British Food

Dear Yi Fei,

Thanks for your letter of January 14th. You ask how I like the food here. Well, let me tell you about the strange eating habits in this country.

British people eat a very large breakfast before they go to work. This is often a fried breakfast of bacon and eggs with fried tomatoes and sometimes mushrooms too. I have even seen people eat black pudding which is disgusting — a thick sausage made from dried pig’s blood and fat.

Some people do not have time to eat such a full breakfast and

get by with toast and marmalade (a kind of jam made from oranges)  

served with tea or coffee. Others just have cereal, such as cornflakes. I have heard that in Scotland people eat porridge, which is boiled oats, to keep them warm in the winter. This dish is the nearest to our congee.

Background Information:

British people eat a very large breakfast

In fact, nowadays most people in Britain normally have a modest breakfast of cereal and toast. The impression probably comes from the large breakfast served to visitors and guests in hotels and “Bed & Breakfast” establishments, which provide a room for the night and a meal the next morning.  

Black pudding

This is a sausage made from pig’s blood and herbs or spices. Some people eat this as part of breakfast; others eat it with fish and chips.

in Scotland people eat porridge

This is a traditional Scottish breakfast of boiled oats served hot with salt or milk and sugar or perhaps with syrup. It can be quite filling and a good way to start the day in winter. It is a bit like congee or rice porridge.

Key Words:

Fried: cooked in hot oil

Disgusting: extremely unpleasant

Sausage：a food that consists of a tube of skin containing very small  pieces of meat mixed with spices

Cereal: a food made from grain, for example wheat, oats or corn, mainly eaten with milk for breakfast

Lunch is often taken quite late, between 12.30 and 1.30 and sometimes I am rather hungry by the time we have this meal. It is not    a big meal nor do families sit down to eat together. Some factories or schools have a canteen, which serves a lunch but I think most people eat a small lunch at their desk or with workmates. I usually take a packed lunch to university. This is a lunch box with some sandwiches (ham and tomato or tuna fish), an apple, a packet of crisps, which are like our potato chips, and a can of something to drink, for example, lemonade.        

Because people often finish work at 5.30 or 6 o’clock and then have to commute home from their jobs, the evening meal, called “dinner”, is often around 7 or 8 o’clock at night. By this time I am really starving! At dinner, British people like to try many different kinds of food from different countries. For example, spaghetti bolognaise (from Italy) or chicken curry (from India) are popular dishes. In fact, you could say that British people do not eat much British food! But actually many people do have a traditional “meat and two veg” meal for dinner. This is a piece of meat like pork or lamb (which smells really strong but I must say it tastes good) with two boiled vegetables like potatoes and carrots. Then on top of both the meat and vegetables is poured gravy — a kind of sauce made from the juice of the meat when it was cooking. Potato is the most popular vegetable — the British eat potatoes as we eat rice!

Key Words:

Commute: to travel regularly to and from work

Starving: very hungry

  These three meals are the usual ones but British people sometimes have other meals in between. I often get confused about them so let me try to explain them here. Brunch is a meal halfway between breakfast time and lunchtime. It is often eaten at weekends or on holidays when people have woken up late, at around 11 o’clock. People eat the same sort of food as at lunch, but often not as much of it.

Key Words:

Confused: unable to understand something or think clearly about it

Also at eleven is the meal called “elevenses”. I think this is usually a light snack of coffee and biscuits and is taken by people who had an early breakfast or who expect to have a late lunch.

Tea is not only a drink but also the name of a snack which people eat mid-afternoon, say around 3.30 or 4 o’clock. People drink tea but also have small delicate sandwiches, pastries with cream and jam, and more biscuits.

The final meal of the day is known as “supper” and this is really a late dinner. People have this if they get home late from work, or if they have been to the theatre in town, for example. Some people eat a cold meal, while others may have something simple and easy to cook, like baked beans on toast.

Background Information

Tea:  As a drink, most British people take tea with milk although some have “black tea” (meaning tea without milk). This is the same with coffee, so “black” coffee means coffee without milk. With both tea and coffee most people add sugar, although nowadays quite a few people have given up sugar as part of a more healthy diet.

Key Words:

Delicate:  small and beautifully shaped纤细的；精美的;  pleasant and not strong or intense in colour, taste, or smell (颜色)柔和的;(味道)鲜美的，清淡可口的;（气味）清香的

Pastires: a food made by mixing flour, fat, and water. The mixture is rolled flat and used for making pies and other food.

There is one special meal in the week and that is on Sunday when most people do not work and so the whole family can be together.   Sunday lunch is considered typically British and the most famous dish for Sunday is roast beef with Yorkshire pudding (not actually a pudding at all but a mixture of flour, eggs and milk cooked in the oven).

Now that I have described the various meals to you I should tell you what my favourites are:

1. Bangers and mash — this is sausages and potatoes that have

been crushed up. Delicious!

2. Fish and chips — I love going to the fish and chip shop down my street in Cambridge. This shop serves fried potatoes called “chips”, with fried fish, meat pies or curry dips. The whole lot is then sprinkled with salt and vinegar before being wrapped up in newspaper. I love to eat the fish and chips with my fingers as I walk down the street!

3. Chinese takeaway. Yes, Yi Fei, there are Chinese restaurants in every village in Britain. They serve pretty good food but it is often quite different from the Chinese food we have at home. British people love something called “chow mein” which is a sort of stir-fried dish that I have never seen in Wuhan.

Background Information:

Bangers and mash

A “banger” is an informal term for a sausage — the term probably comes from the fact that fried or grilled sausages sometimes burst or go “bang”. “Mash” as might be inferred from the context is “mashed potato”.

