British cuisine does not fare well on the continent
Europe has a strong culinary heritage, with many across the continent fiercely proud of their national cuisine, and people travelling from all over the world to try some of Europe’s famous dishes. Studies suggest that Europe accounts for a third of the global food tourism market, and 3-5% of tourists in Europe are purely culinary tourists.
But what do Europeans themselves make of the global gastronomy offering? We asked people in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden to pick up to three cuisines they enjoy the most, and their ultimate favourite – as well as which they think are worst.
Britain
Britain is the only country surveyed where more people placed another country’s cuisine in their top three than its own, with Italian food claiming a top three spot for almost half of Britons (49%). British food does, at least, come in a very close second, on 48%.
Britain is again different to the rest of Europe in that it is much more likely to enjoy Chinese and Indian cuisine than anywhere else. Four in ten (40%) Brits put Chinese in their top three, far ahead of the 22% of Germans who are next most likely. Similarly, only 3-11% of those in other European countries would say Indian is in the three cuisines they enjoy the most, compared to 39% of Brits.
When asked to choose their number one favourite cuisine, a quarter of the British public (25%) chose British food, 23% chose Italian and 15% chose Indian.
When it comes to the cuisines the British public like the least, American and Japanese top the list, with 15% ranking either cuisine among the three cuisines they least enjoy, alongside 10% of those who chose French and German food.
The cuisine Britain thinks is the worst is American at 17% – it seems the special relationship doesn’t extend to food!
Elsewhere in Western Europe
While all of the continental countries surveyed put their own national dishes first, Italian food consistently takes the runner-up spot. Outside of Italy itself, between 38% and 55% of continental countries surveyed had Italy’s cuisine in its three they most enjoy.
Italians themselves clearly agree that their food is superior. Nine in ten Italians (92%) include their own food in their top three rankings, with almost exactly the same number (90%) giving it the number one spot.
This is by far the highest rate of preference for the national cuisine on both measures. The Spanish are the second most likely to say that their own style of cooking is their favourite, at 70%, followed by the French on 63%, before a big drop for Swedes (42%), Germans (39%) and Danes (36%), and then with the Britons at the bottom of the table on 25%.
The contempt on the continent for British cuisine is obvious. Antipathy for our food is highest in France, where disdain for our cooking has led them to dub Britons ‘les rosbifs’ – 25% of French people say British cuisine is the worst, notably ahead of second-worst American cuisine (17%).
Our food is also dubbed the worst by the largest number of Swedes (24%), Spaniards (19%) and Germans (19%), while in Denmark we are tied with German cuisine on 14%, marginally behind American food at 15%.
Curiously, Italians do not have the most negative view of our cuisine – in fact, at 9%, British cuisine ranks fourth overall. Italians are most likely to despise American cuisine – perhaps because of their bastardisation of pizza and other Italian dishes – at 20%, with Chinese cuisine the second most disliked overall (15%) and Indian third (10%).
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Photo: Getty
