Now THIS is where you'll really feel like a foreigner! In the UK, Hush Puppies are a type of comfy shoe and a sloppy joe is a sweater. The Brits won't have a clue about po' boys, grits, or mud pies, but then bubble and squeak, ploughman's lunch, and spotted dick are probably a mystery to you. In this chapter, I'll walk you through each meal of the day, pointing out the types of strange food you might be served up while in the UK. I'll also let you know which of your favorite American foods you won't find there, and talk about the customs and culture surrounding food in Britain.
• Before we even discuss specific food items, let me tell you that there's sometimes a difference in the order in which things are eaten. For example, at a dinner party, the cheese plate will come at the end of the meal, either before, instead of, or after dessert, and will be served with coffee—and port, if you're lucky. Salad is quite often served after the main course.
• Another difference is how certain things are eaten. You'll find, in the UK—and other countries in Europe, come to
think of it—that people are not too worried about having their salad and the rest of the meal on the same plate. In fact, if you entertain Brits at your home and set out a separate salad plate, you might find that no one has used it when you come to clear the table. It's probably for this reason that there's no salad plate or salad fork in a British place setting.
• Something else to bear in mind about how things are consumed in the UK is the use of both knife and fork. In informal situations it's okay to cut up all your food and then eat with the fork only, although some people might make comments about the similarity to babies having their food cut up for them. However, if you are in a very formal setting, you might want to hold on to both knife and fork and eat like a grown-up.
• Breakfast: Typically, Brits don't eat doughnuts and other sweet sticky stuff first thing in the morning. A "cooked" breakfast will consist of something like fried bacon, sausages, scrambled or fried eggs, fried tomatoes, and baked beans. (By the way, bacon slices are called "rashers.") Kippers, which are smoked herrings, are also a favorite for breakfast in the UK. Toast will be served with a selection of jams and marmalade. The Brits never mix sweet and savory breakfast food on the same plate, so watch for their looks of horror when you let your maple syrup drench your sausages! Cereal is the most common daily breakfast, with the heavier, cooked breakfast saved as a weekend treat. Unless you're in an American-style diner, pancakes are rarely found on the breakfast table. Occasionally, in tonier establishments, you'll come across kedgeree for breakfast. This is a delicious dish of rice, smoked haddock, and egg, which you should certainly sample if you can. Lunch: Depending on where you are in the UK (usually the North), this meal could be called "dinner." Except for Sundays, lunch is usually a fairly light affair. A word of warning: If you suggest lunch at 11.30 a.m., you'll be met with astonished faces. Lunchtime is not before noon, and sometimes at 1 p.m.; 11.30 a.m. is definitely still the morning. Sunday lunch is a larger affair, and many friends or family get together at this time. Typically, this meal will be a "roast" (chicken, beef, lamb, or pork) with all the trimmings—roast potatoes, vegetables, Yorkshire pudding and gravy—followed by dessert or "pudding" and sometimes preceded by a pint at the local pub. Actually, more and more Brits now stay at the pub for their Sunday lunch, as the pubs quite often excel at this fare. (See Pubs at p. 100 in the next chapter.) Wherever they're from in the UK, all Brits use the term "dinner ladies" to refer to the lovely ladies who serve hot lunches in school cafeterias. (Excessively fat female upper arms are often called "dinner lady arms" or "bingo wings.") For the same unfathomable reason, hot school lunches are referred to as "school dinners" all over the country.
Dinner: Again, depending on your locale, this meal can be called tea, dinner, or supper. It is usually the heaviest meal of the day. Not as many people eat out in the UK, especially during the week, but if you really can't face cooking every night there is a fabulous selection of ready-to-serve food in most supermarkets—and it's not all diet foods, either. Since adults generally eat out without children, if you are making plans to meet someone for a meal, it's very unusual to schedule dinner before 7 p.m.
