☆Read the Intercultural Notes on P49-50 and discuss the following questions with your partner.

British food has changed enormously in recent years. The “native” cooking been considerably revived. This is seen in the popularity of innovative cooking programmes on TV and in the huge sales of cookery books, which consistently are at the top of the bestseller lists. British interest in food is also seen in the increasing internationalization of everyday dishes both in supermarkets and in restaurants.

In ordinary supermarkets there are special counters for oriental food which contains Chinese and Japanese dishes; Asian food which mainly refers to Indian cuisine; Italian pasta dishes; Polish food such as different kinds of sausages; Swedish meatballs; Spanish paella (a rice and seafood dish); Mexican burritos (a large spicy pancake roll); German  sausages or Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte  (a creamy cake with many layers), and Thai  tom yum soup (ready-made).

It is a fashion in British restaurants now to serve fusion dishes, i.e. a traditional dish cooked and presented in a different way; or in an English restaurant, they serve popular dishes from other countries and cultures, e.g. sweet- and-sour pork with rice (a Chinese dish), or chicken Tikka Masala (a British invented Indian dish).

More interestingly you can find a Chinese takeaway in almost every town and even village in Britain, and in some places the owner may be Indian, British, Thai or Vietnamese by origin.

British breakfast has been very popular with British people and tourists from all over the world. Chinese tourists staying in British hotels always praise the British breakfast which contains sausages, slices of bacon, boiled or scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and hash browns (triangular shaped potato pieces fried). However many British families and hotels also use cornflakes (American) and muesli (Swiss or German), croissants and baguettes (French) for breakfast as well.

Desserts are loved by British people. Many British women or men are very good at baking cakes or cookies at home. However it is also common  to find different desserts from different parts of the world in supermarkets and cake/sweet shops: e.g. baklawa, which is made with baked filo pastry sheets stuffed with nuts and honey and originates from Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. Italian, American and French cakes such as tiramisu,  New York cheesecake, and crème brulée are also widely available.

The reasons for this considerable social shift in eating habits seem to be that many British people have travelled to many countries around  the world on holiday, they enjoy cooking and eating, and the large numbers of ethnic minority groups in Britain are contributing  to an enhanced  range of food available. Even the traditional fish-and-chip shop, which many would have thought of as essentially British, now routinely sells Chinese spring rolls, Italian  pizza, Turkish  or Greek kebabs (meat and salad inside flat pitta bread  —  a meal in itself), and take-away curry dishes. So what is British about British food? These days, it may be exactly this international mix with British innovations. These kinds of food are now so commonplace  in Britain that the Macmillan English Dictionary includes words like “croissant”, “pizza”, “kebab”, “samosa”, “pitta bread” (and “halal”) as English.