You hear it everywhere, from fashionistas to most of the Asian contestants on "Come Dine with me" (which is probably what's made me want to rant), anyone who thinks they are some sort of a sophisticate and wants to make out like they know more than anyone else...

"British food is so bland" they say, distainfully. And the insult is often compounded with some sort of assertion that we need to be shown how to use spices.

Exactly why do we need to? I appreciate a nice rogan josh as much as the next person. But a basic shepherd's pie or a loin chop with mash and gravy is a joy to my stomach.

Pilau rice can be delicious, and I love a touch of cardamom, but it would ruin a lamb casserole!

I'll be one of the first to admit that experimenting with world foods has enhanced my own repertoire and that I now buy root ginger on a regular basis and lime is as common a site in my fridge as lemon. But isn't this because we didn't always have the access to these kinds of foods that we have now?

As a nation, we're pretty open-minded about food. An awful lot of us love curry and all sorts of Asian foods. So why do ignorant food snobs insist on talking as though none of us know anything? If we let them kid us into thinking we're somehow second rate, then we're just being gullible quite frankly. It's a touch of the empereror's new clothes syndrome (everyone pretends to believe it because they don't want to look like fools - but that just makes them fools).

Why can't they get it into their heads that as well as being able to appreciate spicy food, we can also appreciate food for its own flavour! A lot of the time, our own produce is nice enough that it doesn't need masses of seasoning to make it taste good and if yours does then that's a shame for you.

Why drown out natural flavour with the use of too many spices? We often use herbs, whose flavours are quite often not as intrusive as those of Eastern spices. They may be bland to jaundiced, burnt-out palette of someone who cannot taste anything that isn't drowned in chilli, but to those of us with fully functioning taste buds, they are subtle and delicious.

Long live the roast dinner!
Long live the lamb and pork chop!
Long live shepherd's pie!
Long live sage, rosemary, thyme, parsley!
and Long live sausages with red wine and onion gravy!

And long live a great post!

^^^
I second that.

Some people's taste buds have been shot to pieces, I think

There is nothing bland about any of the foods you mention if they are cooked correctly and I'm not sure who would claim there is. Certainly chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal would champion all of them.

I agree!
The good thing about it being 'bland' is that you can jazz it up easily if you wanted to. Like mash potato for example, it's fine plain, or you can add herbs/spices/anything to it for something different.
I'm not a fan of strong, over-powering food. I like curries occasionally, but woudn't like every meal to be overly spicy or rich.

Good post.

Yes - a great post

I am a great fan of boil in a bag parsley sauce fish. All I need with that is plain mashed salted spuds with no butter and mushy or other peas on the side. I will also have it with with no jazz spaghetti. Sometimes you just need the simple stuff to clear the palate.

Growing up my next door neighbour was a British born Indian she was also my mother's closest friend so we would often eat at her house and she would overly season everything. Though she would at times cook traditional British dishes you could never just have Rice Pudding, normal vanilla custard, simple cake and roasts were never quite right. Sometimes it was fantastic, other times quite annoying.

I do appreciate the complexity of spices but I also like to taste the original ingredients and not have it overpowered by various spices. I don't think British Food is necessarily bland but saying that I'll freely admit that just using Salt and Pepper as a seasoning isn't quite enough for me nowadays.

Think back to some of the episodes of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The thing he banged on about more than anything was keeping it simple. Good, honest, rustic, beautifully cooked food with fresh, local ingredients. I couldn't agree more. In fact, the last time I went to one of his restaurants I had pepper sauce, steak and chips with a crunchy salad and it was delicious!

Gary Rhodes philosophy is the right one IMO.

"Buy the best ingredients you can afford and do as little as possible to them", or something to that effect. And he's right.

There's a difference between bland and simple food though.

Bland food is simply food that hasn't been seasoned properly.
Salt is the probably the most important ingredient in the world when used properly.
The beautiful crust formed when searing a steak over high heat is the sugars and proteins caramelising but wouldn't taste nearly as nice without salt to bring out that deep, glorious flavour.

Great OP.

However, I've always taken the term 'bland' to apply to food that should be tasty/spicy etc. but hasn't been made correctly and is therefore fairly tasteless.

I mean, it's hard to beat a really well made mashed potato, but it would be equally hard to ever claim it's ever anything other than bland - because it's essentially meant to be.

I find proper mash potato (butter and cream) delicious in its own right, as do others. My wife insists it's boring though.

I think some people have assaulted their taste buds with additives/condiments and can't appreciate the more subtle flavours.

There is, but as OP suggested after watching 'Come dine with me' last Sunday, some people call simple food -ie. western style food - bland. And in that instance, I agree.
Flavours like our green herbs are subtile and for a more delicate palette than Indian food par excample.
Would you put chilli sauce on a pork chop with apple sauce ?

It isn't bland, the definition of bland is:-

lacking either stimulating or irritating characteristics; "a bland pudding"; "a bland diet for her irritated stomach

or

lacking taste or flavor or tang; "a bland diet"; "insipid hospital food"; "flavorless supermarket tomatoes"; "vapid beer"; "vapid tea"

Are you telling me a plain grilled rump steak with mashed potato fits that?

Excellent OP. I adore spicy Indian and Mexican dishes but wouldn't say they're any "better" or "worse" then traditional English food.


I've just eaten a pizza, yet you've managed to make me hungry!

Thank you, Sir, for giving me the definition of 'bland'. I didn't know as I'm a bloody foreigner, english not being my native tongue and actually, not even living in the UK.

I know perfectly well what bland means and in my reply to PamelaL I said 'there is ..... a difference between bland and simple food.

My point was that many people call simple, western food : bland as it might be lacking a 101 spices (including chili)

Got me now ?