The unheralded elements of English food

Editor’s note: Has England managed to overcome its reputation as a nation of historically underwhelming food? Considering the attention paid to the tables of “Downton Abbey,” the country’s record-breaking number of Michelin-starred restaurants, its beloved celebrity chefs and some of the most engaging food TV and magazines on the planet, we’d say so. As Clarissa Dickson Wright’ argues in “A History of English Food” (Random House, 2011), there were plenty of good bits in early eras — and ways in which English and American cooks have learned from each other.

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(Acorn Media) - Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson starred in the British cooking show “Two Fat Ladies.”

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Key points of English culinary history, from the introduction of beer to the invention of the can opener.

by Clarissa Dickson Wright

Special to The Washington Post

Turkey: indigenous to North America and the quintessential feature of Thanksgiving. And yet, by a strange quirk of history, it’s more than likely that the Founding Fathers actually carved their first turkey in England.

It is generally agreed that turkeys arrived in Europe, probably via Spain, in the early 16th century, and by the reign of King Henry VIII (1491-1547) they were to be found on many English tables. They even featured on a 1542 list, drawn up by the Archbishop of Canterbury, of what could and could not be eaten on particular days. His intention, incidentally, was to stop his fellow clergy from overindulging themselves — an endeavor in which he utterly failed.

The word “turkey” came about because early diners mistakenly assumed the bird came from the East (as did the French, who called it the “coq d’Inde,” later shortened to “dinde” or “dindon”). And the word “turkey” stuck, even though the early settlers in North America, encountering the bird running wild in their new homeland, must have spotted that someone had gotten their geography seriously wrong.

The convoluted history of the turkey nicely points up the close, sometimes complicated relationship between food in the Old World and food in the New. In the early years, inevitably, the influences tended to flow from Europe to America. I have a strong suspicion, for example, that North American clam chowder is ultimately descended from the fish and oyster stews so widely eaten in England in the 17th century, particularly in the use of crushed biscuits (now generally sprinkled on top; once used to thicken the stew) and the occasional use of pork. Similarly, cobblers, the sweet or savory dishes adorned with what are basically lumps of scone dough cut into circles and placed around the edge, were eaten in England in the Stuart era (though not called by that name) and are today popular all over the American Northeast and elsewhere.

For much of the 18th century, American cooks relied heavily on English cookbooks. “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy,” by my great culinary hero, Hannah Glasse, first published in London in 1747, was just one title to be widely reprinted in America, although with some adaptations. It was not until the appearance of Amelia Simmons’s “American Cookery . . . Adapted to This Country, and All Grades of Life” in 1796 that an American ventured into print with a recognizably American cookery book, albeit with a noticeable English accent.