DEMIDOV YAROSLAVL STATE UNIVERSITY

Department of Foreign Languages

British Studies
Coursework

FOOD IN GREAT BRITAIN. BRITISH EATING STYLE.

Student
Khazova Svetlana
Supervisor of
studies
Ozerova A.V.

Yaroslavl
2020
 Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………3
Chapter 1. The history of food in Great Britain………………………………….5
Chapter 2. Traditional food in England…………………………………………..8
Chapter 3. Traditional food in Wales and Scotland……………………………..13
Chapter 4. Meals in Britain……………………………………………………...18
Chapter 5. British traditional etiquette…………………………………………..22
Chapter 6. Eating out in Great Britain…………………………………………..25
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………28
References………………………………………………………………………29

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 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, it’s impossible to imagine our life without international contacts.

The opening of the borders let people travel around the world, communicate with
people from different countries, establish diplomatic relations with different states.
But for successful development of contacts in economic and other spheres of life
we should know about cultural traditions, customs and habits of those places,
which we would like to visit. So the national eating habits and etiquette rules are
the essential part of culture in any country. That is why, the study of national
cuisine is actual now.

Today, the UK or Britain is one of the most interesting and industrial

countries and its food is famous all over the world. And of course, the specific
geographical position has influenced it. Britain is an island between the North Sea
and the Atlantic Ocean. Besides, Britain has a very interesting history. The Celts,
Romans, Normans and other tribes of invaders were here. And, everybody has
made the mark.

The aim of the work is to explore British cuisine and the influence of the
food on its history and culture.

The subject of my research is the history, development and features of

national food in Great Britain.

The object of my research is national cuisine of Great Britain.

The main problems of this study are:

-to gather, organize and analyze information about the food in Great Britain:
their history and development; their regional features (Scotland, Wales, England);
the British take-away food; the kinds of meals; the British etiquette rules;

-to develop abilities of using original source of information and practical

skills to deciding specific targets;

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 -to extend the knowledge of British food and to form the certain conclusion;

The practical value of the research: is to obtain the new aspects of

national cuisine in Great Britain. The results of my research can be used by
students in the course of British Studies.

The coursework contains 6 chapters. In chapter 1 you can study the history
of the kinds of meals in Britain. Chapter 2 and 3 contain information about
national dishes of Wales, Scotland and England. Chapter 4 is devoted to kind of
meal in Great Britain. You can also learn about modern British food rules and
eating out in Great Britain from chapter 5 and 6.

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 Chapter 1. The history of food in Great Britain

The history of Britain has played a large part in its traditions, its culture and
its food. Every nation, who lived in Britain, have brought new kinds of products
and dishes. Romans have brought cherries, stinging nettles (to be used as a salad
vegetable), cabbages and peas. Also they improved the cultivation of crops such as
corn. And Romans brought wine. The Saxons were excellent farmers and
cultivated a wide variety of herbs. The Vikings and Danes brought the techniques
for smoking and drying fish. So, for example, the North East coasts of England and
Scotland are the places to find the best kippers today - Arbroath Smokies.
"Collops" is an old Scandinavian word for pieces or slices of meat, and a dish of
Collops is traditionally served on Burns Night (25th January) in Scotland. York
Ham is a great favorite with the British housewife. The first York Ham is said to
have been smoked with the sawdust of oak trees used in the building of York
Minster. But the Normans invaded not only Britain, but also its eating habits. So,
they encouraged the drinking of wine and also gave Britain the famous today
Britain’s products food: mutton (mouton) and beef (boeuf).

Nowadays, in British cooking people use saffron. It is very interesting, that

this product was first introduced into Cornwall by the Phoenicians at a very early
date when they first came to Britain to trade for tin. Safron derived from the dried
and powdered stigmas of the saffron crocus. In fact, the importation of foods and
spices from abroad has greatly influenced on the British diet. They say in the
Middle Ages, wealthy people were able to cook with spices and dried fruits from
as far away as Asia, in contrast the poor people were lucky to eat at all!

Later, in Tudor times, people started to discovery new lands, that is why new
products were brought: spices from the Far East, sugar from the Caribbean, coffee
and cocoa from South America, tea from India. Also, at this time in Britain
American Potatoes began to be widely grown. In November 1577 Sir Francis
Drake, during his voyage round the world, put into port in Chile and recorded that
‘the people came down to us at the waterside with shew of great curtesie to bring
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us potatoes, rootes and two very fat sheepe’. The Germans later erected a statue to
Drake as the discoverer of the potato in the town of Offenburg but it was removed
by the Nazis. In the early days it was a luxury product, two pounds of potatoes
being supplied to Queen Elizabeth I for five shillings (25p) – far more than a
working man’s weekly wage at the time.

The socioeconomic development in Britain and their growth has been the
reason of international contacts and people started to travel into and out of Britain.
So, the new tastes and flavours were born. For instance, Kedgeree. It’s a version of
the Indian dish Khichri and it was first brought back to Britain by members of the
East India Company. It has been a traditional dish at the British breakfast table
since the 18th and 19th centuries.

