Travelling home along Britains ‘A’ roads, and stopping for food can be gastronomically challenging. If it’s a long journey you don’t want to stop at half-a-dozen pubs and check them out before getting back in the car, because they’re not good enough; you’d never get where you’re going. So you stop at the first one you like the look of and put up with whatever they happen to serve. Sometimes the pubs aren’t at the side of the road either, and you follow a road-sign that says ‘Pub 1 mile’, then it’s just pot luck.

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The mediocrity, or down-right poor quality of food the British people will accept without complaint is astounding. I know, I’m a Brit who doesn’t like to complain, and I’ve just come back from a holiday during which every evening meal was awful.

Pub food

On our recent visit to Devon my wife and I were camping within walking distance of four pubs that served food. It was a little out of season, but we were far from the only trade; there was enough business to make a profit. In season there will be enough people staying locally either camping, caravanning, or in rented cottages, and B&Bs, that these pubs will all be full every night, and people will be queuing to eat in them because there’s nowhere else for miles.

All of these pubs had traditional British pub fare, scampi and chips, fish and chips, steak and ale pie with new potatoes (or chips) and veg, lasagne with salad (or chips), you know the sort of thing I mean. The fact that their menus were almost identical, and that we were likely to eat in all of them, seeing as we were staying so close, gave a good opportunity to compare. So read the comparison…

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