Food and Culture Déja Alade da17684@essex.ac.uk

1. British food
AN D Y E S , O U R F O O D I S
M AI N LY B E I G E !

2. British food history
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• So, British food mainly stems from what other cutures, ethnicities and nationalites brought
over to the country. For example, the Romans brought us cherries, stinging nettles (used
for salad), cabbage, peas, sausages, rabbit, coriander and wine!
• Then the Saxons were great farmers and grew a variety of herbs like camomile, watercress
as well as crops like wheat, rye, oats and barley also bacon.
• Vikings and Danes taught the techniques of smoking and drying fish (like kippers) and so
the best places to find this today is in the North East coast of England and Scotland.
• Then the Normans invaded. They encouraged drinking wine, eating mutton and beef and
brought carrots and sugarcane. In the 12th century the crusaders were the first Britons to
taste oranges and lemons.
• Briton is a trading nation and saffron was introduced by the Phoenicians in exchange for
tin. In the Middle Ages, wealthy people were able to cook with spices and dried fruits from
places like Asia.
• Tudor times saw even more trading. Spices from the Far East, sugar from the Caribbean,
coffee and cocoa from South America, tea and curries from India, potatoes from America
were all brought over and grown in the UK. Roast dinner also became popular.
• The industrial revolution impacted our cuisine due to mass production. The working class
began to enjoy cheese, bread and beer while the weatlhy had elaborate feasts. The
Victorians ate roast goose, jellied eels and beef Wellington.
• The World Wars again impacted cuisine because of food shortages and the government
introduced rationing. Items like butter, sugar and meat were restricted and they had to use
ingredients like powdered and Spam. Post-War introduced new ingredients and techniques
from around the world like beef stroganoff and spaghetti bolognese.
• Turkeys were then bred in Norfolk and were driven to London. Then, the growth of the
Empire brought new tastes and flavours for example, Kedgeeree is a version of the indian
dish Khichri which was broght to Britiain by member of the East India Company. Our

3. Which brings us to
today!
• Fun fact, we are the most obese country in all
of Europe!
• Takeaways are extremely popular as well as
fried foods.
• Cuisines from India, China and Italy are all
extremely popular.
• But, we still have our own traditional British
grub that we love although internationally
there’s a perception of the food being terrible,
bland, soggy, overcooked and visually
unappealing. In my opinion, that belief is both
true and false.
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4. Let’s start with
Breakfast.
• In the UK, we believe breakfast is the most important meal of the
day… that does not mean we eat it everyday. Our eating habits
can be quite bad. But, in the event that we do eat breakfast we
love a “fry up” or what you may know as a full-English breakfast.
The typical dish includes bacon, toast (or fried bread), beans,
hash browns, eggs (scrambled or fried), sausages, grilled
tomatoes and mushrooms. Sometimes, served with blood
pudding too (disgusting!) with of course tea, or hot chocolate.
• If we don’t have that, it might be something like porridge, beans
on toast, cereal, eggy bread (french toast), sandwhiches,
crumpets, a bacon butty, bubble and squeak, croissants or
yoghurt or just plain toast & butter. We may also go to a caff or
Greggs to get something quick.
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5. Breakfast cont.
Eggy bread (more savoury
than French toast)
Porridge (we can make it
less plain by adding other
stuff)
Egg and Soldiers (toast)
Crumpets
Beans on toast (with cheese)
Bubble and squeak
(potatoes, cabbage, meat
like ham or bacon, etc – it’s
made with leftovers)

6. And now lunch…
• Again, we love to have lunch… that does
not mean we eat it all the time. Instead,
sometimes when it’s past breakfast time
and and a little past lunchtime we have
“Brunch”.
• Also, our lunches aren’t really specific.
We might have something to eat that I
showed you for breakfast (maybe even
dinner!).
• Our typical go would be a sandwhich,
soup, jacket potato, a ploughmans
lunch, pie or fish & chips and we might
have a packet of crisps on the side and
you guessed it… tea! (but we may be
more likely to have a fizzy drink, juice or
water.)
• We also might go to Greggs again for
something like a cornish pasty or a
sausage roll.
• After school, usually you’ll get 3 wings
and chips or a small pizza.
• We are not the healthiest!
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7. Lunch cont.
Morleys (one of
many fast food
chains)
Greggs
Wings & chips/
chicken burger w/
mirinda (strawberry is
the best!)
Pie (it can have many
fillings – steak/ kidney/
chicken, etc)
Sausage roll
Ploughmans sandwhich
(diff. from P. lunch but
same ingredients)
Cornish pasty (it can
have different fillings,
mainly meat and veg)
Jacket potato (it can
have diff. toppings)
Pizza (typical after
school)

