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Yes, food transplanted is always food adapted to local tastes and ingredients. What I find interesting is the way that strict recipe following culture interact

Yes, food transplanted is always food adapted to local tastes and ingredients. What I find interesting is the way that strict recipe following culture interacts with interpretive make-it-up-as-you-go culture. Take Italy for example - recipe culture is very strict - you make the dish _exactly_ the way Grandma taught you or it is wrong (and by implication bad). Italy has an incredible food culture, and this strictness has resulted in amazing food being largely unchanged for hundreds of years. Every village member has experienced the exact same lasagne for ever - even if it's just the tiniest bit different to the next village. By contrast countries with little or no food culture simply adopt and fuse everything they come across. The UK is a good example, long lambasted for bland food, there was nothing to lose and everything was assimilated. It promotes experimentation - mixing things never thought of - every day a new adventure. Each influence is named, "Indian", "Chinese", "Thai", all of which would be unrecognisable in those areas. In one sense it is none of those, it is "British" food. Thus an Indian restaurant in London does not pretend to be "authentic" (unless of course it explicitly does) - it wants to offer an amazing meal you will enjoy. An Indian meal in London is different to one in Mumbai is different to one in Beijing is different to one in Washington - and I think the world is richer for that.

astrange 5y ago
I'm not sure why everyone jokes about British food being bland. That's actually Japanese food. British food is all the same color (brown), often some kind of sludge with mystery bits in it, and they want you to try several different gross things all called "pickle", but they have spices. Mustard is a spice.
- rendall 5y ago
  Japanese food bland?
  - jmillikin 5y ago
    Traditional Japanese food (washoku, 和食) could be described as "subtle", "delicate", or maybe "mild" -- in other words, bland. The strongest flavor you're likely to encounter is pickled vegetables. Luckily, Japan has a long history of importing recipes from other cultures, for example ramen. I live in Tokyo and haven't had much success locating spicy Indian-style curry, but Sichuan-style dishes are widely available and will blow your tongue off if you're not expecting it (I didn't know what 四川 translated to at first, but I made sure to look it up later...).
    - rendall 5y ago
      Having enjoyed Japanese food all around the world, including when I lived in Japan, speaking personally, "bland" would not be my first adjective, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- hkt 5y ago
  Excuse me sir, but I am forced to correct a grievous error in your post. Some of our food is beige.
  - Beltalowda 5y ago
    I never knew it was actually possible to boil broccoli and carrots for so long they start to lose their colour. Then I moved to the UK and had dinner with my girlfriends' parents and discovered you can!
    - hkt 5y ago
      Isn't cultural exchange grand?
- toast0 5y ago
  > I'm not sure why everyone jokes about British food being bland. Mushy peas.
rendall 5y ago
> Take Italy for example - recipe culture is very strict - you make the dish _exactly_ the way Grandma taught you or it is wrong (and by implication bad). And yet, Italian food in other countries is recognizable as Italian only in that it's pasta and tomato sauce.
shagie 5y ago
At the perl conference in Monterey, (looking it up...) July of 2000 (Yep, Lingua::Romana::Perligata was introduced), my Indian co-worker and I were considering the conference lunch. Plastic boxes with a white bread BLT, ham, turkey, or just a plain LT for the vegetarians; an apple; and a bag of potato chips... it was pretty bland. So we decided to set out something better. The first restaurant we came to was an Irish pub. Looking at a map, it was probably The Crown & Anchor. We looked at the menu and I was starting to think that this wasn't going to be acceptable - it was all meat... and while that was fine for me, my coworker had other constraints... but his eyes weren't drawn to the fish and chips or steak sandwich that my eyes were - he immediately saw "curry" and "vegetable". It was a good lunch. One of the comments that he made was that with Indian restaurants, they are all very much a family's recipes and no two are the same. One shouldn't expect consistency of flavors between them. And then yes, it becomes a mix with the local styles too. But British pubs are all fairly consistent. The quality may be variable - but a British pub curry is likely going to be pretty much the same from one to another - east coast to west coast.

astrange 5y ago

I'm not sure why everyone jokes about British food being bland. That's actually Japanese food. British food is all the same color (brown), often some kind of sludge with mystery bits in it, and they want you to try several different gross things all called "pickle", but they have spices. Mustard is a spice.

rendall 5y ago
Japanese food bland?
- jmillikin 5y ago
  Traditional Japanese food (washoku, 和食) could be described as "subtle", "delicate", or maybe "mild" -- in other words, bland. The strongest flavor you're likely to encounter is pickled vegetables. Luckily, Japan has a long history of importing recipes from other cultures, for example ramen. I live in Tokyo and haven't had much success locating spicy Indian-style curry, but Sichuan-style dishes are widely available and will blow your tongue off if you're not expecting it (I didn't know what 四川 translated to at first, but I made sure to look it up later...).
  - rendall 5y ago
    Having enjoyed Japanese food all around the world, including when I lived in Japan, speaking personally, "bland" would not be my first adjective, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
hkt 5y ago
Excuse me sir, but I am forced to correct a grievous error in your post. Some of our food is beige.
- Beltalowda 5y ago
  I never knew it was actually possible to boil broccoli and carrots for so long they start to lose their colour. Then I moved to the UK and had dinner with my girlfriends' parents and discovered you can!
  - hkt 5y ago
    Isn't cultural exchange grand?
toast0 5y ago
> I'm not sure why everyone jokes about British food being bland. Mushy peas.

rendall 5y ago

> Take Italy for example - recipe culture is very strict - you make the dish _exactly_ the way Grandma taught you or it is wrong (and by implication bad). And yet, Italian food in other countries is recognizable as Italian only in that it's pasta and tomato sauce.

shagie 5y ago

At the perl conference in Monterey, (looking it up...) July of 2000 (Yep, Lingua::Romana::Perligata was introduced), my Indian co-worker and I were considering the conference lunch. Plastic boxes with a white bread BLT, ham, turkey, or just a plain LT for the vegetarians; an apple; and a bag of potato chips... it was pretty bland. So we decided to set out something better. The first restaurant we came to was an Irish pub. Looking at a map, it was probably The Crown & Anchor. We looked at the menu and I was starting to think that this wasn't going to be acceptable - it was all meat... and while that was fine for me, my coworker had other constraints... but his eyes weren't drawn to the fish and chips or steak sandwich that my eyes were - he immediately saw "curry" and "vegetable". It was a good lunch. One of the comments that he made was that with Indian restaurants, they are all very much a family's recipes and no two are the same. One shouldn't expect consistency of flavors between them. And then yes, it becomes a mix with the local styles too. But British pubs are all fairly consistent. The quality may be variable - but a British pub curry is likely going to be pretty much the same from one to another - east coast to west coast.