Following up to Edmund Lewis

> I have never actually seen a chip buttie,
>
>Crikey! How can you live in the UK for umpteen years and not......

56 years, not a sniff of one :-)

>Why? I'm pretty sure I've seen rice with shepherd's pie too.

Haven't seen that either! My mother in law did potatoes with it
though (once).

>Even "non-traditional" food gets in on the act, eg curry with rice AND naan
>bread.

That's about learning the sub culture isn't it.

> Appreciation of food is fairly new to the UK

this is true

>I think it was appreciated to some extent pre-industrial Revolution, at
>least among the more well-to-do. However I think what we are seeing is
>a re-emergence of that appreciation.

There are books written on it, the causes are legion. Protestant
work culture, WW2 and rationing, anglo saxon culture, anti
catholicism, anti eurpoeanism, early industrialisation and so on.
Certainly, somehow, by victorian times, the young Mrs Beeton was
in position to write her definitive book setting in stone the
bad practises of her times. They are now almost gone, but while
some people used mass foreign travel to open their eyes to the
mistakes of the immediate past, some adopted the new convenience
foods that have led to Saint Jamie Olivers crusade on modern
school dinners.

> and like
>> the US, food has changed drastically over the last 30 years. It
>> hasnt reached the bottom of the pile yet, hence Jamie Oliver and
>> his school dinners campaign.
>
>Came 25 years too late for me :-)

Sounds like your mum cooked like mine :-)
--
Mike Reid
Wasdale-Thames path-London-Photos "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
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