There are some dishes, that were discovered in England:

1)1762. The sandwich. There is a town, named Sandwich, in the south of

England. John Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich invented a small meal, that could be
eaten with one hand, while he continued his nonstop gambling.

2)1902. Marmite. It is dark brown-coloured savoury spread made from the

yeast that is a by-product of the brewing industry. It has a very strong, slightly
salty flavour.

3)At the end of 19th centuary. HP Sauce. It was invented by Mr FG Garton, a

Nottingham grocer. He was down on his luck and couldn’t pay his bills, so when
Edwin Samson Moore, owner of the Midland Vinegar Company, offered to cancel
his debt with the company and pay him £ 150 for the recipe, plus the use of the
name HP, Garton jumped at the chance. Moore had been looking around for some
time for a sauce to manufacture and market. He liked both the taste and the name
of Garton’s HP Sauce, which had an appropriately patriotic ring to it. The HP
stood for Houses of Parliament, as it was rumoured that the sauce had been seen
gracing the tables of one of the dining rooms there.

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 4)1837. Worcestershire Sauce (Worcester Sauce). John Lea and William
Perrins of Worcester, England started manufacturing Worcester Sauce. It was
originally Indian recipe, brought back to Britain by Lord Marcus Sandys, ex-
Governor of Bengal. He asked two chemist John Lea and William Perrins, to make
up a batch of sauce from his recipe.

So, as we have said above, the modern British diet consists of not only from
national products, which was the result of living their different nations, but also
from imported products from different countries and continents.

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 Chapter 2. Traditional food in England

Today, the most popular English national meals are fish and chips, Roast
beef and Yorkshire pudding (the pudding is made with a flour base and cooked
under the roast, allowing the fat from the meat to drop onto it). The fact is that
every region of England has its specialties. So, in Ely, lying in the marshy fen
district of East England, it is the eel pie with a twiggy seaweed. The East End of
London has quite a few intriguing old dishes, among them tripe and onions. In
winter, Dr. Johnson’s favorite tavern, the Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street, offers a
beefsteak-kidney-mushroom-and-game pudding in a suet case; in summer, there’s
a pastry case. East Enders can still be seen on Sunday at the Jellied Eel stall by
Petticoat Lane, eating eel, cockles (small clams), mussels, whelks, and winkles –
all with a touch of vinegar.

So, let’s look at the main national dishes of England:

1)Fish and chips. It’s Britain’s culinary gift to the world. Fish and chips are
first recorded as being offered by a Jewish fishmonger called Joseph Malin in the
East End of London in 1860, though its origins as a meal lie much further back.
Fried fish was a traditional Jewish dish which had been introduced to England
when the Jews were invited back to England by Oliver Cromwell, after their
expulsion by Edward I (who owed them money) in 1290. Chips probably
originated in Belgium, the first reference to them in England being found in
Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities in 1859 where he refers to ‘husky chips of
potatoes, fried with some reluctant drops of oil’. The dish rapidly became a
popular, cheap and nourishing food, and its popularity grew in World War II when
it was one of the few foods that was not subject to any kind of rationing. The long
tradition of eating them as a takeaway with salt and vinegar, wrapped in
newspaper, was a casualty of the health alarms of the 1970s when it was suggested
that the ink used on newspapers might be toxic but the food remains one of
Britain’s most popular dishes, with over 8,600 fish and chip shops in Great Britain.

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A variant of the traditional dish, fish fingers, were first produced in Grimsby in
1955 and remain extremely popular with children.

So, fish and chips is a balanced meal of carbohydrate (chips), protein (fish),
and fats (in the batter around the fish and in vegetable oils). Fresh cod is the most
common fish for traditional fish and chips, other types of fish used include
haddock, huss, and plaice. The fresh fish is dipped in flour and then dipped in
batter and deep fried, it is then served with chips (fresh not frozen) and usually you
will be asked if you want salt and vinegar added. Sometimes people will order
curry sauce (yellow sauce that tastes nothing like real curry), mushy peas (well it's
green anyway) or pickled eggs (yes pickled). Nowadays fish and chips are wrapped
in greaseproof paper and sometimes paper that has been specially printed to look
like newspaper. You often get a small wooden or plastic fork to eat them with too,
although it is quite ok to use your fingers.
2) Yorkshire pudding. It’s the pudding made with a flour base and cooked
under the roast, allowing the fat from the meat to drop onto it. This dish is not
usually eaten as a dessert like other puddings but instead as part of the main course
or at a starter. The traditional way to eat a Yorkshire pudding is to have a large, flat
one filled with gravy and vegetables as a starter of the meal. Then, when the meal
is over, any unused puddings should be served with jam or ice-cream as a dessert.
3)Roast beef. The beef could easily be a large sirloin (rolled loin), which, so
the story goes, was named by James I when he was a guest at Houghton Tower,
Lancashire.

