BRITISH FOOD

1. Most British cooking is simple. The British like roasted and grilled meats and use fewer spices than other Europeans. The J English also like fish. Fish and chips is a favourite dish for lunch J or supper. A typical meal includes roast meat with potatoes and I one or more other vegetables and a dessert — often a fruit pie. The British have also started to eat more chicken, fresh fruit and vegetables.  

 Tea with milk and sugar is the most popular hot drink.

2. Many hotels serve what they call full English breakfast. First they bring you cereal and fruit juice. Then you get egg, bacon and tomato and then toast and marmalade. In fact few people in Britain eat such a big breakfast. It's more normal to have just one of these things with a cup of tea or coffee. Nowadays a lot of people start the day with muesli or yoghurt.

3. You can expect the following on a typical cafe menu:

♦  Soup — tomato, chicken                ♦ Salads — ham, chicken     

♦  Fish and chips                               ♦ Ice cream, apple tart         

♦  Chicken and chips                         ♦ Pot of tea                        

♦  Hamburger and chips                     ♦ Coffee                              

♦  Sausage, eggs and chips                 ♦ Bread and butter               

3. Over half the restaurants in Britain are fast foods and takeaways. A takeaway is a meal you buy to take home or eat outside. The most common kind of takeaway meal is fish and chips. You can usually order: chips, fish, fish and chips.

  FOOD and DRINK

Do you like tea or coffee? What do you have for lunch? Do you like to eat out?

any typical English dishes center on roast meat - beef, pork, lamb, poultry and game. Roast beef is accompanied by roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Mint sauce is usually served with lamb, and currant jelly with poultry. Pork is normally complimented by apple sauce.

A treat is salmon, also smoked, as are haddock and mackerel. Regional sea specialties in­clude oysters. Stews and pies are particular favourites, with Lancashire hot pot, a celebrated stew.

Melton Mobray in Leicestershire produces pork pies, and Cornwall Cornish pasties-Cheeses include Cheddar, Cheshire, Stilton, Double Gloucester, Red Leicester, Derbyshire, Lan­cashire and Wensleydale.

The most famous British takeaway is still the fish and chip shop. Wimpy is a trade mark for a fast food chain in Britain. Wimpy was a friend of cartoon character Popeye who loved ham­burgers.

Tea is the national drink. Children have tea about 5 or 6 p.m. "Five o'clock tea" is the meal and not a drink. It is often meet or fish with vegetables and then a dessert. Cream teas are very popular. You may have scones /cake/ with cream and jam. Coffee enjoys almost equal popu­larity. Beer might be one of brews: mild, bitter, stout or lager. Pubs serve a wide range of non­alcoholic and alcoholic beverages, including gin, vodka, sherry and whisky. Permitted drinking hours are generally 11 am to 11 pm Monday to Saturday; noon to 3 pm and 7 pm to 10:30 pm on Sunday, Good Fri­day and December 25.

For breakfast most people have cereal or toast and tea or coffee. People have tea with cold milk. Some people prefer instant coffee, made just with hot water. Many visitors to Britain find this coffee disgusting.

Lunch is a quick meal. It is very light, usually a sandwich and some fruit. There are a lot of sandwich bars with a wide choice of bread, salad, fish and meat which go for sandwiches. Pubs serve good, cheap food, both hot and cold. School children can have a hot meal at school but many take a lunch bag from home - a sandwich, a drink, apples or bananas. On Sundays many families have a traditional lunch: roast meat with potatoes, vegetables and gravy- a sauce made from the meat juices.

People have dinner at 7 or 8 p.m. The evening meal is the main meal of the day. Usually the whole family eats together.

Supper must be very light - a sandwich or toast, or just some biscuits. Those who haven't eaten dinner may eat supper at 9 p.m.

At the restaurant you will have a starter, a main course and a dessert. The starter includes a vege­table, tomato or chicken soup, prawn cocktail, melon and ham or fruit juice. Main courses give a choice of chicken casserole, roast beef, fish pie served with new potatoes and fresh vegetables. Desserts may include Black Forest Gateau [ga:'tou]  a chocolate cake, an apple pie with cream or ice cream, cheese and bis­cuits.

The British like food from other countries. From the time immemorial foreign trade was a major influence on British cooking. English cooks used ingredients from all over the world though good English weather, plenty of rains help them produce fine fruit, vegetables and meat.

Probably, a famous quotation of the writer and humorist George Mikes 'On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners' will soon be forgotten. Nowadays British pubs are becoming the places where you can eat well and cheaply. British steak and mush­room pie, Lancashire hotpot are the gastronomic wonders of the world.

Eating out in Britain is very easy. There are many establishments which are worth visiting. The choice is excellent, especially in London, one of the gourmet's paradises. Concentrated in the West End alone are several hundred restaurants catering for the most tastes and pockets, with full meals ranging from 1.50 to 30 pounds.

Most nationalities with a reputation for cuisine are represented in the British capital. You can choose any restaurant to your liking - classical French, classical international, Italian, Japa­nese, Greek, Hungarian, British, Cantonese. Some restaurants provide special kind of treat - like afternoon tea for children of all ages, eat-as-much-as-you-can set tea at Harrods Restaurant, ex­pensive, but the children's tea costs less than Mum's and Dad's. The establishments, like Simpson's, Tate Gallery, Waltons, English Garden and others are the best London can offer. E.g. Simpson's is a tradi­tional English restaurant with several rooms on two floors. It was established in 1828. The dishes to sample are huge roasts, boiled chicken, tripe and onions, Lancashire hotpot, etc. If you want to try something out-of-the-ordinary you may go to Tate Gallery at Millbank Embankment. This is a very fine restaurant where food is modelled on early traditional English dishes, some from the recipes of Elizabeth, wife of Oliver Cromwell. The choice is endless.