In Search of Good English Food

How come it is so difficult to find English food in England? In Greece you eat Greek food, in France French food, in Italy Italian food, but not in England, in any High Street in the land, it is easier to find Indian and Chinese restaurants than English ones. In London you can eat Thai, Portuguese, Turkish, Lebanese, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Swedish, Spanish, and Italian – but where are the English restaurants?

It is not only in restaurants that foreign dishes are replacing traditional British food. In every supermarket, sales of pasta, pizza and poppadoms are blooming. Why has this happened? What is wrong with the cooks of Britain that they prefer cooking pasta to potatoes? Why do the British choose to eat lasagne instead of shepherd’s pie? Why do they now like cooking in wine and olive oil? But perhaps it is a good thing. After all, this is the end of the 20th century and we can get ingredients from all over the world in just a few hours. Anyway, wasn’t English food always disgusting and tasteless? Wasn’t it always boiled to death and swimming in fat? The answer to these questions is a resounding “No”, but to understand this, we have to go back to before World War II.

The British have in fact always imported food from abroad. From the time of the Roman invasion foreign trade was a major influence on British cooking. English kitchens, like the English language, absorbed ingredients from all over the world – chickens, rabbits, apples, and tea. All of these and more were successfully incorporated into British dishes. Another important influence on British cooking was of course the weather. The good old British rain gives us rich soil and green grass, and means that we are able to produce some of the finest varieties of meat, fruit and vegetables, which don’t need fancy sauces or complicated recipes to disguise their taste.

However, World War II changed everything. Wartime women had to forget 600 years of British cooking, learn to do without foreign imports, and ration their use of home-grown food. The Ministry of Food published cheap, boring recipes. The joke of the war was a dish called Woolton Pie (named after the Minister for Food!). This consisted of a mixture of boiled vegetables covered in white sauce with mashed potato on the top. Britain never managed to recover from the wartime attitude to food. We were left with a loss of confidence in our cooking skills and after years of Ministry recipes we began to believe that British food was boring, and we searched the world for sophisticated, new dishes which gave hope of a better future. The British people became tourists at their own dining tables and in the restaurants of their land! This is a tragedy! Surely food is as much a part of our culture as our landscape, our language, and our literature. Nowadays, cooking British food is like speaking a dead language. It is almost as bizarre as having a conversation in Anglo-Saxon English!

However, there is still one small ray of hope. British pubs are often the best places to eat well and cheaply in Britain, and they also increasingly try to serve tasty British food. Can we recommend to you our two favourite places to eat in Britain? The Shepherd’s Inn in Melmerby, Cumbria and the Dolphin Inn in Kingston, Devon. Their steak and mushroom pie, Lancashire hotpot, and bread and butter pudding are three of the gastronomic wonders of the world!

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American and British Dinner Manners

Every land has its own peculiar dinner manners, and the USA is no exception. Americans feel that the first rule of being a courteous guest is to be prompt. If a person is invited to dinner at six-thirty, the hostess expects him to be there at six-thirty or not more than a few minutes after. Because she usually does her own cooking, she times the meal so that the hot rolls, coffee and meat will be at their best at the time she asks the guests to come. When the guest cannot come on time, he calls his host or hostess on the telephone, gives the reason, and tells at what time he thinks he can come. British people actually are also very punctual and respect time.

When the guests sit down at a dinner table, it is customary for the men to help the ladies by pushing their chairs under them.

There is a difference between American and European customs in using the knife and fork.

The European keeps the knife in the right hand, the fork in the left. He uses both hands in eating. The American, on the contrary, may use just one hand when possible, and keep the other one on his lap. He constantly changes his fork to the left hand when he has to cut his meat. Between bites he lays his fork on his plate while drinking his coffee or buttering his bread. The British, like other Europeans, usually drinks his coffee after the meal, and keeps his knife and fork in hand until he finishes eating.

Since Americans lay their silverware down a great deal during the meal, certain customs have developed. It is not considered good manners to leave a spoon in a soup bowl or coffee cup or any other dish. It is put where it will lie flat (a coffee spoon on the saucer, a soup spoon on the soup bowl etc.) By doing this one is less likely to knock the silverware onto the floor or spill the food.

