cooking. According to Michelin there are more good Japanese and Thai restaurants in London than English ones. In probably no other country in the world is it harder to find native cuisine. That, I think, is both astonishing and sad.
If you want to sample real English food, you’ll have to wangle an invitation into an English home. Or you could do as I did and get a job in the National Health Service. The pay’s not great, but the food is excellent.
