Food and drinks in The UK

Food and drinksIn the UK

Menu

Index

Quotes

Why British cuisine has such a bad reputation?

Eating habits and attitudes

The Fat Duck

Going for an Indian

When people eat what?

The modern story of tea in Britain

Eating out

Drinks and alcohol

Pubs

Few meanings of "bar" in BE

Food in British lifestyle

Thankfulness

On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.

You can't trust people who cook as badly as that.

Why the British cuisine has such a bad reputation?

British tastes are different from everybody else's. The most common complaint is not that British food has a strange, unpleasant taste, but rather that it has very little taste at all. The vegetables, f.e., are overcooked. It is all too bland.Another possible explanation is that most visitors don't get to taste some good british dishes, cause usually they eat in some institutions such as canteens or cheep restaurants.

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The life and habits are simply not oriented to food this much.

Common healthy lifestyle.

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The origin of simple dishes.

The conservatism about British food.

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The increasing interest.

Some examples of "imported" courses.

The Fat Duck

It was something of a shock when, in 2005, an international panel of more than 600 chefs, food critics and restaurants named no less than fourteen British restaurants in the world's top 50. Number one on the list was The Fat Duck in Berkshire. This is the restaurant that introduced the world to such delicacies as sardine-on-toast sorbet, bacon and egg ice cream, snail porridge and orange and beetroot jelly. With a menu like this, British food does not look so boring after all! (Well maybe not boring, but disgusting for sure.) However, not too much can be read into this British culinary victory. The top 50 were all restaurants far beyond the pockets of most people and thus had nothing to do with their everyday experience of food.

When people eat what?

Generalizations are dangerous, we described what everyone knows about, but this is not necessarily what everybody does!

Lunch

Breakfast

Supper

1 p.m. or a little bit earlier

Morning hours

The same as "tea"

Brits usually eat 3 meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Working-class people often refer to the average meal as lunch and the evening meal as "tea" or dinner. In the North of England and Scotland there is a lighter meal known as "High Tea" usually it is a cooked dish that is the focal point, followed by a late evening snack.

Tea

Dinner

Elevenses

4 p.m. to 6 p.m., depends on the social class

Evening hours

11 a.m.

How Tea Time Came To England?

Video 1

For most of the twentieth century, tea reigned supreme in Britain. To this day, "standard" (black) tea, served strong and with milk, remains an indispensable aspect of most British households.

Eating out

What people drink?

Squash

Wine

Beer

Shandy

Cider

Rubicon

Alcohol

The British attitude to alcohol in Britain is ambivalent. On the one hand people accepted it and liked as an intergral, and some kind of culture. And the common approach to bingle drinking it that if it doesn't lead to violence, there's no shame. But on the other hand the purtain tradition has led to the widespread assumption that drinking is dangerous and should therefore be restricted both with regard to – who can do it – where it can be done

Most cafes dont serve beer or wine, and these drinks aren't as much a prat of home life as in some other European countries. For most twentieth century, pubs had strict regulations that limited their opening hours. These have now been lossened. Moreover far more stores sell alcohol than before. Howeover, the reduction in negative attitudes towards alcohol was offset by growing concerns about its healthy and safety effects. Goverment set the maximum amount of drink in a week without endangering your health. But milions of people are not paying attention to it, there has been a growing general feeling that alcohol may be harmful to you.

Most people, including regular drinkers, consider that it would be wrong to give a child even half a glass of beer. Quite often in the media there are horrors about the shocking amount of alcohol drunk by teenagers. By law people cannot be serverd or drink any kind of alcohol in pubs until the age of 18. In fact, both teen drinking and alcohol consumption are now often considered to be major social 'problems' even though Britons actually consume less alcohol per capita then many other countries in Europe. Perhaps this is because for many people, for sure, they drink in pubs.

Pubs

The British pub is unique, but not because it differs in character from other bars or cafes in other countries. In the UK, the pub is the only indoor place where the average person can comfortably meet strangers and engage in long conversations with them. In cafes or fast food outlets, it is assumed that people will eat, drink and go out. Or that in other places people feel uncomfortable. But pubs are classless, in such pubs the atmosphere is simpler and much louder than in an average restaurant with the same number of people. The local pub plays an important role in almost every neighborhood noted are predominatly for the drinking of beer and sprits.

“I'll bet what motivated the British to colonize so much of the world is that they were just looking for a decent meal."

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The area in hotel or other public place where people can buy alcoholic drinks.

The counter in a pub where you go to get your drinks.

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A place in the city center similar to a pub that offers a great variety of wines (some are called 'wine bars') and usually looks very modern. Indded these bars are relatively recent phenomenon.

4. There are different rooms in the pub. For example, a public bar had hard seats, bare floorboards, a dartboard, and other pub games, and were used by the working class. The 'bar lounge' on the other hand was used by the middle class, there was a carpet on the floor, softer seats and drinks were a bit more expensive. Some pubs also had a 'private bar' which was very exclusive.

Map - Food in each region

England

1. Fish and Chips2. Bangers and Mash3. Full English Breakfast 4. Sunday Roast5. Toad in the Hole 6. Shepherd's Pie/Cottage Pie7. Teak and Kidney Pie

Scotland

• Haggis
• Cullen skink soup
• Grouse
• Scotch Broth Soup
• Scotch Pie
• Sticky Toffee Pudding

Wales

• Welsh rarebit
• Glamorgan sausage
• Bara Brith
• Lamb cawl
• Conwy mussels
• Crempogs
• Welsh cake

Northern Ireland

• Soda bread
• Irish stew
• Colcannon and champ
• Boxty
• Boiled bacon and cabbage
• Smoked salmon
• Black and white pudding

Thank you!