Research about English food

British meals in general

The British have three meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea at 5 o'clock p.m..

Breakfast is very big. They have fruit juice, cereals with milk, toast with butter and jam, coffee or tea and at the weekends, eggs with bacon.

Lunch is small. They have a sandwich with a beer or a coke in a coffee bar or in a canteen.

At 5 o'clock p.m. the British have tea with cakes or biscuits.

For dinner, they have vegetable soup, fish, meat or chicken with vegetables or potatoes. They finish with a dessert, apple pie or ice cream.

At meals the British drink coke, orange juice and tea; they don't drink water and they have wine only on special occasions. Today in Britain "Take Away" food shops are very popular. People who don't like cooking or don't want to eat in restaurants take home Italian pizzas, Chinese dishes, hamburgers and hot - dog with chips.

Some recipes

Here there're many specialities of typical English food.

Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients:  two eggs medium size, 115 g plain flour, half a teaspoon salt, 285 ml milk, one tablespoon oil.

Sift flour and salt into a bowl make a well in the centre with the back of a spoon.

Add eggs and milk into well and mix.

Stir with whisk gradually adding in flour from the sides, to make a thick batter.

Mix batter until smooth, allow to stand for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Coat an oven backing tin with oil, pour in batter.

Place in centre of oven and bake for 20 minutes until puffed up and golden brown.

Remove from oven and serve hot.

Serving suggestion: with roast - beef and roast potatoes.

(We won't put the recipe of roast - beef because in this moment in England and in all the Europe there's the mad cow and nobody wants to cook or eat mad roast - beef!!)

Apple pie

Ingredients: 50 g of butter, 50 g of margarine, a pinch of salt, 25 g of flour, 2 tablespoon water, 150 g of apples, 100g of sugar.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Put butter, margarine and salt into flour add water and mix them.

Peel, core and slice the apples and put them in a dish, in layers with sugar and water.

Divide the pastry in half.

Place half pastry in a flan - tin, put the apples on the base and cover them with the other half.

Trim the edges and make a hole in the centre with a toothpick.

Put it into the oven and cook it for about 40 minutes.

Serve it hot or cold.

Pancakes

Ingredients: (for four pancakes) ½ cup of flour, ½ cup of milk, 1 egg, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon brand (if you like it), ½ teaspoon butter.

Put the flour, the egg, the milk, the salt and the brand into a bowl.

Whip the mixture with an electric mixer or a whisk.

Grease the frying pan with the butter.

Heat the pan.

Pour some mixture into the pan and cook on one side until golden brown.

Turn the pancake and cook the other side.

Remove from the pan and cover it with honey or jam.

Curiosities

In Britain, when people sit at table, they don't say "Buon Appetito" to start eating.

On Sunday when people get up late, they have "Brunch", breakfast and lunch together with cheese, salami, toast, eggs and drinks.

Packed lunch is lunch at school or at work that you carry from home.

Tea is the national hot drink in Britain, people drink tea with milk.

Beer is very popular and there're many kinds bitter, ale, mild. English people usually drink beer at the pubs.

How can you translate "marmellata"? Marmelade is made from citrus fruit while jam is made from other kinds of fruit.

In Britain people usually drink instant coffee, in a mug with milk.

Bread can be white or brown. People eat it toasted while butter of for sandwiches are called rolls.

During a meal people don't use a cloth. They prefer mats.

Proverbs

"Too many cooks spoil the broth"

"Something is brewing"

"To jump from frying pan into the fire"

"A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!" (from the film "Mary Poppins")

"Sugar and spice and all the things nice!"

What famous people say about English food

"It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast - even the English can't do it!" (J. K. Galbraith, economist)

"On the continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners"

(George Makes, writer and humorist)

"If the English can survive their food, they can survive anything"

(George Bernard Shaw, writer)

"English cooking? You just put things into boiling water and then take them out again after a long while!"

(an anonymous French chef)

Tongue- twister

"Peter Piper picks a peck of picked pepper! If Peter Piper picks a peck of pickled pepper, where is the pick of pickled pepper Peter Piper picks?"