U is for Ugly

In a nice way

Having just spent five days back in the UK after completing three months at my new job, a small realisation came to mind - British food is really ugly. I will defend the taste and quality of the food from our fair Isles but aesthetically…ugly as sin. We have some of the greatest national dishes in my very biased opinion but they are all an autumnal variation of fawn in colour and a fruit or vegetable sighting is a rarity.

Gramme, where I work, has a focus on taste (number 1) and beauty (very close second). Fresh flowers adorn each dish. Heights are created using herbs and gravity-defying leaves of frisée. Multi-coloured and carefully curated jungles are our plates.

Sprouting cresson

These plating lessons that I’ve learnt over the last few months are not specific to French cooking, but include some fundamentals that will elevate any dressage.

• Height matters. Create layers and elevation on the plate using light leaves or herbs.

• Colour coordinate. Like when putting together an outfit, think about what colours match well or equally clash well.

• Avoid uniformity and even numbers. Although it seems rational, strict structure can flatten a dish. Spontaneity in measure is key to a lively plate.

These principals, in general, are not taken into account in English cooking / plating, in fact they are rather ignored. The beauty, however, of my nation’s fare is in the generosity. The generosity of food and spirit. Take a Christmas lunch for example: This year’s was stupendously executed by my Uncle Rob, who is not my Uncle in any regular sense of the word but my Uncle nonetheless. The lunch / dinner / supper was so welcomed thanks to its abundance. We had four types of stuffing. Enough said? Four stuffings. Two potato dishes. Two variations of pigs in blankets. Three veg. Cauliflower cheese. Bread sauce. Cranberry sauce. Two gravies. Yorkshire pudding. Plus a fucking huge turkey. We ate to our hearts’ content and to our trousers’ limits and after an hours break with a competitive quiz, we ate two different puddings and a very large cheese board. Now, this may sound excessive to those who didn’t grow up with an English Christmas, but I believe that it is our way of proving love at the festive point of the year. Tensions grow high when families throw themselves together, rows arise before the big day if you accidentally eat the food that was destined for the Christmas celebrations, but when everyone is bustled around the groaning table, pulling crackers and wearing paper hats, this tension burns away like the brandy on the figgy pudding.

This generosity is all well and good and I appreciate it, however it doesn’t defer from the fact that our food is ugly. From a milky brew to fish and chips, our food begins and ends in beige. Of course, we have British fruit and veg in various colours, but the food for which we are known, a fry-up, a roast, a Vicky sponge and a scone, all have pallidity in common. We even beige-ified the colourful Indian cuisine, by bastardising the chicken Korma.

@normanscafelondon representing beige Britain

Is it comfort that we are holding onto in these familiar cream-coloured dishes or is it a resistance to change? We have numerous phrases in England that illustrate our stoicism, the mouthfuls of words that encourage the British fortitude / fatalism. Keep Calm and Carry On. Lie back and think of England. All of which read as please don’t disturb the peace but we come to a point at which the peace needs disturbing. Change seems afoot but how long will it be until we bring some colour into our lives and onto our plates?

Shopping list for you

• Propa good telly from Apple TV - Bad Sisters. An Irish crime comedy dram that had me hooked for three days straight.

• Another Irish rep - The Banshees of Inisherin serving as a reminder to keep friends close

• Karen Carpenter slashing it on the drums

• Martin Parr expo at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson