The British foods that are just as good as they’ve always been

Inferior ingredients, ruined recipes and a proliferation of palm oil – “ensh-ttification” has infested all parts of modern life and our supermarket shelves are no exception.The term (first coined to describe the worsening of online services) has struck a chord with an exasperated public, weary from many years of rising prices and falling quality. It primarily describes services like Google (a shadow of its former useful self) and Royal Mail (now trying to shirk its Saturday rounds like an idle paper boy), but it applies just as much to products – such as the rapidly worsening Microsoft Windows, throwaway domestic appliances and, yes, food.I only need to type the words “Dairy Milk” or “Creme Egg” for you to know what I mean. Cadbury is probably ensh-ttification’s most notorious victim, its products having steadily worsened since being bought out by US giant Kraft (now Mondelēz International) in 2010. But flip over any of your favourite packets (likely smaller anyway thanks to “shrinkflation”) and you’ll notice similar patterns on the label – cost-cutting tweaks to established recipes, substitution of quality ingredients for cheaper ones and, often, outsourcing of production to foreign factories.Palm oil – the cheapest edible fat manufacturers can use – is everywhere. Cocoa content is falling, as is the percentage of olive oil in vegetable spreads. Pesto manufacturers are using cashews instead of more expensive pine nuts, and other hard cheeses in place of Parmesan. Ribena has a little less blackcurrant in it, Blue Riband is technically no longer a chocolate bar and Yeo Valley’s spreadable butter has just a little bit less actual butter in it. Across the board, guacamole delivers less avocado, sausages contain less pork and ready meals from almost all supermarkets are having their meat content slowly but noticeably reduced, to be replaced with cheaper filler.It’s been described as a race to the bottom. Regulatory factors such as the sugar tax contribute to this phenomenon in some circumstances, as do environmental pressures, ingredient shortages and operational considerations, but – as with all other types of ensh-ttification – this is mostly about money. Selling less of a cheaper product for a higher retail price means much better returns than leaving recipes unchanged.Kudos, then, to these so-far-untouched favourites. Let us know your go-to British foods in the comments section below.Bird’s Custard PowderDeveloped by Alfred Bird in Birmingham, because his wife was allergic to eggs, Bird’s custard powder retains its straightforward, vegan ingredient list of cornflour, salt, natural flavouring and annatto (the plant-derived food colouring) after almost two full centuries. It isn’t identical to the 1830s prototypes but it isn’t far off, and, unlike almost every other product in the pudding aisle, it doesn’t contain palm or shea oil, sweeteners or alphabet-soup emulsifiers.Owner Tate & Lyle might have given the 140-year-old dead lion logo a forgettably millennial-flavoured – sorry, “fresh and contemporary” – redesign in 2024, but the product inside (an amber-coloured form of inverted sugar syrup) remains fundamentally unchanged. Fans of the original (and frankly a bit weird) Biblical reference can still find it on the metal tins, while the squeezy plastic bottles have the stylised, cheerier (dare I say ensh-ttified) version.Lea & PerrinsDespite not being able to pronounce “Worcestershire”, the Americans managed to acquire Lea & Perrins a decade ago and produce a bastardised, sweetened version for their domestic market. However, Brits still get a plausibly authentic reflection of the historic recipe, including relatively expensive malt vinegar, which often gets swapped out for cheaper spirit vinegar in ensh-ttified condiments.Water, glucose, sugar and peppermint oil are still the only ingredients in most popular versions of this hiking snack. While other high-energy bars are about as processed and messed-around-with as possible, Kendal Mint Cake from multi-generational manufacturers like Romney’s, Wilson’s and Quiggins’ is pretty much the same as it’s always been.Gentleman’s RelishLurking unchanged in the nation’s fridge door is this mixture of anchovies, butter and spice that delivers a sophisticated but powerful umami honk to buttery toast across Britain every morning. Poland now manufactures it, and it tends to come in plastic pots rather than ceramic dishes, but it still follows the original 1820s recipe.Walker’s ShortbreadFlour, sugar and butter in a 3:2:1 ratio, with a pinch of salt, is all you should find on the ingredients list of a tin of shortbread, and Walker’s is one of the brands that has been quietly meeting this expectation for over a century. Lesser manufacturers have managed to shoehorn other fats into the recipe, sometimes in the name of veganism.A favourite of both Margaret Thatcher and Emmanuel Macron, the Fisherman’s Friend lozenge – developed and popularised by the late Doreen Lofthouse, and still manufactured in the billions by the family firm of the same name in Lancashire – contains pretty much the same eucalyptus, liquorice, sugar and an old-timey thickener called tragacanth. More than 90 per cent of Fisherman’s Friend production is exported, with over four billion individual lozenges consumed abroad each year.Uncle Joe’s Mint BallsUncle Joe’s three-ingredient Mint Balls are still produced in Wigan to the original recipe involving cream of tartar, peppermint and cane sugar, as they were in 1898. Enjoyers of no-nonsense traditional confectionery can explore the rest of the William Santus & Co range, which includes some pleasingly un-messed-around-with sweets.