Stop being ashamed of British cuisine – the French don’t know everything about food

MAYBE I’d have been better off if it hadn’t happened, but I bumped into an old girlfriend recently. And both “bumped into” and “old” are apt words as she was considerably bigger than I remember and much older than I expected.

Once shock gave way to logic I realised it wasn’t surprising she looked so middle-aged as she is actually the same age as me – but obviously I’ve managed the maturation period better.

It can be so disconcerting how things change.

Most of us have what we’re told are rose-tinted memories of how good things were in our past: the sun shone all summer long; it snowed regularly and deep enough for weeks of winter sledging; Christmas was actually something to look forward to.

I used to adore really good fish and chips but find them so hard to find these days. I’m convinced that it’s not simply because of my selective memory. They were better more often than they are now.

And if you think about it, all the classic dishes that we think of as quintessentially British wouldn’t exist in folklore if they hadn’t been good once. For too long now we’ve been ashamed of British “cuisine”. For years we’ve cowered under the ridicule of the French as they sneer at Les Rosbifs and our attempts at cooking, but we can be proud of our national dishes.

Still we seem to be spellbound by the French and their cooking methods. Much of this is down to the undoubted genius of Escoffier, the 19th Century chef who instigated one of France’s repetitious revolutions – this one in food and its preparation – but we don’t need to be a slave to his dishes and their language.

They might have some great cheeses, but Les Frogs don’t know everything.

There’s actually nothing wrong with boiled beef and carrots, but it sounds like a joke. A pot roast of beef in the British way is a dish fit for a king or a president – if you know how to cook it and use the best ingredients. But unfortunately, for too many years we’ve made do with second, or even third, best. Austerity during and following the Second World War, where ironically my parents’ generation gave so much to help stop the French being forced to eat sauerkraut, it made us accept poor food and forget how good our long-established dishes could be.

Steak and kidney is a marriage made in heaven.

I know a number of people who don’t even like kidneys, but love the resulting flavour when they’re slow cooked with beef – leaving the kidneys for me to scoop off the side of their plates.

Sometimes it seems we don’t know how clever we once were and have forgotten how to do our own thing; slavishly following French fashion. But things are changing and now there’s a movement to rediscover our proud and talented past.

Prawn cocktail, pork pie and Yorkshire pudding are all delicacies as good as any food in the world if prepared, cooked and served correctly.

It’s why they now appear on menus such as ours, along with Stargazy pie and corned beef hash – with the beef corned in the restaurant’s kitchen.

But thinking back to my old girlfriend, I should have had faith in my initial judgement.

Of course I didn’t go out with a gargoyle all those years ago. Just like the steak and kidney pie, she was quite a dish.