• Tea: So what is this tea business, anyway? As I mentioned, in some parts of the country an early evening meal is known as "tea," so if you're invited to tea, it could be a fairly full meal, or just tiny sandwiches, creamy cakes, and posh cups. If you are invited to the posh version, don't panic! Apart from learning how to place a china cup in its saucer without shattering it, there's really nothing to it. Your host will basically wheel out the goodies and the tea, and Bob's your uncle! As with any meal, leave the sweet stuff till last. If you insist on hosting a tea yourself, there are tons of "how-to" books and magazines to help. The main thing to remember is that it's not supposed to be a torture session for you or your guests. A "cream tea" refers to the traditional Devonshire tea, which consists of scones served with clotted cream and jam, along with your pot of tea. Clotted cream is thick, yellow cream with the consistency of soft or whipped butter. It is made entirely from the cream of cows' milk and doesn't taste like any cream I've had in the States. Originally this cream used to be made only in Devon but it is now made and sold throughout the country. A note about "high tea"—in the UK, this term isn't really used much any more and means anything but posh. "High tea" actually refers to the heavier version that workers would have when they came in from the fields or the factory, in the late afternoon. Before bedtime, they would probably have a top-up of food in the form of "supper." Still on the subject of tea—Brits drink more tea than you can imagine! Most people use tea bags, although some still prefer loose tea leaves, which require a teapot and strainer.
You will probably be amazed at the quantity of tea consumed in the UK. People pop the kettle on whenever they have guests, feel under stress, are tired, or just plain bored. There's always a reason! Most people drink tea with a little milk, and some just have it black. Few people drink it with lemon, or anything else, for that matter. If you spend any length of time in the UK, you'll probably come back a true convert.
Because of the ethnic mixes in the UK, the Brits actually eat a wide variety of foods on a regular basis. Chinese, Italian, and Indian dishes, in particular, are common fare in homes, but even Japanese and Mexican foods have made a significant entrance in recent years.
Cooking: A British recipe book (yes, they exist!) will pose a few problems for most Americans, not least because they're now all in metric. There'll be ingredients and instructions that require interpretation. My advice (seriously) is to have a UK dictionary handy whenever you tackle a British recipe. Better still, grab yourself a metric conversion chart and you'll be a lot safer. Many recipes state the "Gas Mark" setting so make sure you have found a recipe book that converts these into centigrade and/or Fahrenheit. The famous Joy of Cooking (Simon & Schuster, Inc.) does a great job of explaining many of the differences between American and British cookery methods and terminology. Not only will you need to take a conversion chart with you, but also a "cup" measure, as this measurement simply does not exist in the UK. If you ever ask your neighbor for a cup of sugar, there's no telling how much you'll get since it will depend on the size of the cup she uses. (Incidentally, a "cup" in the UK is the word for a piece of apparel—the sports "box"!)
• American food you won't find in Britain: As I've said, po'boys, grits, and Mississippi mud pies could be names of American rock bands as far as most Brits are concerned. Other foods you'll rarely find in Britain are: brittle, sloppy joe, hushpuppies, English muffins, s'mores, Graham crackers, half and half, and anything "over easy." Bisquick now seems to be fairly easy to get hold of, thank goodness! If you're desperate for American fare, there are many Web sites that will deliver stuff to your door.
• There'll be a lot of British food you'll never have encountered before, but I urge you to try everything at least once, as many things look and sound disgusting but are actually quite tasty. These include, but are not limited to—mincemeat pies (actually very sweet fruit pies), picallilli, digestive biscuits, Cornish pasties, Bakewell tarts, Lancashire hotpot, Scotch eggs, Welsh rarebit, Ribena, Lucozade, ginger beer, cockaleekee, black pudding, haggis, bubble and squeak, tripe, ploughman's lunch, and faggots. I won't tell you what they are as that would spoil the element of danger. Why don't you take this list and make it your mission to sample each item during your stay? Although many foods can be found in both countries, they often have totally different names, just to confuse visitors (see the glossary below for the more straightforward ones). Alternatively, some foods use the same names but are just pretending to be similar.
• Pancakes in the UK are more like crepes. In addition, they are typically filled with something sweet and served as dessert. If you're desperate for an American pancake, "drop scones" come fairly close. Now that Bisquick is available, you can also make your own.
• Chips as Americans know them are "crisps" in the UK, and the variety of flavors you will encounter will either disgust or amaze you—ketchup, savory beef, and sweet and sour are some of the tamer options. The British "chips" are what Americans call French fries. This is worth remembering when you are ordering food.
• Gravy in the UK is only ever brown, and never served with biscuits. Do try some of the thicker brown gravies, which are served over roast meats—delicious!
• Talking of biscuits—in the UK they are what you know as cookies. American biscuits look more like British scones, but would never be served on a plate with a meal. British scones are sweet and usually served with jam (jelly) and cream.
