Moaning about the lack of British Food when abroad

It is madness really. I love trying different foods on holiday. However I always take my own teabags! I have done this for many years. Even in the UK!

They go abroad for the sunshine! Then want to eat the diet they have at home. I saw a map yesterday that over 50% of British food purchases were of ultra-processed food, the highest in Europe. The lowest was Portugal at 14%

On Ramblers holidays, in various parts of Europe, I had some of the finest breakfasts ever - and one of the worst. the best was in a big hotel in Seville - a buffet with all kinds of fruit and several varieties of bread with big bowls of jam. The worst was in the Spanish town of Caceres, well off the tourist track, and I'm pretty sure we were the only foreigners present at their St Georges Day fiesta. The breakfast was a kind of almost inedible biscuit with barely drinkable tea and/or coffee. Years later, in Granada, my sister and I breakfasted in a workmen's café, on hot chocolate and churros! Our choice. Austrian breakfasts were filling (well,we were 'rambling') but no sign of 'English' food.
To digress from the subject of 'English' food: a typical Scottish breakfast would, of course, feature porridge, followed by a fry-up including most of the 'English' items plus square sausage, black pudding and almost anything that can be fried (no, not Mars Bars) - maybe even haggis.
According to messages on a Facebook forum, this breakfast is a big hit with American tourists.

Probably over many years with so many British holidaymakers and residents lots of places now have cafes, restaurants, and bars selling food to accommodate the British taste. Some of those places are run by exPats. Very narrow minded holidaymaker.

"Nowt as queer as folk", as the saying goes. We have just been to Switzerland and thoroughly enjoyed the Swiss cuisine. However, the ex in-laws always looked for the British cafés as they wouldn't eat "that foreign muck". I never did find out why they bothered to go abroad.

This reminds me of the Catherine Tate sketches about the couple who hate foreign food. 🤣🤣

I worked as a holiday rep in the late 90s and right through the noughties and into the 2010s and I would say 50% of the complaints related to the food, generally without real cause. But people complained about anything and everything, I swear some people only go on holiday with the intention of complaining so that they can get compensation to pay towards there next holiday.

I remember one particular hotel guest who actually brought a notebook and pencil on holiday with him, in which he wrote down all the complaints from that day which he brought to me everyday for the duration of his 2 week holiday. You couldn't make it up!!

I always bring my Weetabix and teabags!

I had a cuppa on Southend seafront on Wednesday, took it back and got a refund, it was vile! If I’m going somewhere for a fortnight I still want to enjoy my normal breakfast and cuppa.

Have to say I’ve travelled all over the world and love to embrace the culture and experience different local foods that’s all part of the fun ( and I ve had some really weird stuff ) but one thing I always do is take tea bags with me lol 😂

I always carry Yorkshire Tea, even when in Yorkshire. 😉

My thoughts too when I read it. I believe holiday voucher of £100 offered but not enough.

I haven’t read the article but I can imagine this woman . About 35 years ago we were on a Greek island and the couple in the next apartment were complaining that it wasn’t like Spain and they couldn’t get a full English breakfast or a Sunday roast , which they could in the area of Spain they frequent.
Regarding her colitis issues , a buffet is ideal for finding something to eat .
My friend is vegan and he prefers a buffet as he normally can find something he can eat . Plus he has something on his phone in the relative language, to describe veganism which he shows to the wait staff.
And I’m another who takes tea bags away with me . We were recently in Thailand and tea had a vanilla taste .

Cossy

She should have gone to a part of Spain that has English cafes and Irish Bars!

We too love immersing ourselves in the culture when abroad, and the food is one of the best parts!

I also read the article about this particular tourist and I recall that her, plus her daughter and cousins generally do go to Spain.
There was also an article recently about a man going into KFC and demanding ham, egg and chips! 🤣🤣🤣

Mt61

Why not just go on holiday to Blackpool if they want fry-ups & fish & chips 🙄

It’s windy & cold? Some people just like to go abroad for guaranteed hot sunny days and a dip in an hotel pool. Nothing wrong with that. They’ve paid their money …

That said at £700 all in for a week including flights, hotel accommodation and food it’s little more than £100 a day. What was she expecting for that price?