Another difference in customs is that the American uses the side of his soupspoon, not the tip like the Briton. In a good British home with traditions, it is not a custom today to use a fork or a knife for bread. Americans do not use silverware for eating bread, either. They hold it in their fingers usually breaking at first. A person is considered peculiar either in the USA or Britain, if he puts a slice of bread firmly on his plate with his fork, butters the whole slice with his knife and then cuts it up and eats it with his knife and fork. Other things that Americans eat with their fingers are corn on the cob, celery, radishes and olives. In Britain you eat celery and the like in the same way, but Britons do not as a rule eat corn on the cob.

In both countries a person does not eat lettuce that way, nor does he pick up his soup bowl to drink what remains at the bottom.

If for any reason a guest has to leave the table during a meal, he always asks his hostess, “Will you please excuse me for a minute.” A well brought-up Briton will do exactly the same. When the meal is finished, the guests put their napkins on the table and rise, the men again helping the ladies with their chairs. Guests do not fold their napkins in the original folds unless they intend to stay for more than one meal.

After dinner, the guests usually stay for two or three hours, but the thoughtful person is careful not to overstay. The host and hostess may ask him or her to stay longer in order to be polite, but most dinner parties break up about eleven o’clock in both countries. Neither men nor women do smoke at table. It is considered bad manners at a formal dinner party.

As the guests leave, it is the custom to thank the hostess for a very pleasant evening. One may say anything that truly expresses his or her appreciation. Common expressions are, “Good-bye, it was so nice of you to have me,” or “Good-bye, it’s been an enjoyable evening,” or “Thank you, I’ve had such a good time.” If one stays overnight, or in case of a weekend visit, it is customary in the USA and Great Britain to send a thank-you note. It is often called a “bread-and-butter letter”. Quite often people later send a small gift such as a box of candy or some flowers as a sign of their appreciation.

Flowers and a bottle of good wine are always welcome in any British or American home whenever you come for a visit.

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Meals in Britain

A traditional English breakfast is a very big meal – sausages, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms… But nowadays many people just have cereal with milk and sugar, or toast with marmalade, jam, or honey. Marmalade is made from oranges and jam is made from other fruit. The traditional breakfast drink is tea, which people have with cold milk. Some people have coffee, often instant coffee, which is made with just hot water. Many visitors to Britain find this coffee disgusting!

For many people lunch is a quick meal. In cities there are a lot of sandwich bars, where office workers can choose the kind of bread they want – brown, white, or a roll – and then all sorts of salad and meat or fish to go in the sandwich. Pubs often serve good, cheap food, both hot and cold. School-children can have a hot meal at school, but many just take a snack from home – a sandwich, a drink, some fruit, and perhaps some crisps.

‘Tea’ means two things. It is a drink and a meal! Some people have afternoon tea, with sandwiches, cakes, and, of course, a cup of tea. Cream teas are popular. You have scones (a kind of cake) with cream and jam.

The evening meal is the main meal of the day for many people. They usually have it quite early, between 6.00 and 8.00, and often the whole family eats together.

On Sundays many families have a traditional lunch. They have roast meat, either beef, lamb, chicken, or pork, with potatoes, vegetables, and gravy. Gravy is a sauce made from the meat juices.

The British like food from other countries, too, especially Italian, French, Chinese, and Indian. People often get take-away meals – you buy the food at the restaurant and then bring it home to eat. Eating in Britain is quite international!

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American Food

The popular view outside the US is that Americans survive on cheeseburgers, Cokes, and French fries is as accurate as the American popular view that the British live on tea and fish’n’chips, the Germans only on beer, bratwurst, and sauerkraut, and the French on red wine and garlic.

America has two strong advantages when it comes to food. The first is that as the leading agricultural nation, she has always been well supplied with fresh meats, fruits, and vegetables in great variety at relatively low prices. This is one reason why steak or roast beef is probably the most “typical” American food; it has always been more available. But good Southern-fried chicken also has its champions, as do hickory-smoked or sugar cured hams, turkey, fresh lobster, and other seafood such as crabs or clams.

In a country with widely different climates and many fruit and vegetable growing regions, such items as fresh grapefruit, oranges, lemons, cherries, peaches, or broccoli, iceberg lettuce, avocados, and cranberries do not have to be imported. This is one reason why fruit dishes and salads are so common. Family vegetable gardens have been very popular, both as a hobby and as a way to save money, from the days when most Americans were farmers. They also help to keep fresh food on the table.

