A very British food revolution?

Evolution or revolution? This is the million dollar question....

Let's pull no punches here, the UK has never been a hotbed of culinary delights, that is safe to say. Restaurants up and down the country were, up until relatively recently, synoymous with the same bland, uncompromising food. People lapped it up, seemingly eager to taste another variation on the Prawn Cocktail-steak and chips (well done)-black forest gateau combination, all washed down with a bottle of Blue Nun. Roll on twenty or so years and how far have we progressed?

To the casual observer, our food tastes and offerings probably won't look much different. The UK still has the base element fixated on the hearty, the quick and the convenient but look underneath all of that and the nation has started to sprout the green shutes of gastronomical recovery. Everywhere you look, even in the provincial towns of Beefeaters and Pizza Huts, independent eating establishments are sprouting up on every corner. It's as if the British have finally awoken after a hundred years of culinary hibernation, but where do the root's of this awakening lye?

We have, for a number of years, looked out over the Channel with a kind of ornate bitterness. It's as if we accept the fact the French, the Italians and even the German's just have a better notion of food. Despite the fact that food still played a significant part in our lives, most families still eat dinner around the table together, the actual food was in some respects, a means to an end. Over the past few years, maybe down to the proliferation of celebrity chefs and their television programmes, our apprecation and clamour to provide the best has steadily increased. Eating freshly prepared, locally sourced and organic meals is no longer the pursuit of the middle classes. Now, singles, couples and families up and down the country seem to share the same vision of increasing freshly prepared and homecooked food into their diets, and this can be nothing but a good thing. The result is that people identify with food, they see their relationship with the process of creation and want to share and enjoy that relationship with others.

There was a time, long ago, when Britain was at the forefront of gastronomy, war and convenience put paid to that. Recession and the ensuing increase in food prices have given a not-totally unexpected silver lining to our relationship with food. People now 'grow there own' and ignore the senseless 'best before' and 'sell by' dates that tempt people into wasting incredible food. Above all, people seem to want to spend the little money they do have on experiencing and rejoicing in food and the atmosphere that it can create. So in a way, we have experienced a mini-food revolution, and long may the battle continue.