I see in today’s Independent the BBC’s Fiona Bruce is getting stick in the British press for daring to criticise the terrible standard of British food.
She correctly points that England has several excellent restaurants but that the general standard is bad.

Now don’t get me wrong.
My very best training was in a restaurant in Kent which served beautiful food cooked by an excellent chef. I stayed there for two years and loved both the food and the friendly people.
The trouble happens when you try to get food and hospitality on busy routes.

(In fairness I must also add that it probably isn’t much better here in Ireland, I just don’t have to use these facilities here.)

All through the eighties and most of the nineties when we had but one holiday per year and, as that spent inevitably in France, we went there by the cheapest route, which was the so called “land bridge” which involved one in driving through England.
Thank God this is no longer the cheapest way to go, we had so many dreadful experiences of British hospitality that now I wouldn’t take the option unless I brought my own supply of sandwiches and a tent.

We discovered pretty early on that the food in motorway cafes in the UK was , at best, inedible, and thereafter went off motorway to eat. I wish I could report that this was an improvement.

Here is a list (in no particular order) of some of our UK travel experiences.

There was the night in one of the ferry ports where there was a bell which rang continuously all night and kept us all awake. In the morning as we left bleary eyed for the ferry we found a huddled resident who had been trying to get to his room all night by ringing the “night bell”.

There was the time in a very chi chi and totally white restaurant in Hampshire where the (very young) waitress brought us the wrong wine.
When we sent it back she arrived back tearfully from the kitchen and told us that “since it has been opened you have to drink it now”. (We did)

We arrived once (fully booked)in a pub which served organic food, only to find the son of the proprietor in charge was so drunk that one of the customers had to phone his father to get him to return and take over.

In another ferry port the managers magnanimously promised us a packed breakfast as we were leaving before they served they served theirs.
They then charged us in advance for it and didn’t leave it out.

There was the time in Folkestone when the highly recommended restaurant was having a “Salsa Night” so we were fed appalling British interpretations of South American food and our table was under a candle which dripped all over my back during the meal. When I pointed this out to the proprietor he thought it hilarious and only reluctantly gave the sop of a bottle of wine when I threw a hissy fit.

The last time we travelled through the UK we reluctantly (we were out of sandwiches) had to stop in a motorway café in Wales.
As we waded our way through a totally disgusting collation of greasy and congealed food we couldn’t help noticing two charming Welsh ladies eating, with evident relish, the very same food as us at a nearby table while chatting to each other in Welsh.
As they left they said to the waitress, “That was beautiful as always, we will see you tomorrow.”
The terrible truth struck me this this pair ate, out of choice, here, every day.
I finally understood the reason why British food is so bad.
It is because they give their customers exactly what they want.