State visit offers food for thought

"British cuisine". Many readers will no doubt recoil at this phrase, believing it to be a contradiction in terms, in the same vein as "German sense of humor" or "French modesty". And since I hail from the United Kingdom, I will probably be accused of bias.

But Britain has come a long way since the days when it was noted for stodgy, plain food. A great deal has changed since Britons went to the cinema in 1963 to see the working-class slice-of-life movie Sparrows Can't Sing, when the principal character's mother, on his return from a long stint in the merchant navy, decided to celebrate her son's homecoming by making a "meat pudding".

Now, the art of cooking has become an increasingly dominant and more sophisticated feature of British culture, with a whole host of cooking shows - and their equally idiosyncratic hosts - dominating the TV schedules.