4)Roast meat (pork, beef, lamb) is usually served with boiled or roast
potatoes, peas, Brussels sprouts, carrots, Yorkshire pudding and, of course, gravy.
Gravy is made by taking the fat and juices from the cooked roast meat and mixing
them with flour and vegetable stock and perhaps some gravy browning. This is
mixed together into a liquid, brought slowly to the boil, seasoned and then poured
over the meat.

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 So, the traditional accompaniments to roast meats: with beef (Horseradish
sauce, English mustard, Yorkshire pudding, gravy); with mutton and lamb (onion
sauce, red-currant jelly, mint sauce, savoury herb pudding; with pork (apple sauce,
pease pudding, roast apples.

5)Fresh seafood: cod, haddock, herring, plaice, and Dover sole. Also,
England is famous for their Colchester oysters. But on the west of England you’ll
find a notto-be-missed delicacy: Morecambe Bay shrimp.

6)Toad-in-the-Hole. It’s sausages covered in batter and roasted.

7)England is famous for their pies. There are Shepherd’s Pie and Cottage
Pie. The Shepherd’s Pie is made with minced lamb and vegetables topped with
mashed potato. The Cottage Pie is made with minced beef and vegetables topped
with mashed potato. Also, people in England like to eat: Pork Pie (it’s a pie from
pork and pork jelly in a hot water crust pastry and is normally eaten cold); Stargazy
Pie is made of baked pilchards (or sardines), along with eggs and potatoes, covered
with a pastry crust. Although there are a few variations with different fish being
used, the unique feature of stargazy pie is fish heads (and sometimes tails)
protruding through the crust, so that they appear to be gazing skyward); Steak and
Kidney pie is made of a cooked mixture of chopped beef, kidneys, onions,
mushrooms and beef stock. This mixture is placed in a pie or casserole dish,
covered with a pastry crust and baked until crisp and brown; Cornish pasty is an
oven-cooked pastry case filled with diced meat – beef mince (ground beef) or steak
– potato, onion and swede. And, of course, there are some sweet pies in England:
Apple pie, Rhubarb pie, Blackberry pie and others.

8)Pie and Mash with parsley liquor. It’s very traditional East End London
meal. Earlier, the original pies were made with eels, because this product was
cheaper, than beef. About fifty years ago mince beef pies replaced the eels and
have become the traditional pie and mash that people know today. This dish come

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with its famous sauce known as liquor which is a curious shade of green and
definitely non-alcoholic.

9)Bubble and Squeak. This dish is made from cold vegetables that have been
left over from a previous meal, often the Sunday roast. The main ingredients are
potato and cabbage. Also another vegetable can be adding: carrots, peas, Brussels
sprouts. The cold chopped vegetables (and cold chopped meat if used) are fried in
a pan together with mashed potato.

10)Bangers (sausages) and Mash. You might see this on offer in a pub or
cafe. Simply put, bangers are sausages, and mash is potato that's been boiled and
then mashed up (usually with butter). The sausage used in bangers and mash can
be made of pork or beef with apple or tomato seasoning; often a Lincolnshire, or
Cumberland sausage is used.

The dish is usually served with a rich onion gravy. Although sometimes
stated that the term "bangers" has its origins in World War II, the term was actually
in use at least as far back as 1919

11)Black Pudding (Blood Pudding). This dish looks like a black sausage. It
is made from dried pigs blood and fat. It was invented in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis
black pudding is often served as part of a traditional full English breakfast.

12)The main England desserts are sweets, though some people still refer to
any dessert as pudding. Trifle is the most famous English dessert, consisting of
sponge cake soaked in brandy or sherry, coated with fruit or jam, and topped with
cream custard. A fool, such as gooseberry fool, is a light cream dessert whipped up
from seasonal fruits. Regional sweets include the northern flitting dumpling (dates,
walnuts, and syrup mixed with other ingredients and made into a pudding that is
easily sliced and carried along when you’re “flitting” from place to place).
Similarly, hasty pudding, a Newcastle dish, is supposed to have been invented by
people in a hurry to avoid the bailiff. It consists of stale bread, to which some dried
fruit and milk are added before it is put into the oven.
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 13) Cheese is traditionally served after dessert as a savory. There are many
regional cheeses, the best known being cheddar, a good, solid, mature cheese.

14) The most famous puddings are Spotted Dick or Spotted Dog, Apple
Crumble, Hasty Pudding, Bakewell Pudding, Bread and Butter Pudding, Semolina
Pudding, Treacle Pudding, Roly-Poly.

So, as we see, the traditional dishes in England as in Scotland and Wales

include different sorts of meat (beef, lamb, sheep), cheeses, vegetables. But, only
in England there are so many puddings.

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 Chapter 3. Traditional food in Wales and Scotland

Scotland is the northern part of Great Britain and Scottish food is full of the
natural flavor of the countryside. Served with few sauces or spices its meat is lean
and tasty (lamb, beef, venison). Scottish salmon and trout are renowned, but there
are also excellent mussels, lobster and crabs. Wheat does not grow here, so
oatcakes and bannocks (flat, round loaves) replace bread. Also, people in Scotland
have a sweet tooth, not just for cakes and shortbread but also for toffee and
butterscotch.

