Food, Drink and Brits Abroad - an amusing tale.

We all have our favourite foods and drinks which we return to again and again. Some people are more adventurous when they encounter the foods (or the cultures) of other nations; others tend to stick with what they know. Hence the old stereotypes of the Irishman looking for his bacon, cabbage and spuds or the Englishman looking for roast beef or fish and chips.

Tasty? Depends where you come from I guess.

Perceptions are interesting also; I would consider myself reasonably adventurous where different food cultures abound in any of the countries which I travel to, yet I have often been accused of being unadventurous at home. I always explain this away by saying, ‘hey, I’m 70 years old; the reason I’m not having, for example, a curry, is because I’ve tried it many times and I don’t like it. So, fair enough? You can be the judge.

Dinner with guests in Russia.

Are some nations more or less adventurous than others? My experience has told me that they definitely are. I travelled to many corners of the world with groups of Russians and while they have their own cuisine, they were always willing to try everything that was on offer elsewhere. Similarly I found Germans open to trying different tastes. Less so the French; they tended to look for a French restaurant where they could get their foie-gras, their onion soup and their duck l’orange etc.

Our near neighbours the British tend to have a reputation for being ultra conservative where food is concerned. I’m certain this is not universal as I’ve worked with British people who were prepared to be adventurous. However, there does seem to be a certain cohort who go abroad on a regular basis, often to the same or a very similar resort and look for their English breakfast, roast beef & Yorkshire pudding, fish and chips etc. This is not to mention Watneys Red Barrel, Carling Black Label or Newcastle Brown Ale. There are numerous resorts scattered throughout Europe which openly advertise these brands whereas I can’t recall any other nations doing anything similar with their brands so it certainly does give credence to the theory. In fact, a British TV Channel made a documentary series some years ago, entitled ‘Brits abroad,’ and while this concentrated mainly on British people living abroad, their food and drink habits conformed to the stereotype. Nothing wrong with that you may say, and I would agree with you.

This leads me on to my amusing tale where a couple I encountered in a restaurant took this practice to extremes. It was in Turkey shortly after the covid epidemic and I was having dinner one fine sunny evening, sitting outside watching the sunset. A young English couple took the table next to me and hailed a waiter. The waiter approached and the conversation went somewhat like this: ‘How can I help you this evening?’ The young man replied: ‘Well, we’d like to order dinner but we don’t want none of this Turkish shit.’ Now I hasten to add that he wasn’t drunk or rude and in fact he immediately followed up with an apology saying, ‘sorry, I don’t mean Turkish food is shit; it’s just an expression.’ The waiter smiled, assured him that no offence had been taken and suggested that he might like to try the small Chinese food section at the back of the menu. Our man did and ordered chicken chow-mein with fried rice and chips. When the waiter told him that the dish already came with rice, he said he knew that but he wanted an extra portion anyway, so his meal was chicken chow-mein with two sides of rice and a side of chips. The waiter then moved on to the young lady who queried: ‘Ave you gor any fish?’ Waiter assured her he had the most beautiful fish fresh from the Mediterranean. ‘As it got bones innit,’ she asked? The waiter assured her that while of course the fish had bones, he would fillet it for her and remove all of them. ‘Oh, I dunno,’ she replied, ‘I don’t really trust it; ave you gor any fish fingers?’ I could see the waiter taking a deep breath but he assured her he would check. Lo and behold, some ten minutes later, he returned to the table with a plate of fish fingers accompanied by chips of course. The lady was delighted. I strongly suspect that the waiter had sent someone to the nearby supermarket to get them but no harm done.

I have encountered similar traits in some Irish people, like the Irish colleague I worked with who was located in Thailand but refused to touch anything that remotely resembled Thai food and stuck to meat, boiled vegetables and potatoes. Another Irish colleague in a bar in Singapore insisted on a pint of Smithwicks (an Irish beer). I think the British couple win the award though. 

Finally, just to prove I can be adventurous, the following tale: In Tunisia recently, I was in a restaurant one evening and the menu was only written in Tunisian and French. I can normally read a French menu as I know the words for the main food groups. However, this one really stumped me – I literally didn’t recognise any of the dishes. This was because, as the waiter told me in French, the dishes were unusual, but, he assured me were delicious. Hunger won out and I just picked one, not knowing remotely what I had ordered. The dish arrived and it was some form of mixed salad with sausage meat and all sorts of everything. I began to eat and it was fine. However, when I was about 60% through it, the waiter came running over to me, full of apologies, and told me he had given me the wrong dish; apparently someone else had ordered it and he had made a mistake. Then the waiter, me and the clients at the next table all burst out laughing. I tried to tell the waiter, in my pigeon French, that it was fine but he insisted he would take it away. He did and returned immediately with the dish I had ordered. I’ve no idea what was in it but it was similar to empanadas I ate in Argentina one time and it was delicious. So it just goes to show – it sometimes pays to go a little out of your comfort zone, food and drinks wise. I only wish I could impart this wisdom to the aforementioned English couple, but c’est la vie.