• From time to time you'll find something that has the same name but is not the same food item, e.g., coffee cake. In the States this does not seem to require an ounce of coffee in the ingredients, but in the UK it will appear more like a coffee-tasting pound cake or gateau.
BRITISH WORDS THAT MIGHT
REQUIRE TRANSLATION
Aubergine n—eggplant
Banger n—sausage
Barbie (BBQ) n—grill
Beaker n—mug (usually plastic)
Bicarbonate of soda (bicarb) n—baking soda
Biscuit n—cookie
Blancmange n (pronounced "blamonj")—thick custard, usually a layer in a trifle
Brew n—cup or pot of tea
Broad bean n—fava bean
Brown sauce—steak sauce
Bucks Fizz n—Mimosa
Butty n—sandwich
Candy floss n—cotton candy
Castor sugar n—very fine sugar
Chipolata n—small, pork sausage
Chips n—French fries
Chicory n—endive
Chip butty n—French fry sandwich (truly!)
Cling film n—Saran wrap
Coriander n—cilantro
Cordial n—a thick drink that should be diluted with lots of water (usually for kids and also called juice or "squash")
Cornflour n—corn starch
Cos lettuce (pronounced "koss") n—the equivalent of iceberg lettuce
Courgette n (pronounced "korjett")—zucchini
Crisps n—chips
Crumpet n—resembles an English muffin
Cuppa n—cup of tea
Doner kebab n—like a Gyro
Double cream n—whipping cream
Dressing n—can mean either salad dressing or stuffing
Egg timer n—hourglass
Fairy cake n—cup cake
Fish fingers n—fish sticks
Gammon n—a large ham
Gherkin (silent "h") n—pickle
Ice lolly n—Popsicle on a stick
Ice pop n—Popsicle
Icing sugar n—confectioner's or powered sugar
Jacket potato n—baked potato
Jam n—jelly
Jelly n—Jell-o
Joint n—roasted meat (large piece of)
Kebab n—kabob
Lemonade n—a clear, fizzy drink like 7-up
Madeira cake n—pound cake
Mange tout (pronounced "monj too") n—snow peas
Marrow n—like a huge zuchinni
Minced meat n—ground meat
"Neat" a—straight (drinks)
Plonk n—cheap wine
Pork scratchings n—pork rinds
Porridge n—oatmeal
Pudding n—either dessert course or a heavy pudding
Rapeseed n—canola
Rashers n—strips of bacon
Rissole n—a fried patty containing (usually) leftover food, e.g., fish or meat and potatoes
Rosie Lee n—tea (well-known Cockney rhyming slang)
Runner beans n—stringy green beans
Sausage roll n—sausage wrapped in flaky pastry
Saveloy n—long, seasoned sausage
Savoury a—the opposite of sweet when describing taste
Scoff v—to gobble up
Scone n—biscuit; British scones are never served with gravy, only clotted cream and jam
Skate n—very common white fish
Soya n—soy
Spring onion n—green onion
Squash n—concentrated fruit juice that must be diluted with water before drinking
Swede n—yellow turnip
Swiss roll n—jelly roll
UHT milk—long life milk (Ultra Heat Treated) that keeps for several months
Victoria sponge cake n—two very light rounded cakes with jam (jelly) between them "99" n—an ice cream with a flaky chocolate stick in the top
AMERICAN WORDS THAT THE BRITS
DON'T SHARE
Canola—rapeseed
Confectioner's sugar—icing sugar
Chicory—endive
English muffin—nearest equivalent is a crumpet
Joe (as in "cup of")—coffee
Oleo—margerine
Pound cake—Madeira cake
Produce—green groceries
Skillet—frying pan
Soy—soya
Wiener—Sausage or hot dog
Yellow cake—not unlike the consistency of a Victoria sponge, but be warned—the Brits will fall about when you call it yellow cake.
• Before we even discuss specific food items, let me tell you that there's sometimes a difference in the order in which things are eaten. For example, at a dinner party, the cheese plate will come at the end of the meal, either before, instead of, or after dessert, and will be served with coffee—and port, if you're lucky. Salad is quite often served after the main course.
• Another difference is how certain things are eaten. You'll find, in the UK—and other countries in Europe, come to
think of it—that people are not too worried about having their salad and the rest of the meal on the same plate. In fact, if you entertain Brits at your home and set out a separate salad plate, you might find that no one has used it when you come to clear the table. It's probably for this reason that there's no salad plate or salad fork in a British place setting.
