Eating in Britain

In today's Britain there is a greater emphasis on healthy food than in the past. As a consequence of the mad cow disease, consumption of red meat has declined while poultry consumption has been growing. The most popular drink is beer but the demand for table wine is increasing. Not many years ago the standard food was fish and chips, Yorkshire pudding, Cornish pasties and other regional dishes. Today, though these dishes are still enjoyed, the dining habits of the English have changed in favour of a more cosmopolitan cuisine.

If you are staying at B&B or at a hotel you start with an English breakfast which is basically sausage, bacon and eggs plus tea or coffee and toast. This used to be the typical working-class start to the day, but these days the British have adopted the healthier cereal-and-milk alternative. A Scottish breakfast would include porridge properly made with genuine oatmeal and traditionally eaten with salt rather than sugar. Fish-and-chip shops (chippies) can be found on most high streets and in main suburban areas throughout Britain, although in larger towns they are beginning to be outnumbered by pizza, kebab and burger restaurants. Other sources of straightforward food are cafés(which tend to close at around 6-7pm) and pubs (which usually stop serving food by pm), where you'll often find plain "meat-and-two-veg" dishes: steak-and-kidney pie, shepherd's pie (minced lamb of beef covered in mashed potato and baked), chops and steaks, accompanied by boiled potatoes, carrots or some such vegetable. In the smallest villages the pub may be the only place you can eat. Another recent development is the growing number of vegetarian restaurants, especially in the larger towns.