Cleopatra was British.

While I was joking, of course, France's economy actually was quite a lot more bigger and more powerful than the UK's up until the industrial revolution and the about a century of everything going very badly for France. France was the most populous country in Europe by a wide margin, and back then that basically was the whole economy. It has quite a lot more land than the UK, and that land is a lot more productive too; the north of Wales and most of Scotland do not make for good farmland. Unlike Germany and Italy it united and centralised quite early, and it just outweighed Spain and the Low Countries the same way it did the UK, so for a long time France had the edge over all of its neighbours.

During the Napoleonic wars, France managed to raise forces that matched the UK, Prussia, Austria, and Spain combined in number. Some of that was due to other factors like how he organised it, but you've still got to have the people available somewhere if you want to match four major powers at once

Mmm... Deepfried Oreo butter cake... 🤤

Go to Scotland and taste the joys of a deep fried Mars bar, now you're talking!

I mean if you take it seriously we do have plenty of good and interesting food, both in traditional and modern cuisine. Hot spice isn't often a part of it, but there's lots of usage of herbs and milder spices. Laverbread, black pudding, haggis (yes, seriously), Worcestershire sauce, and Cornish herby pasty are all solid examples of very traditional foods that are pretty seasoning-forward without even touching the enormous amount of stuff we picked up from other cultures (like the curries)

That's not to say that we don't frequently earn our terrible culinary reputation. We do. Next to our neighbours like France, Spain, and Italy we just do not have the same level of widespread passion for food, and our habits reflect this. A general lack of adventurousness plagues our palates on a national level

My favourite part of British food is the way it has merged with foreign food, like the curry dishes for example.

That does also mean there aren't any British restaurants since they are usually labelled with the culture that shows there is actual flavour and not the culture famous for eating wartime food in the 21st century...

Well, there's no "British cuisine" per se, but there are British restaurants. For example a pretty famous and influential one. Also, most pubs serve food and those are now pretty much everywhere in the world, that's quite British, isn't it? Dunno the history, but I always associated it with the Brits, maybe I'm wrong.

You can't call them that dude 😳

Big if true

Most american stereotypes I understand or even represent (fat white guy with too many guns here) but I've never understood the "american food is bland" thing - I can't think of a region of the US internally known for bland food. Even the Hot Dish parts of the country strive for bold flavors. Why the hell do you think we're all so fat, if not because we have so much good food to tempt us into excess?

i grew up near a place that had something they called a ponza rotta.

it was the pizza equivalent of a chimichanga. it was a deep fried calzone. my high school had a tradition of trying to run a ponza mile instead of a beer mile. last one to puke after eating a whole ponza and running a mile won. only ever knew one person to actually finish the mile.