The southern Scotland is famous for cheese: such as Bonnet, Bonchester and
Galloway Cheddar. Scotsmen eat them with fruits: such as loganberries, tayberries
and strawberries that ripen in the Carse of Gowrie beside the River Tay. The main
cereals are grown in the south too: Oats (the principal cereal, appears in much
Scottish cookery, from porridge to oatcakes); Pearl barley (is also a staple, used in
Scotch broth (made with mutton and vegetables) or in a milk pudding.

From the Highlands comes wonderful game, including grouse, partridge,

capercaillie (a large type of grouse) and deer. Fish is very popular in Scotland and
it is smoked around the coast: the west coast producing kippers, the east coast
Finnan haddock, notably Arbroath Smokies. Smoked white fish is the main
ingredient of Cullen Skink, a soup served on Burns Night.

Today, there are a lot off traditional dishes in Scotland. The most popular are
«haggis» and «neeps». «Kippers» (oak-smoked herrings) are one way to start the
day in Scotland and porridge – traditionally with salt rather than sugar – is
another, although oatcakes or some other kind of griddled scone are usually
present. The evening meal in Scotland is traditionally “high tea” taken in the early
evening which might start with smoked fish, cold meats and pies, followed by
shortbread, fruit cake or drop scones, all washed down with cups of tea.

So, let’s look at the main national dishes of Scotland:

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 1)Haggis. It’s mashed up organs boiled in guts. This food dish consists of
sheep’s offal (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, mixed with stock and
simmered in the sheep’s stomach for about three hours. Traditionally, it is served
with «neeps and tatties» (swedes, turnips and potatoes) boiled and mashed and
with a «dram» (glass) of Scotch whisky.

2)Bannocks (Oatcakes). It’s a form of flat cake baked on a griddle.

Generally, made of oatmeal, it takes the form of a large oatcake biscuit;

3)Stovies. This dish usually consists of tatties (potatoes) and onions and
some form of cold meat (especially sausages or leftover roast);

4)Scottish beef. The Aberdeen-Angus breed cattle are famous for their rich
and tasty meat, which makes excellent steaks.

5)Scotch Broth or Hotch-Potch. A rich stock traditionally made by boiling

mutton, beef, marrow-bone or chicken with diced vegetables. The final consistency
should be thick and served piping hot.

6)Black bun. It’s a very rich fruit cake, which is made with raisins, currants,
finely-chopped peel, chopped almonds and brown sugar with the addition of
cinnamon and ginger.

7)Colcannon. This dish is made from boiled cabbage, carrots, turnip,

potatoes.

8) Cock-a-Leekie : This Scottish specialty can be classified as a soup or a

stew. It combines beef, chicken, leeks, and prunes to unusual and spectacular ends.

A decade or so ago it was difficult to find traditional Wales dishes in the

cities of Wales, such Cardiff or Swansea or even in the seaside resorts such as
Llandudno or Colwyn Bay. But, nowadays there is an initiative called ‘Wales, the
True Taste’, managed by the Welsh Development Agency (WDA). The WDA

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promotes and endorses the use of quality Welsh produce throughout the hospitality
and tourism industries in Wales.

Today people in Wales grow and prepare many different types of specialities
food: from honey to ham, cockles to special sauces, white wine to whisky, and ice-
cream to yoghurt. There are a lot of kinds of meat here too. So, for example, Welsh
sheep are small and have a particularly delicious flavour when eaten as a lamb.
Salt-marsh lamb has a buttery texture and gentle well rounded flavour, as a result
of the flocks of sheep grazing on seaweed by the seashore. There is a very
interesting fact: although lamb is the meat most often associated with Wales, in the
past this was a meat eaten only on high days and holidays: the pig was the staple
meat for the family.

Traditional Welsh cooking is a result of the diet of the working man:

fisherman, farmer, coal miner or labourer. So, fresh vegetables from the garden,
fish from the rivers, lakes or sea, meat from the family pig etc. form the basis of
traditional Welsh cooking. 

In Wales cuisine lamb and beef feature prominently as do freshly caught fish

such as salmon, brown trout, white crab, lobsters and cockles.

So, let’s look at the main national dishes of Wales:

1) Cawl. It’s a broth or soup. The main ingredients are: home-cured bacon,
two Welsh staple vegetables (leeks and cabbage), scraps of Welsh lamb, swede,
potatoes. This classic dish originally was cooked in an iron pot over an open fire.
Today, recipes for cawl vary from region to region and from season to season,
depending on what vegetables and produce are available. While cawl can be eaten
all together, in some regions the broth is served first followed by the meat and
vegetables.

2) Cawl Cennin. It’s also as a cawl is the traditional Welsh leek and potato
soup, but this humble soup originally contained no meat, not even a single bone,

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although today it is most often made with chicken stock. Cawl cennin is seasoned
with a good grind of black pepper and typically served with a dollop of cream and
some freshly made crusty bread spread with Welsh salted butter.

