Food, Детальна інформація

   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 juice.

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

British Cuisine.[9]

   Some people criticize English food. They say it’s unimaginable, boring, tasteless, it’s chips with everything and totally overcooked vegetables.

   The basic ingredients, when fresh, are so full of flavour that British haven’t had to invent sauces to disguise their natural taste. What can compare with fresh pees or new potatoes just boiled and served with butter? Why drown spring lamb in wine or cream and spices, when with just one or two herbs it is absolutely delicious?

   If you ask foreigners to name some typically English dishes, they will probably say “Fish and chips” then stop. It is disappointing, but true that, there is no tradition in England of eating in restaurants, because the food doesn’t lend itself to such preparations. English cooking is found at home so it is difficult to find a good English restaurant with a reasonable prices.

   In most cities in Britain you’ll find Indian, Chinese, French and Italian restaurants. in London you’ll also find Indonesian, Mexican, Greek… Cynics will say that this is because English have no “cuisine” themselves, but this is not quite the true.

English breakfast.[10]

   All people in the world have breakfast, and most people eat and drink the same things for breakfast. They may eat different things for all the other meals in the day, but at breakfast time, most people have the same things to eat and drink – Tea or Coffee, Bread and butter, Fruit.

   Some people eat meat for breakfast. English people usually eat meat at

breakfast time, but England is a cold country. It is bad to eat meat for breakfast in hot country. It is bad to eat too much meat; if you eat meat for breakfast, you eat meat three times a day; and that is bad in a hot country. It is also bad to eat meat and drink tea at the same time, for tea makes meat hard so that the stomach cannot deal with it

   The best breakfast is Tea or Coffee, bread and Butter, fruit. That is the usual breakfast of most people in the world.

How tea was first drunk in Britain.11

   

   By the time tea was first introduced into this country (1660), coffee had already been drunk for several years.

   By 1750 tea had become the most popular beverage for all types and classes of people – even though a pound of tea cost a skilled worker perhaps a third of his weekly wage!

Tea ware.

 

   Early tea cups had no handles, because they were originally imported from China. Chinese cups didn’t (and still don’t) have handles.

   As tea drinking grew in popularity, it led to a demand for more and more tea ware. This resulted in the rapid growth of the English pottery and porcelain industry, which not long after became world famous for its products.

The tea break.

   Nowadays, tea drinking is no longer a proper, formal, «social» occasion. We don't dress up to “go out to tea” anymore. But one tea ceremony is still very important in Britain – the Tea Break! Millions of people in factories and offices look forward to their tea breaks in the morning and afternoon Things to do.

1) Make a display of as many pictures, cut from magazines. As you can showing different kinds of tea pots and tea cups.

2) Design your own kind of tea pots and tea cups.

American food and drink.[11]

   The popular view outside the U.S.A. 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.

   This view comes from the fact that much of what is advertised abroad as “American food” is a very pretty flat, tasteless imitation. American beef, for example, comes from specially grain-fed cattle, not from cows that are raised mainly for milk production. As a result, American beef is more tender and tasted better than what is usually offered as an “American steak” in Europe. When sold abroad, the simple baked potato that comes hot and whole in foil often lacks the most important element, the famous Idaho potato. This has different texture and skin that comes from the climate and soil in Idaho.

   Even sometimes as basic as barbecue sauces shows difference from many of the types found on supermarket shelves overseas. A fine barbecue sauce from the Southside of Chicago has its own fire and soul. The Texas have a competition each year for the hottest barbecue sauce (the recipes are kept secret).

   America has two strong advantages when it comes to food. The first is that as the leading agriculture 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 beef roast is probably the most “typical” American food; it has always been more available. But good Southern-fried chicken also has champions, as do hickory-smoked or sugar-cured hams, turkey, fresh lobster, and other seafood such as crabs or clams.