• Something else to bear in mind about how things are consumed in the UK is the use of both knife and fork. In informal situations it's okay to cut up all your food and then eat with the fork only, although some people might make comments about the similarity to babies having their food cut up for them. However, if you are in a very formal setting, you might want to hold on to both knife and fork and eat like a grown-up.
• Breakfast: Typically, Brits don't eat doughnuts and other sweet sticky stuff first thing in the morning. A "cooked" breakfast will consist of something like fried bacon, sausages, scrambled or fried eggs, fried tomatoes, and baked beans. (By the way, bacon slices are called "rashers.") Kippers, which are smoked herrings, are also a favorite for breakfast in the UK. Toast will be served with a selection of jams and marmalade. The Brits never mix sweet and savory breakfast food on the same plate, so watch for their looks of horror when you let your maple syrup drench your sausages! Cereal is the most common daily breakfast, with the heavier, cooked breakfast saved as a weekend treat. Unless you're in an American-style diner, pancakes are rarely found on the breakfast table. Occasionally, in tonier establishments, you'll come across kedgeree for breakfast. This is a delicious dish of rice, smoked haddock, and egg, which you should certainly sample if you can. Lunch: Depending on where you are in the UK (usually the North), this meal could be called "dinner." Except for Sundays, lunch is usually a fairly light affair. A word of warning: If you suggest lunch at 11.30 a.m., you'll be met with astonished faces. Lunchtime is not before noon, and sometimes at 1 p.m.; 11.30 a.m. is definitely still the morning. Sunday lunch is a larger affair, and many friends or family get together at this time. Typically, this meal will be a "roast" (chicken, beef, lamb, or pork) with all the trimmings—roast potatoes, vegetables, Yorkshire pudding and gravy—followed by dessert or "pudding" and sometimes preceded by a pint at the local pub. Actually, more and more Brits now stay at the pub for their Sunday lunch, as the pubs quite often excel at this fare. (See Pubs at p. 100 in the next chapter.) Wherever they're from in the UK, all Brits use the term "dinner ladies" to refer to the lovely ladies who serve hot lunches in school cafeterias. (Excessively fat female upper arms are often called "dinner lady arms" or "bingo wings.") For the same unfathomable reason, hot school lunches are referred to as "school dinners" all over the country.
Dinner: Again, depending on your locale, this meal can be called tea, dinner, or supper. It is usually the heaviest meal of the day. Not as many people eat out in the UK, especially during the week, but if you really can't face cooking every night there is a fabulous selection of ready-to-serve food in most supermarkets—and it's not all diet foods, either. Since adults generally eat out without children, if you are making plans to meet someone for a meal, it's very unusual to schedule dinner before 7 p.m.
• Tea: So what is this tea business, anyway? As I mentioned, in some parts of the country an early evening meal is known as "tea," so if you're invited to tea, it could be a fairly full meal, or just tiny sandwiches, creamy cakes, and posh cups. If you are invited to the posh version, don't panic! Apart from learning how to place a china cup in its saucer without shattering it, there's really nothing to it. Your host will basically wheel out the goodies and the tea, and Bob's your uncle! As with any meal, leave the sweet stuff till last. If you insist on hosting a tea yourself, there are tons of "how-to" books and magazines to help. The main thing to remember is that it's not supposed to be a torture session for you or your guests. A "cream tea" refers to the traditional Devonshire tea, which consists of scones served with clotted cream and jam, along with your pot of tea. Clotted cream is thick, yellow cream with the consistency of soft or whipped butter. It is made entirely from the cream of cows' milk and doesn't taste like any cream I've had in the States. Originally this cream used to be made only in Devon but it is now made and sold throughout the country. A note about "high tea"—in the UK, this term isn't really used much any more and means anything but posh. "High tea" actually refers to the heavier version that workers would have when they came in from the fields or the factory, in the late afternoon. Before bedtime, they would probably have a top-up of food in the form of "supper." Still on the subject of tea—Brits drink more tea than you can imagine! Most people use tea bags, although some still prefer loose tea leaves, which require a teapot and strainer.
You will probably be amazed at the quantity of tea consumed in the UK. People pop the kettle on whenever they have guests, feel under stress, are tired, or just plain bored. There's always a reason! Most people drink tea with a little milk, and some just have it black. Few people drink it with lemon, or anything else, for that matter. If you spend any length of time in the UK, you'll probably come back a true convert.