3) Bara lawr or laverbread. It’s traditional dessert in Wales is made from an

edible seaweed. This dessert usually is eaten sprinkled with oatmeal, then warmed
in hot bacon fat and served with bacon for breakfast or supper. The seaweed itself
can be found in some parts of the west coast, clinging to the rocks at low tide.

4) Glamorgan Sausages. This dish doesn’t consist of meat at all. But it is

shaped like sausages and have the word sausage in their name. So in order to find
some middle ground, they're often dubbed vegetarian sausages. Glamorgan
sausages are made with a combination of Caerphilly cheese, leeks, and
breadcrumbs. Due to the fact that there is no sausage casing, eggs are used to bind
the mixture so that it doesn't fall apart. The mixture is shaped into a sausage, and it
is then fried. Sometimes people like to add spring onions, nutmeg, thyme, parsley
or mustard into the mixture. The dish should be served hot, ideally paired with a
mustard dip and a glass of cold beer on the side.

5)Roast Lamb with Laver sauce. It’s a traditional dish, that is regarded by
many people as the national dish of Wales. The dish is made by roasting a rack of
lamb until it becomes tender and well-flavored. The meat is then accompanied by a
deep-green, gelatinous sauce made from stewed seaweed, locally known as laver.

6)Anglesey eggs (called wyau ynys mon in Welsh). This Welsh dish consists
of hard-boiled eggs baked in bed of soft mashed potatoes, all smothered in a thick,
creamy sauce made with leeks, butter, and cheese. Then dish is topped with some
more grated cheese. Though Anglesey eggs is substantial enough to be enjoyed on
its own, Anglesey eggs are also often served as a side dish with grilled sausages or
bacon chops.

7)Wales is famous for it cakes. There are Teisen lap (a shallow moist fruit
cake) teisen carawe (caraway seed cake), tease sinamon (cinnamon cake)
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and teisen mêl (honey cake), are favourites for the tea table. Griddle-baked Welsh
cakes are also served at teatime. These cakes are a traditional delicacy made with a
simple base of flour, lard or butter, sugar, and eggs. They come in different
regional varieties that often include spices, lemon zest, raisins, currants, and
various types of flour.

There are no sweet cakes in Wales. The traditional onion cake – known in
Wales as teisien winwns or teisen nionod – is made with layers of thinly sliced
potatoes and soft onions topped with bits of butter or drenched in melted butter,
seasoned and baked until sticky and golden.

8)Bara Brith. It’s the traditional tea bread loaf, which is made by soaking
dried fruit in strong black tea overnight and then folding it into a mixture of flour,
brown sugar, eggs, marmalade, cinnamon, and mixed spices the following day.
This national fruitcake is typically enjoyed fresh from the oven, but it can also be
toasted and spread with Welsh salted butter. It is widely available in shops,
bakeries, and tearooms all over Wales.

9)Welsh rarebit. It’s a traditional snack, ideally based on locally

produced Cheddar or Caerphilly cheese, melted and mixed with butter and cream
or ale, then poured over a piping hot, buttered toast.

10) Faggots. It’s old-fashioned, traditional meatballs characterized by their

large size. Faggots are very popular in Wales and the Midlands region of England.
This dish is made from pork offal and cheap cuts of meat such as heart and liver
that are mixed with spices and fresh herbs, making it an inexpensive, yet extremely
nutritious dish. Traditionally the dish is served with mushy peas, mashed potatoes,
and onion gravy.

So, as we can see, the traditional dishes in Scotland and Wales are similar.
The main ingredients: beef, sheep, lamb, different vegetables, seafood, the variety
of cheese. As for deserts, it’s cakes, pancakes, pies and others.

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 Chapter 4. Meals in Britain

There are three kinds of meals in Great Britain: breakfast – between 7:00
and 09:00, lunch – between 12:00 and 1:30 p.m., dinner (sometimes Supper) – the
main meal, eaten anytime between 06:30 and 08:00 p.m. It is evening meal. But,
traditionally, the meals are called: breakfast, dinner (the main meal, between 12:00
and 1:30 p.m.), and tea – anywhere from 05:30 at night to 06:30 p.m. So, on
Sundays, the main meal of the day is often eaten at midday instead of in the
evening. This meal is a Roast Dinner: a roast meat, Yorkshire pudding and two or
three kinds of vegetables.

In many countries in the UK breakfast is a snack rather, than a meal. And

when we say about British breakfast, we should tell about 2 types of it: traditional
breakfast and typical. The main difference is a number of dishes. So, traditional
breakfast is a full meal. It consists of eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, baked
beans and mushrooms. That is why, traditional breakfast is called the «Full
English», and sometimes referred to as «The Full English Fry-Up». In contrast,
typical breakfast consists of a bowl of cereals, which made with different grains,
such as corn, wheat, oats and etc., a slice of toast, orange juice and a cup of coffee.

