The Hungry Empire: How Britain's Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World

"I think I do dare to misquote Kipling and say: What do we know of English food, who only English food know? This is a country where the national drink comes from a plant that won’t grow here: tea. It’s flavoured by another plant that won’t grow here: sugar. (Sugarcane, not sugarbeet—sugarbeet is mostly German, and didn’t get going until the nineteenth century, a long time after our sweet tooth established itself.) English food culture is contingent on our status as a mercantile empire power. The food culture we live in now is one where people identify a stir fry, or chicken tikka masala, as their favourite dish. Most people know what sushi and ramen are. The openness and plurality of food culture, especially in towns and cities, is an uncomfortable but ongoing reminder of the importance of empire. And the converse of that, of course, was why we nearly starved to death in both world wars. We were a week away from starvation in World War One due to bad planning, and it was only relentless planning in the Second World War that saved us. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . It’s interesting that the food revolution in Britain has been modelled on food cultures of France, Italy, Iberia: it’s all about the local, the local cheeses, breads, growers. That’s lovely, I’m not against it. But one reason it hasn’t percolated far down the food chain—we still eat more ultra-processed food than any other country in Europe—is because it’s inimical to the food culture we’ve historically tended to have, which is creolized dishes of the kind highlighted in Collingham’s book. That book is a wonderful introduction to, in a way, the irrelevance of trying to build for ourselves belatedly the culture that Elizabeth David thought we should have, rather than embracing what we’re actually good at, which is grabbing and reinventing things brought here by other people. Fish and chips is the English national dish, but it’s not English—it’s a weird mishmash of a Jewish dish—where they serve the fish cold—and an Irish potato leftovers dish. So: not English. I think what I’m trying to say is that what we mean by Englishness needs to be redefined. Not as mince and mashed potatoes, but as a willingness to taste and try."