The phrase "fine dining" has crept into everyday vocabulary, the race for Michelin Stars is long and hard fought and even the traditional sandwich shop has been invaded by sun dried tomatoes and pesto infused ciabatta.
As everyone knows the world has become a smaller place with the culture, food and fashions of once foreign countries being not only accepted, but embraced.
But with sushi readily available on the supermarket shelves and with noodlebars selling 21st-century fast food, are Britain's own culinary traditions in danger of being forgotten amid a flood of foie gras burgers and Heston Blumenthal-sytle molecular gastronomy?
It was this very fear which prompted food writer William Black to embark on a coast to coast journey of Britain seeking out disappearing specialties and the resulting book, The Land That Thyme Forgot, is the food world's answer to Bill Bryson.
Starting in Preston with tripe and cow heel, Black also took in black pudding in Bolton, potted shrimps and cockles in Morecambe Bay and Yorkshire's own fat rascals.
"It all began in the South of France," says Black. "There was eight of us sat around a table and as often happens the conversation eventually turned to food. When I told them for my next book I was thinking of looking at British food all I got was a few mirthful expressions."
Undaunted, Black set off and after weeks of travelling and indulgence, the picture of Britain's culinary heritage was not an altogether happy one.
"As I travelled the country I did get a sense of a revival in regional food, but it seemed a very one-sided, haphazard affair. Yes, farmer's markets are springing up all over the place and these arenas at least allow us to talk to producers and begin to amass a degree of awareness about food, nutrition and seasonality, but at a price.
"Much of the produce seems so insanely expensive to most of us when compared to the mass-produced pap we are accustomed to buying in the local super-market that we often find it hard to get it into perspective. Any good food market is perceived to be elitist."
Stopping in North Yorkshire for the Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Society's annual show and following the inevitable tourist trail to Whitby for fish and chips and Harrogate's Betty's tea rooms, while some traditions were alive and well they seem to be surviving in the face of much adversity.
"The parkins and fat rascals of a Yorkshire tea are all part of an almost lost but evocative past," adds Black.
"Is it just too late for us ever to revive this disappearing gastronomy? Quite possibly But we can nag and search for this golden grail, a renascent British food culture has to be more than the ability to buy carrots with mud on them and the odd farmhouse cheese.
"Sometimes I do think I have become a gastronomic fascist, but when we have some decent raw materials around again, why can't we learn to use them and to cook those fantastic dishes which were once part of the staple British diet."
sarah.freeman@ypn.co.uk
The Land That Thyme Forgot, published by Bantam Press, priced £16.99 is available through the Yorkshire Post Bookshop on 0800 0153232. Postage and packing costs £1.95).

The dishes that thyme forgot
Boiled Baby: A boiled suet pudding with nutmeg, raisins and cinnamon.

Clanger: Originating from Bedfordshire, a suet crust pastry with meat at one end and jam at the other made for the hardworking menfolk by their ever-loving wives to keep them fuelled up for a day at the farm.

Elder: Until recently sold in the offal farms of northern England, not however the fruit, but the less glamorous pressed udder.

Frumenty: A thick, sweetened, porridgey goo made from cracked wheat, almonds, cream, currants, sugar, rum and saffron. Was once served as an accompaniment to meat.

Hindle Wakes: Boiled fowl stuffed with prunes and served with a rich lemony butter sauce, garnished with herbs.

Salamangundie: Traditionally eaten during Lent, it refers to a cold dish made from eggs, anchovies, onions, chicken, grapes.