Today, for breakfast more people have a plateful of corn-flakes with milk
and sugar or a plateful of porridge to begin with, and if porridge is prepared in the
proper Scottish manner, it is a tasty, economical and nourishing dish. People in
England eat porridge with milk or cream and sugar, but not a good Scotsman (and
Scotland is the home of porridge) would ever put sugar on his porridge. After
porridge Britons eat bacon and eggs, or sausages and bacon, or ham and eggs. For
a change, they have a boiled egg or fried fish. Scotsmen can add tomato and
usually black pudding (blood sausage), haggis or white (oatmeal) pudding too.
Kipper, or smoked herring, is also a popular breakfast dish. The finest come from
the Isle of Man, Whitby, or Loch Fyne, in Scotland. The herrings are split open,
placed over oak chips, and slowly cooked to produce a nice pale-brown smoked
fish. Afterwards the time of deserts: toast with butter and marmalade, made from
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oranges, and a pot of tea. But, in modern busy word on week-days in the UK
people more often prefer to have «Continental» breakfast of rolls and butter and
black coffee or fruit juice and a croissant or two.

After breakfast the time of lunch is coming. This meal is based on plain,
simply-cooked food. Many children and many employees and businessmen usually
find it impossible to come home for lunch. That is why, they have lunch in a
canteen, or a café, or a restaurant. Children very often have lunch at school or they
take «a packed lunch». This lunch consists of a sandwich, a packet of crisps, a
piece of fruit and a drink and it is kept in a plastic container. Also, sandwiches are
also known as a «butty» or «sarnie» in some parts of the UK.

As for those, who have the opportunity to have lunch at home, they have
cold mutton (left over from yesterday's dinner), ham with boiled or fried potatoes,
salad and pickles with some pudding or fruit to follow. By the way, mutton in
Briton is a treat and it is prepared in such a way, that you wouldn't know it is
mutton and salad get only the clean green leaves and the so called "salad-dressing",
a mixture of oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. Some people for lunch may
also have a mutton chop or steak and chips, followed by biscuits and cheese and a
cup of coffee. Some people like to drink water and light beer with lunch. In
Scotland the most popular lunchtime foods are sandwiches, salads, baked potatoes
and ploughman’s lunches (a roll, hunk of cheese or ham and relishes), found
mainly in pubs. A traditional Sunday lunch of roast meat and vegetables is served
in some pubs and restaurants.

The evening meal in Great Britain is usually called «Dinner», «tea»,

«supper». And as a breakfast, there are traditional dinner and typical dinner. Also,
it is very popular on Sunday to have The Sunday Roast Dinner.

Dinner is the biggest meal of the day. It begins with some soup. Generally,
English soup has nothing in common with our beetroot and cabbage or cabbage
soup. After the soup, fish, roast chicken, potatoes and vegetables and dessert are

19
followed. Also you may have beefsteak accompanied by roast potatoes, and a
second vegetable (probably cabbage and carrots). English lamb chops make a very
tasty dish, particularly when eaten with fresh spring peas, new potatoes and mint
sauce. Apple pie is a favorite sweet, and English puddings are an excellent ending
to a meal. In Scotland Grand hotels can offer five or six courses for dinner, but
usually there are only three. Dessert is often followed by a range of specialist
cheeses and oatcakes. Outside the larger towns and cities, dinner is usually eaten
between 6pm and 9pm, and no later. In Scotland lunch is sometimes called
“dinner” and the evening meal may be called “tea”.

Sunday lunch time is a typical time to eat the traditional Sunday Roast. As a
rule, it consists of roast meat (cooked in the oven for about two hours), two
different kinds of vegetables and potatoes with a Yorkshire pudding. The most
common joints are beef, lamb or pork. Chicken is also popular. And beef eaten
with hot white horseradish sauce, pork with sweet apple sauce and lamb with green
mint sauce.

So, Britain is a tea-drinking nation. Every day in Great Britain is drunk 165
million cups of the stuff and each year around 144 thousand tons of tea are
imported. Tea is the favorite beverage in England. It is very strong and mostly
drunk with milk or cream and sugar. That is why, there is another 2 kinds of meal
in the UK: Afternoon tea and High tea.

Afternoon tea follows between four and five o’clock. This informal kind of
meal became popular about one hundred and fifty years ago, when rich ladies
invited their friends to their houses for an afternoon cup of tea and ofcourse they
started to offer their visitors sandwiches and cakes too. People still enjoy afternoon
tea, which may consist of a simple cup of tea or a formal tea that starts with tiny
crustless sandwiches filled with cucumber or watercress and proceeds through
scones, crumpets with jam or clotted cream, followed by cakes and tarts – all
accompanied by a proper pot of tea. In the country, tea shops abound, and in
Devon, Cornwall, and the West Country you’ll find the best cream teas; they
20
consist of scones spread with jam and thick, clotted Devonshire cream. It’s a
delicious treat, indeed. People in Britain drink an average of four cups of tea a day,
though many younger people prefer coffee.