We’ve been to all inclusive hotels in Madeira and Fuerteventura and both hotels had a different cuisine each night.

How silly. Trying local food is part of the fun of overseas holidays. Having said that, we have family in Singapore and will often take a box of tea bags there as, apart from bottled water, most of the drinks are extremely sweet and I really dislike most sweet drinks. It is nice at the beginning and end of the day to have a refreshing cup of tea in the hotel room. We also take boxes of tea bags for our Singaporean friends and relatives as British style tea popular there but very expensive.

I love trying local food when I’m abroad but must admit I do take Yorkshire tea bags with me!

We have been to corfu, and there was even something my very picky youngest son could eat- and trust me his diet is limited! I and other tried other foods and i for one thought it nice, and if she was that desperate theres even a mcDonalds in corfu which is same as ours, so sons were well pleased with that, and in fact only went once!

How weird! I thought that was part of the experience of going abroad, to eat their food and sample the culture other than the sun! Nowt stranger than folk'!

To be fair, the British are not the only holiday-makers that do this.

I have no idea how large the percentage of holiday-makers who want the food they are used to when abroad is, or indeed whether one nation has more of them than the others.

I do know that I have heard many Danes, Swedes, Germans, French etc. etc. complain that they cannot find food they can recognise or want to eat when travelling.

jocork

Back in the late 60s my dad won us a family holiday to Yugoslavia - as it was known then. We could choose to go anywhere and were given a personal guide who arrangged everything for us. We stayed in a resort in Croatia called Porec. It was my first experience of 'foreign food' but we were enjoying trying new things. Most of the tourists were German at that time but on one evening we went on a trip out with other British tourists for a traditional evening in a mountain village with a meal and folk dancing. The conversations on the coach shocked us. People were speculating about the included meal and saying "I wonder if we'll get ;fish and chips!" One person expressed surprise when we passed a fuel station saying "Oh look! They have petrol stations here!" We couldn't believe the ignorance, but that was back in the days when people didn't travel as widely. I find it hard to believe there are people still behaving that way!

We went to the then Yugoslavia in the 1980s and the food was very plain but substantial.
There was more variety in the nearby German supermarket and wonderful fruit being sold at the roadside.

Back in the late 60s my dad won us a family holiday to Yugoslavia - as it was known then. We could choose to go anywhere and were given a personal guide who arrangged everything for us. We stayed in a resort in Croatia called Porec. It was my first experience of 'foreign food' but we were enjoying trying new things. Most of the tourists were German at that time but on one evening we went on a trip out with other British tourists for a traditional evening in a mountain village with a meal and folk dancing. The conversations on the coach shocked us. People were speculating about the included meal and saying "I wonder if we'll get ;fish and chips!" One person expressed surprise when we passed a fuel station saying "Oh look! They have petrol stations here!" We couldn't believe the ignorance, but that was back in the days when people didn't travel as widely. I find it hard to believe there are people still behaving that way!

Personally I wouldn’t dream of taking any food apart from chocolate abroad. Only because I couldn’t be bothered to go shopping for some. I love all types of food, every country is an experience. The only thing I was disappointed with was bullfrog in Cambodia, very dry. The tarantulas and crickets in sauce in Vietnam were delicious.

Oh yes Dickens, I agree with you.
The Daily Mail certainly has a hint of
the sniffy, pretentious Hyacith Bucket about it.
I often laugh out loud when DH buys this publication, it's just soooo achingly lower middle-Engand. 😶

photos.app.goo.gl/GiVgbEf5dDz8negr9

This was the "German Breakfast" at our resort in Lanzarote last summer.
They did variations of the Full British, and Spanish, as well 😋