Eating Customs and Traditions in Great Britain
Eating customs & traditions in Great Britain
The usual meals in Great Britain are breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner; or in simplier homes, breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Breakfast is generally a bigger meal than you can have it on the Continent, though some English people like a “continental” breakfast of rolls and butter and coffee. But the usual breakfast is porridge or “Corn Flakes” with milk or cream and sugar, becon and eggs, marmalade with butter toast, and tea or coffee. For a change you can have a boiled egg, cold ham, or perhaps fish. Lunch is usually served between twelve and one o’clock. The businessman in London usually finds it impossible to come home for lunch, and so he goes to a café or to a restaurant, but those who are at home generally take a cold meat, e.g., beef, mutton, veal, ham, with boiled or fried potatoes, salad and pickles, with a pudding or fruit to follow. Sometimes you may have a mutton chop, steak and chips, followed by biscuits and cheese and a cup of coffee. Afternoon tea follows between four and five o’clock. You can hardly call it a meal, but it is a sociable sort of thing, as friends often come in for a chat while they have their cup of tea, cake or biscuit. In some houses dinner is the biggest meal of the day. You can have soup, fish, roast chicken, chops, potatoes and vegetables, a sweet, fruit and nuts. The two substantial meals of a day, lunch and dinner, are both more and less the same.
But in a great many of English homes the midday meal is the chief one of the day, and in the evening they have the much simplier supper-an omelette, or sausages, sometimes bacon and eggs and sometimes just bread and cheese, a cup of coffee or cocoa and fruit. The two features of life in England that possibly give visitors their worst impressions are the English weather and English cooking. The former is something that nobody can do anything about, but cooking is something that can be learned. English food has often been described as
The usual meals in Great Britain are breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner; or in simplier homes, breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Breakfast is generally a bigger meal than you can have it on the Continent, though some English people like a “continental” breakfast of rolls and butter and coffee. But the usual breakfast is porridge or “Corn Flakes” with milk or cream and sugar, becon and eggs, marmalade with butter toast, and tea or coffee. For a change you can have a boiled egg, cold ham, or perhaps fish. Lunch is usually served between twelve and one o’clock. The businessman in London usually finds it impossible to come home for lunch, and so he goes to a café or to a restaurant, but those who are at home generally take a cold meat, e.g., beef, mutton, veal, ham, with boiled or fried potatoes, salad and pickles, with a pudding or fruit to follow. Sometimes you may have a mutton chop, steak and chips, followed by biscuits and cheese and a cup of coffee. Afternoon tea follows between four and five o’clock. You can hardly call it a meal, but it is a sociable sort of thing, as friends often come in for a chat while they have their cup of tea, cake or biscuit. In some houses dinner is the biggest meal of the day. You can have soup, fish, roast chicken, chops, potatoes and vegetables, a sweet, fruit and nuts. The two substantial meals of a day, lunch and dinner, are both more and less the same.
But in a great many of English homes the midday meal is the chief one of the day, and in the evening they have the much simplier supper-an omelette, or sausages, sometimes bacon and eggs and sometimes just bread and cheese, a cup of coffee or cocoa and fruit. The two features of life in England that possibly give visitors their worst impressions are the English weather and English cooking. The former is something that nobody can do anything about, but cooking is something that can be learned. English food has often been described as