Traditional Meals in Britain

The usual meals in Britain are: breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. Breakfast is generally a bigger meal than they have on the Continent, though some English people like a continental breakfast of rolls, butter 198

and coffee. But the usual English breakfast is porridge or cornflakes with milk or cream and sugar, bacon and eggs, marmalade made from oranges with buttered toasts and tea or coffee. For a change, you can have a boiled egg, cold ham or, perhaps, fish.

People in Britain generally have lunch about one o'clock. The businessman in London usually finds it impossible to come home for lunch, and so he goes to a cafe or restaurant; but if he is making lunch at home, he has cold meat (left over probably from yesterday's dinner), potatoes, salad and pickles with a pudding of fruit follow. Sometimes people have a mutton chop or steak and chips followed by biscuits and cheese, and some people like a glass of light beer with lunch.

Afternoon tea you could hardly call a meal but it is a sociable sort of thing as friends often come in then for a chat while they have their cup of tea with cake or biscuit.

In some houses dinner is the biggest meal of the day. In a great many English homes people make the midday meal the chief one of the day, and in the evening they have the much simpler supper - an omelette or sausages, sometimes bacon and eggs, and sometimes just bread and cheese, a cup of coffee or cocoa and fruit.

Some people also have «high tea». They say there is no use for these afternoon teas where you try to hold a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of bread and butter about as thin as a sheet of paper in the other. They have it between five and six o'clock, and have ham or tongue and tomatoes and salad or sausages with good strong tea; plenty of bread and butter, then stewed fruit, with cream or custard and pastries or a good cake. And that's what an Englishman calls a good tea.

In common with other West European countries the British diet has changed over the last twenty years. In general, people are responding to recent medical advice and are cutting down on fatty food, heavy puddings and stodgy cakes. Food such as pizza, pasta and baked potatoes are now commonly served in English homes in preference to heavy evening meals during the week. People are more prepared to experiment with different styles of cooking.

At breakfast time it is usual to expect cereal and toast or rolls with butter and jam instead of the «traditional English breakfast». This is because of health considerations, the time needed for preparation and the cost.

The main family meal of the week tends to be on Sunday lunch at which, typically, a roast joint of meat will be served with several vegetables. You may also be served a pudding such as apple pie with cream. This is an occasion for the family to get together to talk and relax in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere.