The Brit and food...and alcohol, of course

Here's a post from a (deleted) blog I used to write 2 years ago when I was living in England.

When I came to the UK 9 months ago, there were 3 things that disturbed me the most.

The crap weather, the copious amounts of alcohol consumption by the average Brit and the lack of any culinary finesse.

The weather, I'll save for another day.

The Nottinghamshire police are having a tough time keeping the law and order in the city centre on weekends. 40 cops in comparison to the 2500 odd people, more young than old, flocking pubs, bars, clubs on weekend nights. Imagine even 10% getting drunk and having brawls over their slapper girlfriends. (How these girls manage to walk around town with barely any clothing on in arctic weather conditions - not just in Nottingham, but even in freezing Scotland, is just an amazing phenomenon. That's the 4th thing that amazed me...and the 5th was the amount of pink in the friggin country, but I shouldnt digress from the food and alcohol subject...I'll end up like Monty Python and the Spanish Inquisition, otherwise).

You go to a pub with British people, and there's only so much you can drink. They'll drink for 5 hours... pint after pint after pint by which time you've reduced your rum and cokes to jsut cokes and are having to run to the loo every 2.37 minutes. Some of my friends are just going to go back home with higher alcohol tolerance. Some came with it. A certain Irish bloke I know can have 13 shots of vodka, one after another and be stone cold sober, while I, after 3, am coming up with theories about how everyone in South America is actually Russian and having a row with a Mexican about who invented spicy food...Mexico or India. (It had to be India...how old is Mexico, compared to India? Bah!)

As for food, the Brit lack any sort of culinary finesse. I'd only heard how bad it was. Now I can confirm it. They are incapable of making a simple sandwich. How bad can it get?? Terrible enough to spit it out. A cheese and tomato sandwich has, surprise surprise, ONLY cheese and tomato on dry bread! no salt, no pepper, no mayo, no nothing. Thank God for Subway, one can get half decent sandwiches that you dont make yourself. The peak of their expertise at any attempt to make a decent meal is a chip sandwich... french fries with salt and vinegar on dry bread. Ugh. If it weren't for Indian or Italian or Chinese restaurants, I'd die. Small wonder they changed the national dish from being fish and chips to "curry".

Now this "curry" has another story. I walk into a North Indian restaurant (for the plain reason that Nottingham lacks South Indian restaurants...even one, and to get a dosa, I have to go all the way to Gujju-land Leceister where i'll get a white, soggy £12 dosa with sweet sambar made by Gujjus who spell it as Dhosa! Jeez!). Anyway, so I walk into this North Indian restaurant and order. The conversation with a British Indian waiter is something like this:

Waiter: Hi, can I take your drinks order, please?

Me: Just tap water, please.
(Subtext - You moron, do I look like I can afford to order drinks at your extravagantly priced restaurant? I jsut come here for a well deserved, monthly Indian meal jsut coz I cant afford to more often!)

Waiter: Of course. Are you ready to order food now?

Me: Yes, we'll have some papads, please.

Waiter, looking at me like I have 4 heads: Papads?

Me: Yes, papads. You know, those white, round things that are deep fried and served with dips (for some reason papads are served with dips...tasty enough)

Waiter: Aaaaahhh. You mean POPPADOMS!!!!

And I feel this violent urge to lift up the chair I'm sitting on and whack him with it. Poppadoms. My ass. He knew exactly what I was talking about. I doubt anyone living in an Indian family doesnt know what papads are. And what's worse is the other waiter talks in a half English and half Bihari accent.

Waiter 2: Be careful, ya? Its bhery hot.

Friggin Coconuts!!