Key Words:

Crushed: to press something so hard that it breaks into very small pieces

Dips: thick cold sauce for dipping pieces of food into before eating them

And here is the food I hate: cheese! The British love cheese. Their most famous cheese is called “cheddar” and many of the cheeses are named after the places where they were made. The most awful cheeses are called blue cheeses like Stilton, which are soft and smelly —they stink like a peasant’s feet!

Well, that’s all from me and now it’s time for my lunch. Today I am going to the pub with friends to eat a pub lunch. I will drink a pint of British beer called “bitter”. I am not sure what I will have to eat but I can tell you it won’t be a ploughman’s lunch with cheese!

Write soon,

Dong Fang

Background Information:

Cheese

British people have been producing cheese for at least two thousand years. The flavour depends on the cows that give the milk, the quality of the grass they graze on, and on how the cheese is “cultured” and “ripened” in the process of making it. Some are hard, others are soft; some are used mainly for cooking, others are eaten as they are without cooking on bread or with biscuits. Cheeses have many different colours, sizes, shapes, and, of course, different tastes. Cheddar is probably the most popular of the English cheeses; it is a hard cheese from Somerset.  Cheshire is one of the oldest and has a salty taste.  

A ploughman’s lunch

This is a light meal of bread, cheese, and pickle, often served with salad, which is commonly served in pubs.

Key Words:

Awful: used for emphasizing how unpleasant something is

Stink: to smell very unpleasant

亲爱的亦飞:

        谢谢你1月14日给我写的信。你问起我觉得这儿的饮食怎么样。好吧，让我来告诉你这个国家奇怪的饮食习惯吧。

英国人上班前早餐吃得很多。早餐多是油炸食品，有熏肉、鸡蛋、炸土豆，有时还有蘑菇。我甚至看到人们吃恶心的黑布丁——用干猪血和脂肪做的大香肠。 

有的人没时间吃这么丰盛的早餐，就喝茶或咖啡，外加涂有橘子酱(一种用橙子做的果酱)的烤面包对付过去。有的人只吃谷类食品，如麦片。我听说在苏格兰，人们吃麦片粥，就是煮熟的燕麦，以抵御冬季的寒冷。这种食品与我们的稀粥最接近。

       午餐时间很晚，在12:30到1:30之间，有时等到用餐时我已有些饿了。午餐并不丰盛，一家人也不会坐到一起用餐。有的工厂或学校设有食堂提供午餐，但我想大多数人是在书桌上或与同事一起简单进餐。我通常打包午餐去学校。它是用午餐盒盛的几个三明治(火腿加番茄或金枪鱼)、一个苹果、一袋油炸土豆片（就像我们的土豆片一样），外加一罐饮料，比如柠檬汁。

   由于人们通常在5:30或6:00下班，然后还得从工作地点赶回家中，因此晚餐（也叫正餐）通常在晚上7点或8点左右。到那时候，我可真是饥肠辘辘了。正餐时，英国人喜欢尝试来自不同国家的很多不同食物，如通心粉大腊肠(来自意大利)和咖喱鸡(来自印度)都是受欢迎的菜肴。实际上，你可以说英国人不大吃英国菜！但其实很多人的正餐的确吃的是传统的“肉加两样蔬菜”，就是一块猪肉或羊肉(闻起来味道浓烈，但我必须承认吃起来不错)加两道煮蔬菜，如土豆和胡萝卜。然后在肉和菜上面都浇上肉卤——它是用煮肉时的肉汁加工而成的一种酱汁。土豆是最受欢迎的蔬菜——英国人吃土豆就像我们吃大米一样。   

这些是通常的三餐，但英国人有时会中途另外用餐。这些餐饭常把我搅糊涂，在这里让我试着解释一下。早午餐是在早餐和午餐之间，人们通常在周末或假期，起床晚的时候吃早午餐，大概11:00左右。人们吃的东西和午餐一样，只是没那么多。 

“午前茶”也是在11:00。我想这一餐通常是少量的咖啡和饼干，用餐者是早餐吃得早或预计午餐要吃得晚的人。

 茶不仅仅是一种饮料，还是人们在半下午，如3:30或4:00左右所吃的快餐。人们不仅喝茶，也吃一些可口的三明治、奶油果酱馅饼和饼干。

 一天中最后一顿饭叫做夜宵，这一餐的确很晚。比如说，如果人们下班回家晚，或进城去看了戏，就会用点夜宵。有的人吃冷餐，而另外一些人可能吃点简单易烹调的东西，如烘豆加烤面包。

一周中有一顿特殊的饭。这是在星期天大多数人不上班、全家人得以团聚的时候。星期日午餐是典型的英国风味，星期天最有名的一道菜是烤牛肉加约克郡布丁(实际上这根本不是布丁，而是面粉、鸡蛋和牛奶的混合物烘烤而成)。

既然向你描述了各种膳食，我应该告诉你我喜欢的有哪些：

1.  香肠土豆泥——这是把香肠放在捣烂的土豆中加工而成的。美味可口！

2. 炸鱼加炸土豆条——我喜欢去剑桥我所住的街上那家卖炸鱼和土豆条的店铺。这家店出售油炸土豆条加炸鱼、肉馅饼或咖喱沾酱，外面撒满盐和醋，用报纸包起来。我喜欢一边沿街漫步，一边用手抓着吃炸土豆条和炸鱼。

3. 中国外卖。是的，亦飞，在英国每个村庄都有中国餐馆。他们出售很好的食品，但和我们在国内吃的中国食品完全不同。英国人喜欢吃一种叫做“炒面”的煎炒食品，我在武汉从来没见过。