High tea in Britain is not so popular as Afternoon tea (the traditional 6

o’clock tea). Britons, who works, didn’t have the opportunity to have the afternoon
tea. They had a meal about midday and a meal after work. The last was called
«High tea» or «Just tea». Today, people in Britain refer to the evening meal as
dinner or supper.

So, today in Britain there are two types of eating: traditional, which is
popular among elderly people, children and pupils and modern, which is popular
among working people and students.

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 Chapter 5. British traditional etiquette

People in Great Britain today pay a lot of attention to good table manners.
So, even young children are expected to eat properly with knife and fork. And it’s
very important to follow the British manners in food.

There are some things you should do:

1)Firstly, we should now, that there are some foods, which you can eat
without using knife, fork and spoon. It’s sandwiches, crisps, corn on the cob and
fruit.

2)If you cannot eat some types of food, or if you are allergic to something,
or you are on a diet, or you have some special needs, you should tell about it your
host several days before the dinner party.

3)If you are a guest, it is polite to wait until your host starts eating or
indicates you should do so.

4)You should chew and swallow all the food in your mouth before taking
more or drinking.

5)You should say «Thank you» when served something.

6)You may eat chicken and pizza with your fingers if you are at a barbecue,
finger buffet or very informal situation. In another situations always use a knife
and fork.

7)When you eat rolls, you should break off a piece of bread before buttering.
Eating it whole looks tacky.

8)It is good manners on formal dining occasions to take some butter from
the butter dish with your bread knife and put it on your side plate (for the roll).
Then butter pieces of the roll using this butter.

22
 9)When you have finished eating place your knife and folk together, with the
prongs (tines) on the fork facing upwards, on your plate.

There are some things, you shouldn’t do:

1)To lick or put your knife in your mouth.

2)To start eating before everyone has been served unless your host says that
you don’t need to wait.

3)To chew with your mouth open.

4)To have your elbows on the table while you are eating.

5)To talk with food in your mouth.

6)To put too much food in your mouth.

7) Don’t use your fingers to push your food onto your spoon or fork.

8)Don’t reach over someone’s plate for something, ask for the item to be
passed.

9)To slurp your food or eat noisily.

10)Don’t blow your nose on a napkin (serviette). Napkins are for dabbing
your lips and only for that.

11)Don’t take food from your neighbor’s plate.

12)Don’t pick food out of your teeth with your fingernails.

It is ok in Britain to pour your own drink when eating with other people, but
it is politer to offer pouring drinks to the people sitting on either side of you. As for
cutlery, people in Great Britain eat with fork in the left hand and the knife in the
right. At the top of the plate will be a dessert spoon and dessert fork. At a formal
dinner party, there are a lot of knives and forks around you. You should start with
the utensils on the outside and work your way inward with each subsequent course.
23
 And there are more eating rules:

-When you eat soup, tip the bowl away from you and scoop the soup up with
your spoon. Soup should always be taken (without slurping of course) from the
side of the spoon, and not from the «end» as in most of the rest of Europe.

-Peas should be crushed onto the fork – a fork with the prongs pointing
down. The best way is to have load the fork with something to which they will
stick, such as potato or a soft vegetable that squashes easily onto the fork. It’s
easier sometimes to put down your knife and then switch your fork to the other
hand, so you can shovel the peas against something else on the plate, thus ensuring
they end up on your fork.

-When you eat dessert, break it with the spoon, one bite at a time. Push the
food with the fork (optional) into the spoon. Eat from the spoon.

-Napkins should be placed across the lap.

So, follow modern rules during eating is very important in Great Britain and
they ofcourse do it.

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 Chapter 6. Eating out in Great Britain

Firstly, we should say what the eating out means. It is when you eat not at
home and not at work. Today, eating out in Great Britain is very popular. So, there
are a lot of places, when you can have eating: different restaurants with Indian,
Chinese, Italian, Greek cuisine; MacDonald’s, Burger King, Subway. But, the most
popular place for eating out in Great Britain is pubs.

The word «pub» is short for public house. There are about 53 000 pubs in
England and Wales, 5200 in Scotland. So, for example, one of the oldest pubs,
Fighting Cocks in St. Albans, Hearts is located in a building that dates back to the
eleventh century. To tell the truth, pubs are an important part of British life. So,
people not only eat and drink hear, but also meet their friends and relax.

The real British pub has two bars, when one is usually quieter than the other.
In the summer people can sit in the garden, if the pub has it. Group of friends
normally buy «rounds» of drinks, where the person whose turn it is will buy drinks
for all the members of the group. And, as you have understood, the main drink hear
is beer.

The most pubs in Great Britain belong to a brewery (a company which

makes beer). But pubs sell different kinds of beer: some on tap (from a big
container under the bar) and some in bottles. The most popular kind of British beer
is bitter, which is dark and served at room temperature. And British beer is brewed
from malt and hops. But more popular beer today in Great Britain is lager, which is
lighter in colour and served cold. But not only beers are served in pubs. In the west
of England cider made from apples is very popular. Also pubs sell soft drinks too.
And it’s very interesting that British people drink an average of 99,4 liters of beer
every year. More than 80% of this beer is drunk in pubs and clubs.