The second advantage America has enjoyed is that immigrants have brought with them, and continue to bring, the traditional foods of their countries and cultures. The variety of foods and styles is simply amazing. Whether Armenian, Basque, Catalonian, Creole, Danish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, traditional Jewish, Latvian, Mexican, Vietnamese or what have you, these traditions are now also at home in the U.S.

There seem to be four trends in America at present which are connected with foods and dining. First, there has been a notable increase in the number of reasonably priced restaurants which offer specialty foods. These include those that specialize in many varieties and types of pancakes, those that offer only fresh, baked breakfast foods, and the many that are buffets or salad bars. Secondly, growing numbers of Americans are more regularly going out to eat in restaurants. One lesson is that they are not too expensive. Another reason, probably more important, is that many American women do not feel that their lives are best spent in the kitchen. They would rather pay a professional chef and also enjoy a good meal. At the same time, there is an increase in fine cooking as a hobby for both men and women. For some two decades now, these have been popular television series on all types and styles of cooking, and the increasing popularity can easily be seen in the number of bestselling specialty cookbooks and the number of stores that specialize in often exotic cooking devices and spices.

A third trend is that as a result of nationwide health campaigns, Americans in general are eating much lighter food. Cereals and grain foods, fruit and vegetables, fish and salads are emphasized instead of heavy and sweet foods. Finally, there is the international trend to “fast food” chains which sell pizza, hamburgers, Mexican foods, chicken, salads and sandwiches, sea-foods, and various ice creams. While many Americans and many other people resent this trend and while, as may be expected, restaurants also dislike it, many young middle-aged and old people, both rich and poor, continue to buy and eat fast foods.

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Eating Out

There is a wide variety of places to go when you want to eat out in Britain. In the most expensive restaurants and hotels, the style of cooking is often French and the menu is usually written in French, often with an English translation. Almost all hotels have a restaurant where non-residents can have lunch or dinner, and a lounge where they can have tea, coffee or a drink before their meal.

Most towns have a variety of restaurants offering the cuisine of several different countries, with Indian, Chinese, and Italian restaurants being the most popular. In London especially it is possible to eat the food of most countries in the world. Most of these ethnic restaurants are owned and run as small family businesses. Other restaurants are part of a chain, for example Berni or Harvester, and offer a standard menu throughout the country. Many of these are primarily steak bars with a choice of other dishes also available. They are often located in old or even historic buildings in town centers.

Almost all pubs now offer food, which may be snacks bought at the bar or meals in a separate dining area. Certain pubs have gained a reputation for their excellent food and service, and a guide to good pubs is now published annually in addition to the guides to good hotels and restaurants. Wine bars also serve meals and snacks with a wide selection of wine, whereas in pubs beer is the main drink.

Fast-food restaurants serving American –style pizzas and hamburgers are very popular, especially with children and young people. There are fewer cafes than there once were, but they can still be found in most towns. They provide a cheap place to have a cup of tea or a meal and are usually open all day.

Another feature of British life that is found less frequently nowadays is the” fish and chip” bar or shop, where you can buy fried fish and chips to eat at home. Other kinds of “take-away meals” are provided by Chinese, Indian or pizza restaurants.

Many towns, especially those in popular tourist areas, have tea-shops. Although they mainly provide afternoon tea, with scones, buns and cakes, many also serve morning coffee and lunch. Tea-shops are often in old buildings and the atmosphere is old-fashioned. There are also-coffee shops open throughout the day, which serve food as well, mainly cakes and biscuits rather than full meals.

One of the cheapest places to eat is a snack bar, a type of café. It may not serve meals at all, but only tea and coffee with food such as rolls, soup and sandwiches. The buffets at railway stations are often similar, although many serve alcoholic drinks as well. There are eating places for the motorists on main roads and motorways. They are usually large fast-food restaurants that belong to a chain and have largely replaced the roadside cafes that were used especially by long-distance lorry drivers.

The range of restaurants available in the USA is in many ways similar to that in Britain. Many fast-food chains found in Britain, such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut, are American companies. The variety of ethnic restaurants is even greater in the USA than in Britain.

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