There is this pervasive stereotype which persists that British food is bad. Partly this is because it is played up for laughs and partly because what is seen as stereotypical British food is not regarded as highly as fine French or Italian food, or as diverse as what is found in other places. The truth actually lies somewhere both in the middle and nowhere near this at all.
The internet is very much to blame for this current reinforcement of the stereotype; which isn't helped by insular American pundits who genuinely don't have a clue what British people eat, or what they like. Instead, there is this weird projection of what midwestern white people in America eat, onto a nation on the other side of the Atlantic, whose most popular cuisine by far is what is found in curry houses. I have even seen people on the interwebs say they would make a fortune by opening a proper Southern food restaurant in the UK but that presumes the British palette is similar to what is found in the United States.
There is even the allegation that what exists now in Britain's curry houses isn't British; even though a lot of what you will find in Britain bears no resemblance to what exists in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, et cetera. This in itself displays a certain level of racism, because British South Asians have lived in Britain for ten generations in some cases and are just as every bit as British as the stereotypical white folk.
The whole reason for empire in the first place when all reduced to tin tacks, was at its naked beating heart, purely about the pursuit of profits. The whole raison d'etre for every empire in the history of the world has always been about profits. Whether it is Roman Imperial Power smashing Europe, Mongol horsey horsepower starting and winning land wars in Asia, the Spanish Conquistadors and their discovery of the New World and the people and the stuff to be exploited, or the British stealing countries with the cunning use of flags, empire has always chased after gold and money - LOADSAMONEY! Specifically, the curious case of the British in India, started because the British East India Company wanted to spin a profit by the spice trade. If we anonymise this sentence, then a Company looking to do a Trade for Profits, is not particularly all that difficult to understand.
The whole point of the British being in India at all, was initially to buy and trade spices. It seems illogical that if the British East India Company arrived in India to buy and trade spices that literally none of those spices would find their way to Britain. Also when you consider native sauces like Horseradish, HP, Daddy's Favourite, and Hot English Mustard which is considerably hotter and madder than French Mustard, the arrival of spice in Britain seems like a natural extension. The fact that curries like Rogan Josh and Vindaloo which are sometimes hotter and madder than what you will find on the subcontinent, means that curry houses and spices generally, just like everything else that the British stole, are British now. The only difference between curry and everything else that the British stole is that you can not put curry in the British Museum. Of course this does beg the question of whether or not South Asian food being made in Britain, make the food British. YES IT DOES. Is South Asian food being made in Britain, British? YES IT IS.
This general question of whether or not something which was foreign and has now been absorbed into the adoptive culture, is surely a matter of time and evolution. The idea that you would put chips and curry in the same box is likely an affront to the nation of India but in Britain, got for it.
The pizza as most of us know it today, has its progenitor at a restaurant called "Lombardi's" in New York City in 1905. Granted that in 1905 those mad Italian lads probably did use al their skill and prowess which they had gained from their Mamma Mia as little bambinos but as best as I can determine, they were using ingredients which they could find in the immediate area; which included German sausage.
If you run the clock way way forward in time, the invention of a "Hawaiian" pizza by a Greek man in Toronto, which then memetically found its way everywhere, is also very much not Italian. If you think that a Domino's Hawaiian pizza is Italian, you need your head examined. I would argue that even if you had a pizza made in Italy, by Italians, and all of the ingredients were sourced locally, then a Domino's Pizza is still not Italian food. Pizza has had so long of a time to be American that there are even sub-variants within America. New York Style, Chicago Deep Dish, Philly Style... The pizza as most people know it, the Hot Dog as most people know it, and the Hamburger as most people know it, are not Italian and German but as American as Apple Pie (which itself is not British).
Consider the Spring Roll or the Chiko Roll in Australia. This particular iteration of the Spring Roll was first invented in Melbourne in the 1950s, when someone came up with the idea of deep frying a way more doughy version than you will ever find in China, as a thing which could be held by people in one hand when they were watching Australian Rules Football.
The same people who want to make the point that a Curry must be Indian, or that a Pizza must be Italian, have also tried to convince me that a Spring Roll must be Chinese. To them I put forward the question, in what world would any self-respecting Chinese person claim that this glorious abomination, is in any way Chinese? These things are likely going to be sold in the same places that will do Fish And Chips, or a Hamburger with beetroot and egg on it, and apart from the fact that they are a golden brown fried pipe of dubious and unknown ingredients, they in no way resemble their cousins from China. If this iteration of a Spring Roll, is sold only in Australia; is it still Chinese?
Likewise I would argue that the Halal Snack Pack (HSP), while it once upon a time might have been claimed by as many countries as Greece, Türkiye, Syria, Lebabnon, Palestine, and maybe Egypt, if it is not already then it is very much on its way to being claimed by us in Australia. Quite frankly the only people who object to the HSP, are those white people cosplaying as rural farmers and who are offended at mayonnaise for being too spicy, or those people from the richer parts of the cities who don't do any real work other than move the giant pile of money around and claim that there's too many immigrants but are happy to collect dividends and rents. My prediction is that by 2050, HSP will join the unholy Australian canon with Meat Pies, Spring Rolls, and the Flat White.
In fact, to close the loop here, a client of ours who had recently been to Egypt to see the things that one does on a stereotypical holiday in Egypt (the Pyramids, the Valley of the Kings, the Sphinx, et cetera), said that they found something on sale in Cairo at a street-food shop called the "Australia Box", which is our old friend the HSP. This is the world come to us, wrangled and remanufactured, before being transformed and sent back into the world again.
I have no way to quantify this but I will suggest that the time it takes for a thing to be absorbed and actually become part of the country which it now finds itself in, is likely about 50 years. That's just enough time for the first of a generation to become grandparents and for the children of children to grow up in a world which they only know as the country they find themselves in. They do not have an adoptive country. They are not the children of immigrants. They ARE the current cutting edge of culture generally.
A British Curry is British... and a Vindaloo? It's very very English. How English? This English:
Me and me Mum and me Dad and me Gran,
Me and me Mum and me Dad and me Gran,
VINDALOO, VINDALOO, VINDALOO, VINDALOO, nah nah.
VINDALOO, VINDALOO, VINDALOO, VINDALOO, nah nah.
VINDALOO, VINDALOO, and we all like Vindaloo. (We're Eng-er-land)
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