Where else in the world are immigrants held in such high esteem as in the UK?

Indeed, and the Marks of Marks and Spencers was a Jewish immigrant from Poland.

You’ll be hard pressed to find much that is truly “British”, a lot of our culture is imported. The great thing about British culture is its long rich history of pilfering everything we liked from all the countries we nicked and claiming it as our own. Take the traditional English cuppa for example – it’s not like we grow tea in this country, now is it?

(Cricket! Cricket was invented in England, right?)

@3 Nope! It seems like Cricket was brought by Flemish Weavers from what would be now Belgium!

A tragedy for us, but at least we’ve found that “purpose” Belgium’s been looking for.

Streuth!

Chips came from the Irish roast potato stalls too.

Byriani is Glaswegian though, IIRC.

4 – It’s all nonsense though isn’t it? The basics of cricket – throw a ball at someone, who hits it with a stick – are about as old an idea as there ever could be. It’s the codification and formalisation of the game that makes it cricket. Similarly with boxing – not just the Romans and Egyptians boxed, but presumably ever since the dawn of time two plug uglies have thumped each other in the face. And yet it was in England that modern boxing was invented (Jack Broughton really started it, but Queensbury is more well known).

Rugby and Association football, cricket, lawn tennis, golf, boxing, badminton, squash, racquets, fives, even competitive skiing for God’s sake – all invented in Britain (mostly in the public schools). So if we’re looking for an unarguably British invention, I give you competitive sport. Something invented to keep schoolboys too busy to get up to… other things.

So Jews invented fish and chips?

Damn.

That’s one more thing the antisemites will find a way of using against us.

The Jews also invented Jesus but that seems to get forgotten.

Hurrah for us Jews inventing such grand stuff.

PS:

Some of our trolling racists may also claim that the Jews invented the Holocaust…

JSlayerUK @ 3 It’s not as though we grow tea . . .

But we do, in Cornwall:

http://www.tregothnanshop.co.uk/tea.asp

But it’s a bit pricey.

But you can’t beat the old roast beef for taste, health-giving properties and environmental friendliness.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article6974621.ece

“New findings on traditionally reared beef and dairy foods could lead to their reinstatement as “protective foods”, as they were once known. Far from causing illness, they may play a key role in defending the body against modern diseases. Even more remarkably, their production is now being seen as part of a land management system that benefits the planet”.

I just felt it in my bones that I was doing the right thing on Sunday when I had rib of beef – the crisp fat when chewed yielded delectable juicy oleaginous nectar. Much better than sex – as far as I remember. My mum had it right: “the nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat”.

Byriani is Glaswegian though, IIRC.

I think you’re thinking of chicken tikka massalla.

@Tim J

Okay okay! The “Cricket” that we play was most certainly codified in this country. But it was brought by Flemish weavers, maybe, maybe not.

The evolution of the game, and the name, do seem to match the idea that the particular throwy bally sticky proto-cricket brought by Flemish weavers.

But like fish and chips it has become British, in the same way that DHG (Thanks for the fish!) is considered British whereas 150 years ago some would have considered him a mere semite, just look at the contempt which Disraeli was held in and he was a “converted jew” or whatever the phrase was.

Tea was invited by us Indians!!!

(ok, the Chinese, but we made it popular… or something)

Great. Nice way to play into the hands of the tabloids guys:

“IMMIGRANTS RESPONSIBLE FOR OBESITY CRISIS”

@Ian

Aww man!

“Have Immigrants caused collapse in North Sea Cod”

“EU migrants kill cute fish”

…

“Asylum Seekers eat Swan”

Oh wait… that last one actually was a headline. And a lie, it should be reiterated.

Byriani is Glaswegian though, IIRC.

No, Biryani’s are authentically South Asian, although the word itself comes from the Persian language.

The two major contributions made by British Asians to South Asian cuisine are the Tikka Masala, which is claimed by both Glasgow and Bradford, and the Balti, which originated in Birmingham.

As far as balti’s go, if you ever find yourself in Birmingham, then avoid the official ‘Balti Triangle’ in Sparkbrook and head for Saleem’s Sweet Centre and Curry House on the Ladypool Road in Moseley, and if you go with a few people then don’t forget to order a table naan.

Can I echo Unity’s statement re: the wondrous table naan.

