Video mocking "Great" British cuisine goes viral across China with nearly 800,000 hits

The video that proclaims Brits only eat salt and potatoes has been seen by nearly 800,000 people over just four days

(Youku)

Britain is a nation that loves Chinese food.

Nevertheless, despite this love of oriental cuisine, the majority of us have been known to make the odd wise crack about Chinese food.

Whether a dodgy Chicken Chow Mein or a not so delicious Dim Sum, very occasionally we have a little chuckle about what we ate from the local Chinese the night before.

Yet, we are not alone in doing this.

Reverse the roles and it is the Chinese that also love a bit of bashing of our “potato filled” and “over salty” Great British diets… well that is according, to the latest video to take China by storm.

On Tuesday, China Radio International’s C4 comedy show uploaded a video titled ‘Taste of Britain’ a two minute jibe at British food and Chinese attitudes towards it.

Within hours it was already doing the rounds on social media and by Friday the video had already been viewed by over 600,000 people.

The video begins with the image of a Chinese butcher cutting meat with the voice-over declaring:

“Just like China, meats and fish are popular in Britain, but in order to make that meat and fish taste extra special, it has to be complemented by other ingredients. Britain only has one such ingredient.”

Can you guess what it is?

According to the video, “Britain only has one ingredient.....

The potato.”

The video then moves on to mocking Britain’s reliance on salt and accompanies this with a man eating a raw potato covered with salt.

It ends with the stating: “After tasting such a tasty snack, British people can work all day.”

As much as we Brits are known for our bad cuisine, we are also known for our ability to take the piss out of ourselves and that is the case here too.

Although the video appeared on China Radio International it was in fact the creation of British ex-pat Stuart Wiggin the host of CRI’s C4 comedy show.

Wiggins who is Oxford educated and has been living in China since 2007, said the video was aimed at highlighting how bad British companies were at marketing their goods in China.

Speaking to the South China Post he said: “We’re making fun of how bad a job Britain is doing in advertising its food.”

He added: “In China, it’s hard to do satire. [The show] is as satirical as it can be on Chinese state media. We do manage to say quite a lot.”

Following the social media success of the video, a number of Chinese citizens have shared their terrible British culinary experiences on the web.

A reporter surnamed Lin in Fujian province told the Post about her “potato nightmare” in 2007, when she was staying in Salisbury.

She said: “I had so much [potato] that month that I tried to keep away from all dishes with potatoes in them when I got back home,”

She added that night before she left her host family took her to the best restaurant in town for an expensive dinner. “[We had] saltless steamed pork and beans, I couldn’t wait to get home.”