The special relationship
Cooking with a transatlantic accent
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There’s something odd taking place on both sides of the Atlantic. British food is the most popular it’s been stateside since the Boston Tea Party, while Americana is everywhere on the streets of London. The so-called “special relationship” has taken a turn, as we each jump at the excuse to eat the other’s food.
This might not seem so odd, if it weren’t for the fact that we all keep saying how much we hate each other’s cooking. “US vs. UK food discourse” pops up so commonly on Bluesky that it’s become a meme, and every time I make the mistake of opening Threads I’m confronted by a barrage of Brits and Americans sniping at each others’ sandwiches in a frustratingly effective effort to game the algorithm. British food is bland, and flavourless, why did we colonise the world if we were going to ignore all their spices, and hasn’t anyone told us that the war’s ended and we can stop eating like we’re rationing? The Americans, of course, cover everything they eat in a thick layer of canned cheese, pump it full of corn syrup, and dump it in the deep fryer for good measure. We all know the jokes, they’re getting tired by now.
The popular British lines of attack are particularly funny because if you look at the American foods most popular in the UK, “cheesy, sugary, and fried” tends to sum them up. There’s always been a firm embrace of American fast food here — the British probably love McDonald’s more than the Yanks do, and we’re established suckers for a chicken shop with an incongruous US state name. But over the last few years it’s become much more than that. Almost every burger in London is now a smash burger. There’s a new East Coast-inspired pizza place opening every week. I could leave my flat on foot and find multiple places serving New York bagels, Philly subs, and Detroit pizza. Heaving cookies, cinnamon rolls, and glazed donuts, comical in scale, are the viral sweet treats of choice. We moan about American food, and especially its unhealthier side, but it’s pretty clear that we can’t get enough of it.