Are you 100% sure. One school of gustatory history attributes F’n'C to Italian immigrants. Still immigrants so the gist of the piece is right, but I’m feeling pedantic.

Not this old bollocks again – “national dish” is an amalgam of “foreign” dishes shocker………
Italy’s national dish is recycled from China, Southern American from portugese, North African from French, North American from German etc etc. So fing what ? Or is this another pathetic, pointless and futile attempt to show that there’s no such thing as an “indiginous” culture ?

While we’re on the subject of fish and chips – anyone heard the one about Peter Mandelson and the “Guacemole Dip”

After the Middle Ages, Britains living inland from the sea did not eat much fish until the coming of railways. So it was a South American vegetable, cooked by the Irish combined with fish caught by British trawlermen and largely transported by railways which was cooked by Jewish immigrants, made our national dish.

If we are loking for a traditional British dish, then it is roast meat , not just beef- hence the French calling us ” Roast Beefs”. Even in the Middle Ages , serfs and freemen in Britain ate far more meat than on the continent- rabbit, pork/bacon, pidgeon, chicken and chicken were relatively common.

Before Queensbury Rules, bare knuckle fighting was often held under the London Prize Fighting Rules which allowed throwing of the oppent onto the ground and I think, falling onto him as well.

‘Tea was invited by us Indians!!!’

So how come the Tetley Tea Folk sound like they come from Yorkshire?

Actually, a Canadian friend once told me they had French (or more likely Quebec) accents over there.

‘Asylum Seekers eat Swan’

Only Her Majesty the Queen is allowed to eat swans

If we are loking for a traditional British dish, then it is roast meat , not just beef- hence the French calling us ” Roast Beefs”.

Hmm, I think you’ll find it’s “rosbifs”

Matt Munro: “Italy’s national dish is recycled from China…”

Are you referring to pasta? That is true, but Italy’s finest food, the pizza, came from the east. Babylonia/modern Iraq?

WRT British food, I looked up Jarsholf to see what old Brits were eating years ago. Certainly nothing that was on my traditional festive plate on Christmas day, but Jarlshof was occupied for three thousand years. Shetlanders may have enjoyed their mutton stew on New Years Eve — a dish that now includes potatoes, a New World contribution.

Immediate change is identifiable (balti, the hideous chicken masala) but after a few years, we lose track. We argue here about the history of fish and chips, disregarding the origins of more commonplace crisps. Both creations are within the realm of recorded history, journalism and advertising; yet we don’t know.

In one hundred years, I predict that Wikipedia will assign the invention of the vacuum cleaner to James Dyson.

@26 Charlieman I’m (half) Italian, and in Italy I can assure you that pizza is strictly for peasants.

Oh come on! You’ll all be saying how our language is influenced by greeks and latins and numbers come from arabic next…

Of course the Daily Hate is right – ideas are completely constrained by borders and the only true love is love of the self!

I always thought that fish and chips was the result of either Chinese (fish covered in tempura-style batter) or Italian immigrants (frito misto), coupled with fried potatoes (assumed to be here already…).

I had no idea it was actually a Jewish invention!

One reason fish and chips may have become so successful is, ironically, the Christian habit of not eating meat on Fridays – fish and chip shops filled the space when people didn’t have fridges and couldn’t keep fish fresh. I could be making this up…

In Scotland, most fish and chip shops seem to be run be Italian (now third-generation) immigrants. And they do a great job!

Funnily enough, the other British national dish, chicken tikka masala, is another immigrant…

There can by definition never be a unique claim of ownership on any invention, because all inventions are always a combination of different influences.

Arguing over the possibility that fried food is uniquely jewish or variously spiced food is uniquely Indian infers highly dubious and ignorant presumptions about what in entailed in that culture and a highly offensive assumption about the homogenity or uniformity within the way it is classified.

To do so is to fall back in reliance on conservative preconceptions of traditional nostrums – that this is the way it is, because this is the way it was and therefore this is the way it should always remain.

Modern progressive cuisine is all about the fusion of different influences to create new and interesting flavours to dance on the palate in ways which provides a more varied and healthier diet to more people according to their individual tastes.

The so-called left always gets hung up on issues of ownership when real gains are there to be promoted. It’s sickening.