8. Tea time
• Not as common, because we’ll just eat anytime of
the day unless you’re a child. But, usually this
happens at around 3pm – 5:30pm. It’s made up of
“little eats”. It’s very nice and sometimes quite
fancy.
• Typically you’ll have buttered cucumber
sandwhiches or egg and cress sandwhiches,
batterberg cake, victoria sponge cake, scones
with clotted cream and jam. The sandwhiches are
crustless and bitesize and the food is served on a
serving tower.
• Obviously, it comes with tea!
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9. Tea cont.
Cucumber sandwhiches
Victoria sponge cake
Scones w/ clotted cream
& jam
Cress and egg sandwhiches w/ tea
Battenberg cake (sponge cake, jame &
marzipan)

10. Dinner
• Dinner can be quite heavy!
• It can be a takeaway, breakfast and lunch
foods that I showed you, or a roast. Or
even a cheeky nandos!
• Roasts usually happen in Sunday (we call
it a “Sunday roast”).
• Other than roasts, we have shepards or
cottage pie, oven food, bangers and
mash, toad in the hole, fishermans pie,
pie, a kebab, fish and chips (it can be
served with mushy peas, battered
sausage or a saveloy) or pie and mash.
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11. Dinner cont.
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Bangers & mash
with onion gravy &
peas (sausages)
Saveloy, mushy
peas & chips
Battered sausage
Shepherds pie (Lamb
mince topped w/ mash)
Different types of oven
food & snacks
Fishermans pie (cheese,
mash w/ diff. types of
smoked fish and sauce) Toad in the hole
(sausages cooked in
batter)
Roast meat (chicken/ Lamb/
beef/ pork), roast potatoes,
yorkshire pudding, veg &
gravy

12. Desserts &
Snacks
• My favourite part! We can have a
dessert at any time!
• We Brits love a good dessert and we
have so many for us, there’s always
room for dessert or snack!
• We have so many from angel delight,
jam roly poly, apple crumble,
flapjacks, Tottenham cake, yum
yums, raspberry ripple, shortbreads,
carrot cake, gingerbread, banoffee
pie, jelly & ice cream and so much
more!
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13. Desserts & snacks cont.
Angel delight
Raspberry ripple
(ice cream)
Tottenham cake
Flapjacks
Yum Yums
Ginger cake
Shortbreads (biscuit)
Some snacks
Carrot cake
Jam roly poly

14. Foods we don’t really eat or
don’t like as much!
• Jellied eels (exactly what it sounds like).
• Spotted dick (a type of cake w/ raisins).
• Haggis (From Scotland, its the liver, heart and lungs
of a sheep mixed with oats, suet & onion, spices and
packed into a sheeps stomach and boiled.)
• Liver and onion.
• Stargazy pie (Cornish dish made from baked
sardines, eggs and potatoes, covered in pastry).
• Liquorice allsorts (just no.)
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15. Christmas dinner,
pancake day
• We have two main days where food is apart of our
celebrations and that’s Christmas and Pancake day!
• Pancake day or Shrove Tuesday is the day before
Ash Wednesday or Lent (when we give up a luxury
thing or fast). It is technically a religious holiday but
people don’t celebrate it as such, but it is still the
custom to eat pancakes on this day! Our pancakes
typically look like crepes and it’s topped with sugar,
lemon or syrup.
• Christmas is our big feast! Usually a big roast
dinner (possibly turkey but it could be more than
one meat at the table) with all the trimmings. From
crackling (similar to chicharrón), stuffing, cranberry
sauce, Yorkshire puddings, gravy, minced pies,
brandy cream, trifle and more. If you are British,
typically we incorporate our traditional foods too
like plantain, rice & peas, etc (this goes for
breakfast, lunch & dinner too). And of course, we
drink lots of alcohol this day, traditionally it’s egg
nog, mulled wine or any type of fizz!
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16. Cont.
British-Caribbean Christmas
examples Fruit cake
Pancakes
Egg nog (eggs,
sugar, milk,
cream, rum)
Crackling
Christmas dinner w/
some of the
traditional foods.

17. And the best
part… drinking.
• British people love to drink and we don’t
need a reason to!
• We have a lot of clubs, bars and pubs.
• We have a lot of different brands of
alcohol and types of alcohol, from cider,
beer, ale, whisky, stout, Irish cream, gin,
to imports of vodka, rum, and wines.
• We drink any and everything and we
pride ourselves for being able to handle
our liqour!
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18. Pub culture explained.