lucy24 - 7:41 pm on Jul 12, 2011 (gmt 0)

the former sounds almost as disgusting as putting custard on kippers

I've got a recipe for baked beans with chutney and a bit of honey. (Also onion and mustard and I forget the rest.) They're delicious :P

Incidentally, English food wasn't always boring. Look at cookbooks from the 17th century or earlier. Some ways into the 18th; I don't know exactly when the cutoff was. Blame it on a weird combination of socioeconomic factors, paradoxically including a quest for reliable sources of spices. Part of the tangle was the institution of "nursery food", meaning that the upper classes weren't introduced to the concept of flavor until it was too late for most.