As for food, pubs are served light meals and main meals.

25
 The light meals are: Sandwiches, Jacket Potatoes served with a Side Salad,
Omelettes, Garlic Baguette, Chips (curly fries or straw fries). The most popular
sandwiches are: Chicken and Bacon Club (Triple deck Toasted Brown Bloomer,
stacked with Roast Chicken, Smoked Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Mayonnaise);
Steak and Onion Ciabatta (Prime Rump Steak, grilled and topped with sautéed
onions served on a crisp light Ciabatta with a Salad Garnish); Sausage and Onion
Sandwich (Grilled old English pork Sausages with sautéed onions served in your
choice of Brown or White Bloomer Bread); Mature Cheddar and Chutney
Sandwich (Mature Cheddar cheese and a Plum and Apple Chutney, served in your
choice of Brown or White Bloomer Bread).

The main meals are: Soup of the Day (A large selection of delicious home-
made soups served with a freshly baked baguette); Breaded Mushrooms (Deep
fried and served with a garlic dip); Crispy Coated Camembert (Deep fried and
served with Cranberry sauce); Chicken Yakatori (Tender skewers of chicken
marinated in a Japanese Yakatori sauce); Prawn Cocktail; Garlic Bread.

The main courses are: Fish (Beer Battered Cod with Chips & Peas or
Breaded Scampi with Garden Peas & Chips); Meat (Steak and Kidney Pudding – a
traditional English classic, prime steak and kidney in a suet case. Served with fresh
vegetables, sauté potatoes and gravy), (Steak and Guinness Pie With Mash –
Tender Steak and Smoked Bacon slowly cooked in a rich Guinness gravy, with
Puff Pastry lid and served wtih Seasonal Vegetables and creamy Mashed Potatoes),
(Bangers & Mash – three of the finest Cumberland pork sausages served with
creamy mashed potato and a rice mushroom and onion gravy), (Gammon, Double
Egg & Chips), (Lamb Henry - a large joint of shoulder of lamb, slow roasted with
red wine and fresh garden mint), (Chicken Kiev – Breast of chicken stuffed with
garlic butter, served with ratatouille and fries), (Cholesterol Special – Home
cooked ham or a Lincolnshire sausage with a fried egg, chips and peas or beans),
(8oz Rib-eye Steak and Chips – Pan fried to your preference, with Horseradish
butter, Sauteed Mushrooms, Seared Cherry Tomatoes, Petit Pois and Chips),
26
(Chasseur Chicken Supreme – Grilled Chicken Breast with Mashed potato and
French Beans, topped with a rich Chasseaur Sauce); Pasta (Pasta bake with garlic
bread – Mediterranean vegetables and pasta cooked in a delicious wine, cream and
ratatouille sauce, topped with melted Mozzarella cheese), (Pasta Pepperoni or
Chilli Beef – As for pasta bake but spiced up with pepperoni or chilli beef added),
(Cauliflower Cheese with garlic bread – Cooked in a mature cheddar sauce and
then topped with Mozzarella cheese), (Wild Mushroom Risotto – A medley of
mushrooms and Arborio rice, in a white wine and cream sauce, with Wilted Rocket
Leaves and Parmesan Cheese).

Eating out in Great Britain is essential part of modern life there. There are a
lot of restaurants with traditional cuisine from different corners of the world. But,
people in Great Britain prefer to relax and meet with friends in pubs. It’s their
culture.

27
 Conclusion

In conclusion it can be said:

[Link] modern cuisine in Great Britain is the mixture of national products and
imported products.

[Link] traditional dishes in Wales and Scotland are similar, but the cuisine in Wales
consist more vegetables, as in Scotland.

3. England is famous for their puddings.

4. Today, in Britain there are two styles of eating: traditional and modern.

5. People in Great Britain follow modern and international rules of eating.

6. Eating out in Great Britain is not only a way of eating, but also way of relaxing
and meeting with friends. It’s also a part of national culture.

References

28
 1 Books

1.1 Stephen Halliday. Amazing and extraordinary facts. Great Britain. A

DAVID & CHARLES BOOK © F&W Media International LTD 2011.

2 Electronic resources

2.1 [Link]. [Electronic resource]//official site / British traditional

food. – Access mode: [Link] – Title from the
screen.

2.2 [Link]. [Electronic resource]//official site / Famous Welsh food

and drink. – Access mode: [Link]
drink/welsh-food/famous-welsh-food-and-drink-visit-wales. – Title from the
screen.

2.3 [Link]. [Electronic resource]//official site / 10 most popular

Welsh dishes. – Access mode: [Link]
wales. – Title from the screen.

2.4 BBC Good food. [Electronic resource]//official site / top 10 foods try in
Wales. – Access mode: [Link]
try-wales. – Title from the screen.

2.5 [Link]. [Electronic resource]//official site / Scottish Food and

drink. – Access mode: [Link] – Title from the
screen.

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