Text A. British Cuisine

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. English cooking is found at home. So it is difficult to find a good English restaurant with reasonable prices.

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

British cuisine has always been multicultural. In ancient times it was influenced by the Romans and in medieval times the French. When the Normans invaded, they brought with them the spices of the east: cinnamon, saffron, nutmeg, pepper, ginger. Sugar came to England at that time, and was considered a spice - rare and expensive. Before the arrival of cane sugars, honey and fruit juices were the only sweeteners. The few Medieval cookery books that remain record dishes that use every spice in the larder, and chefs across Europe saw their task to be the almost alchemical transformation of raw ingredients into something entirely new (for centuries the English aristocracy ate French food) which they felt distinguished them from the peasants.

During Victorian times good old British stodge mixed with exotic spices from all over the Empire. From East Asia (China) they adopted tea (and exported the habit to India), and from India they adopted curry-style spicing, they even developed a line of spicy sauces including ketchup, mint sauce, Worcestershire sauce and deviled sauce to indulge these tastes. Today it would be fair to say that curry has become a national dish.

Among English cakes and pastries, many are tied to the various religious holidays of the year. Hot Cross Buns are eaten on Good Friday, Plum Pudding for Christmas, and Twelfth Night Cake for Epiphany.

The British tradition of stews, pies and breads, according to the taste buds of the rest of the world, went into terminal decline. What was best in England was only that which showed the influence of France, and so English food let itself become a gastronomic joke and the French art of Nouvell Cuisine was adopted.

In the late 1980's, British cuisine started to look for a new direction. Disenchanted with the overblown Nouvelle Cuisine, chefs began to look a little closer to home for inspiration. Calling on a rich (and largely ignored) tradition, and utilizing many diverse and interesting ingredients, the basis was formed for what is now known as modern British food. Game has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity although it always had a central role in the British diet, which reflects both the abundant richness of the forests and streams and an old aristocratic prejudice against butchered meats.

Although some traditional dishes such as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, Cornish pasties, steak and kidney pie, bread and butter pudding, or fish and chips, remain popular, there has been a significant shift in eating habits in Britain. Rice and pasta have accounted for the decrease in potato consumption and the consumption of meat has also fallen. Vegetable and salad oils have largely replaced the use of butter.

Roast beef is still the national culinary pride. It is called a "joint," and is served at midday on Sunday with roasted potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, two vegetables, a good strong horseradish, gravy, and mustard.

Today there is more emphasis on fine, fresh ingredients in the better restaurants and markets in the UK offer food items from all over the world. Salmon, exotic fruit, Norwegian prawns and New Zealand lamb are choice items. Wild fowl and game are other specialties on offer.

In fact fish is central to the English diet, they are after all an island surrounded by some of the richest fishing areas of the world. Many species swim in the cold offshore waters: hake, plaice, cod (the most popular choice for fish and chips), turbot, halibut, mullet and John Dory. Oily fishes also abound (mackerel, pilchards, and herring) as do crustaceans like lobster and oysters. Eel, also common, is cooked into a wonderful pie with lemon, parsley, and shallots, all topped with puff pastry.

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. What do foreigners say when they criticize English food?

2. Do English people use a lot of sauces?

3. From a foreigner's point of view, what typically English dishes?

4. Do all English eat in restaurants?

5. What kind of restaurants can you find in Britain?

6. Is it the true that English have no cuisine?