Immigration and the making of British food

Historian article

By Panikos Panayi, published 8th July 2020

Panikos Panayi explores the way in which immigration has transformed British eating habits over the last two centuries, whether through the rise of the restaurant and the development of eating out, or the culinary revolution at home.

Those people who voted to leave the European Union in 2016 because of their hostility towards migrants either did not know or, more likely, did not care about the impact of migration on British society, especially on the food which they eat. While in much mainstream media discourse, immigration into Britain began with the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948, regarded as the inauguration of multiracial Britain, followed, in the twenty first century, by the increase of (especially east) European migration, in reality Britain has a history of foreign settlers which long predates the Second World War... 

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