[1] For varied definitions of "amazing", such as "conquer countries 10x your size", "invent 20 sports the entire world plays", etc.
The UK never conquered Argentina or Brazil yet if you'd look at football fans in both countries you'd think Argentina or Brazil not only invented football itself, but they also built an entire cult around it :-p
Britain didn't actually "overpower" India as much as gain traction by presenting themselves as a less bad alternative than some of the existing ones, for several major regions they conquered. They were even financed by major Bengali bankers for their conquest.
India was possibly the big outlier in this regard, ergo the whole "crown jewel of the empire" angle.
Read this: https://a.co/d/7r25CnA - The Anarchy by William Dalrymple.
> What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.
The UK has the exact opposite of this. Everything that's for sale here is finely graded according to the buyer's budget and taste. Where someone chooses to do something as innocuous as their grocery shopping in the UK says an awful lot about them.
If you visit the UK without an awareness of all these little class indicators, you'll probably find yourself frequenting establishments that target the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, because discretion is highly valued by those at the top. There is truly excellent food to be had here - British cheeses win more international awards than French ones, for example - but if you don't know where to find the good stuff, you'll end up getting the slop the lower orders have to put up with.
Just sayin', I went shopping in... Denver? Let's just say that there was a mall with a bunch of shops and further down the street another bunch of shops.
The public at Nordstrom was wildly different than at the Gap which was also different than the one at Ross.
Similar story for stuff like Walmart versus Whole Foods.
The US has a lot of social stratification, too. They just like to ignore those parts, especially in their advertising.
Everywhere does social stratification, but nowhere does it like Britain.
In the US class distinction is (almost) entirely down to money. If you’re rich you can buy nicer things than someone poorer and so you can be immediately sorted into a higher social class.
In the UK just because you’re rich that doesn’t make you upper class. British society is riddled with subtle dress coding, language, and social cues designed to trip people up and differentiate the nouveau riche from the real old money aristocracy.
It's just slower and doesn't include you directly, true.
I grew up in the UK but I've lived for 15 years all over the US, and it's always confused me that Americans are convinced that British food is bad. On a whole, British supermarkets have far better produce, in both quality and diversity. UK restaurants run the gamut from cutting edge fine dining and wonderful traditional food to home-grown variants of immigrant cuisine. It's a great place to eat.
My home town is legendary for Indian restaurants—to the extent that Birmingham-style Balti curries have made their way back to India. Before you claim that this is Indian food, not British, can you name an American dish that wasn't developed by immigrants?
Home cooking is far more popular in the UK than the US: anecdotally, most British people cook most meals at home, while few of my American friends know how to boil an egg and rely almost entirely on take-out. British celebrity chefs and cooking shows are famous worldwide. It's odd to claim that British food sucks while binge-watching our prime-time baking show!
I love America and a lot of things are better over here, but food—unfortunately for me—is not one of them.
I find it fascinating that being viewed as nuveau riche is a bad thing or 'lesser than' old money, when the money all buys the same access and privilege.
In the states we have New England waspy types that have families that go back to the mayflower or whatever. But it's pretty easy to ingrain yourself in their small society (as long as you have assloads of money), and flat out lie about your background if needed. I'm wondering if it's the same in the UK or not.
* Noblesse Oblige[0] Mostly about vocabulary, and very outdated (1950s)
* The English Gentleman[1] Only about aristocratic men, and comedic in style
* Class: A View from Middle England (Jilly Cooper) Very 1970s
* Watching the English[2] Not specifically about social class, but class comes up a lot.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_Oblige_(book)
Having money doesn’t easily buy you a hereditary lordship. You might be able to buy a load of land but probably not a prestigious ancient estate because the families that own them would usually rather let them fall into disrepair than sell them.
Money will buy your kids a place in prestigious public (read: private) school so they can rub shoulders with upper class kids and have connections when they grow up. But those upper class friends will always know that you and your kids are really just jumped up middle class since your great great great great grandfather wasn’t the Duke of Norfolk or some such.
For reference Kate Middleton’s family are wealthy multi-millionaires, and have been wealthy going back to the 19th century. When she married Prince William the press still waxed lyrical about the fact that the Prince of Wales was marrying a “commoner”.
Really the only rock solid way to wash away the middle class stink from your kids is to marry into the real top level of the upper class.
FWIW, I'd say that while Gordon Ramsey is a good cook, obviously, he's a celebrity because he's hilarious. That is definitely something I will give credit to the British for.
Still, can't beat a good British fried breakfast.
I highly recommend you check out this book:
https://www.phaidon.com/store/cookbooks-food-and-drink/the-b...
I'm not sure I made a generalization about America besides the quality and diversity of supermarket food, and an anecdote about how many of my friends cook at home.
And since most American food has also made its way to the UK, there's really not a great deal of difference.
If you claim otherwise (and claim that Wikipedia is an inadequate source), that's fine, but show your evidence.
The above link resolves to this, so folks don't have to indulge in the click-tracking:
I still think doing your whole food shop at M&S is 'higher class' than doing it at Waitrose, but it's weird because of the M&S Simply Food shops which are more geared I think to somebody in a city buying a day or two's food.
And you are right, class is much much more complicated than just money :-)
I consider Tex-Mex as American and home grown. It also depends on your definition of "immigrants" since that path looks different everywhere (and across time). Texas was at one time Mexico (and even its own country plus a few others). But tortillas, beans, corn, cornbread are Native American. Many have simply lived here through generations and name changes.
I would also argue for BBQ[0]. I had to double check, but according to that wiki page it was from the Taíno who had inhabited Puerto Rico, which is part of America; which was acquired by Columbus, then brought to the mainland by the Spanish. Since Texas was a part of Spain for some time, there is a case to be made that the dish was not by immigrants if looked at from that angle.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue_in_the_United_States
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(there's probably room for a conquer <-> conker joke though)
The difference with Tex-Mex is that its foundational items are Native American, so the distinction, imo, is that the main ingredients and how they are used is from America. Even though the Americas were populated by pacific islanders/Asians, no one would call Tex-Mex Asian food.
I don't know a lot about the making of Indian food, but I have not yet heard the argument that the base ingredients/spices and how they are used come from the British Isles. That's how I would "draw the line" in determining if it's British or Indian food.
That said, the best Indian food I have had was in London
So while I see your point, I wouldn't say a cuisine is always "from" the same place as its ingredients.
"Association football in itself does not have a classical history.[26] Notwithstanding any similarities to other ball games played around the world, FIFA has described that no historical connection exists with any game played in antiquity outside Europe.[3] The history of football in England dates back to at least the eighth century.[33] The modern rules of association football are based on the mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played in the public schools of England."
So, yeah. There are similar games. But the game in England is not an import.