british dining
NPR posted a great article about British dining this weekend:
Dining After ‘Downton Abbey’: Why British Food Was So Bad For So Long
Downton Abbey is a British period drama, also airing in the US on MPT. The series follows the going-ons of the Crawley family and their servants at their fictional estate, Downton Abbey, in Yorkshire County, during the reign of King George V. The first series (a British season in television) starts at the sinking of the Titanic; the seconds series begins with the start of World War I, and ends with the armistice of World War I.
British television period drama? What’s the connection to my research?
Food! Of course.
As Maria Godoy states, “If you’ve ever watched the television show Downton Abbey, you’ve probably deduced that dining was a very, very big deal in the lives of the landed gentry of Edwardian England.“
This is very true. The show has extremely elaborate dinners, notable of the aristocracy, at least of the time period. It is a huge production. Any given episode will showcase scenes of the ladies and gentlemen ‘dressing’ for dinner in fancy attire. The servants run amuck through the house, helping the Crawley family and their guests to dress, preparing the meals, setting the table, putting the food out, and serving the food. Even the serving of the food is a HUGE deal in this show. There is one episode where they are short a footman, and the butler has to step in to serve, as he refuses to allow a female servant to serve in the dining room (this is apparently a big deal, though I am not sure why).
Things I kind of already knew, but have definitely learned even more from this show: the act of eating a meal is a production.
Even in our own lives, making a meal can be a production, be it small or large. Sure, there’s the traditional American Thanksgiving, where hours, if not days, of prep work goes in to the meal. Or even just slicing some vents in a frozen meal and popping it into the microwave – a small production, but a production nonetheless.
The NPR article is great, because it details (minimally, though) that British food used to be awesome.
This takes us back to stereotypes again.
British food is known for being bland. Awful, some might even say. I’ve watched enough Gordon Ramsay, Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern, Jamie Oliver, and more, to have seen them either help restaurants re-do menus, or talk about how establishments and British cuisines have recently experienced a 180.
But is it more like a 360?
These meals in the Edwardian period (and if you’ve ever read Jane Austen, or any other period pieces of the great British Empire) were extravagant and showy. The food was haute cuisine. It wasn’t fish n’ chips, bubble and squeak, bangers and mash, toad in the hole, or any of the other bland traditions we think of when we think of British food. (I’ve linked to descriptions on wikipedia, but if you don’t know what bangers and mash are, well, shame on you.)
This article, though, directly pinpoints World War I as the reason for the 20th century stereotype of British food. Food was rationed, ingredients weren’t available, households such as the Crawley’s lost servants in the war (also family members!).
Here, we see a cultural event (war) directly influencing an aspect of culture (food, in this case aristocratic).
But it wasn’t just the cultural event of war. The servants, who were skilled laborers in the art of cooking and serving, moved on after the war. They were the middle and lower classes. As the middle class grew, the servants dispersed. (Yes, aristocratic households do still have servants today, but apparently not as many?)
So there you have it. Culture altering culture!
Also, to note, British food isn’t that bad. I went with those assumptions and known stereotypes when I moved to England my sophomore year of undergrad. For the most part, everything I ate was awesome. Granted, also a large diversity from fish n’ chip shops, pub food, fast-food from American companies, Indian food the way we have Chinese food, even some Thai, and possibly my favorite, Halal food that lined the street I lived off of, in what we all called ‘Little Middle East.’
And unfortunately, as I have just now realized, this was a time before I took photos of food, and so, to demonstrate my own experience of British cuisine, I will have to suffice with this photo of a McDonald’s bag hanging from the living room window of our flat.
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| This is not a curtain. What is doing on the window?! |
In all seriousness, though, I also give you a pot of boiling water in our kitchen. Welcome to wacky-American-college-student-versions-of-British-cuisine. Fail. The end.
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| Guarantee this was used for pasta. We are a lot of pasta. It was cheap. |