Because of the ethnic mixes in the UK, the Brits actually eat a wide variety of foods on a regular basis. Chinese, Italian, and Indian dishes, in particular, are common fare in homes, but even Japanese and Mexican foods have made a significant entrance in recent years.
Cooking: A British recipe book (yes, they exist!) will pose a few problems for most Americans, not least because they're now all in metric. There'll be ingredients and instructions that require interpretation. My advice (seriously) is to have a UK dictionary handy whenever you tackle a British recipe. Better still, grab yourself a metric conversion chart and you'll be a lot safer. Many recipes state the "Gas Mark" setting so make sure you have found a recipe book that converts these into centigrade and/or Fahrenheit. The famous Joy of Cooking (Simon & Schuster, Inc.) does a great job of explaining many of the differences between American and British cookery methods and terminology. Not only will you need to take a conversion chart with you, but also a "cup" measure, as this measurement simply does not exist in the UK. If you ever ask your neighbor for a cup of sugar, there's no telling how much you'll get since it will depend on the size of the cup she uses. (Incidentally, a "cup" in the UK is the word for a piece of apparel—the sports "box"!)
• American food you won't find in Britain: As I've said, po'boys, grits, and Mississippi mud pies could be names of American rock bands as far as most Brits are concerned. Other foods you'll rarely find in Britain are: brittle, sloppy joe, hushpuppies, English muffins, s'mores, Graham crackers, half and half, and anything "over easy." Bisquick now seems to be fairly easy to get hold of, thank goodness! If you're desperate for American fare, there are many Web sites that will deliver stuff to your door.
• There'll be a lot of British food you'll never have encountered before, but I urge you to try everything at least once, as many things look and sound disgusting but are actually quite tasty. These include, but are not limited to—mincemeat pies (actually very sweet fruit pies), picallilli, digestive biscuits, Cornish pasties, Bakewell tarts, Lancashire hotpot, Scotch eggs, Welsh rarebit, Ribena, Lucozade, ginger beer, cockaleekee, black pudding, haggis, bubble and squeak, tripe, ploughman's lunch, and faggots. I won't tell you what they are as that would spoil the element of danger. Why don't you take this list and make it your mission to sample each item during your stay? Although many foods can be found in both countries, they often have totally different names, just to confuse visitors (see the glossary below for the more straightforward ones). Alternatively, some foods use the same names but are just pretending to be similar.
• Pancakes in the UK are more like crepes. In addition, they are typically filled with something sweet and served as dessert. If you're desperate for an American pancake, "drop scones" come fairly close. Now that Bisquick is available, you can also make your own.
• Chips as Americans know them are "crisps" in the UK, and the variety of flavors you will encounter will either disgust or amaze you—ketchup, savory beef, and sweet and sour are some of the tamer options. The British "chips" are what Americans call French fries. This is worth remembering when you are ordering food.
• Gravy in the UK is only ever brown, and never served with biscuits. Do try some of the thicker brown gravies, which are served over roast meats—delicious!
• Talking of biscuits—in the UK they are what you know as cookies. American biscuits look more like British scones, but would never be served on a plate with a meal. British scones are sweet and usually served with jam (jelly) and cream.
• From time to time you'll find something that has the same name but is not the same food item, e.g., coffee cake. In the States this does not seem to require an ounce of coffee in the ingredients, but in the UK it will appear more like a coffee-tasting pound cake or gateau.
BRITISH WORDS THAT MIGHT
REQUIRE TRANSLATION
Aubergine n—eggplant
Banger n—sausage
Barbie (BBQ) n—grill
Beaker n—mug (usually plastic)
Bicarbonate of soda (bicarb) n—baking soda
Biscuit n—cookie
Blancmange n (pronounced "blamonj")—thick custard, usually a layer in a trifle
Brew n—cup or pot of tea
Broad bean n—fava bean
Brown sauce—steak sauce
Bucks Fizz n—Mimosa
Butty n—sandwich
Candy floss n—cotton candy
Castor sugar n—very fine sugar
Chipolata n—small, pork sausage
Chips n—French fries
Chicory n—endive
Chip butty n—French fry sandwich (truly!)
Cling film n—Saran wrap
Coriander n—cilantro
Cordial n—a thick drink that should be diluted with lots of water (usually for kids and also called juice or "squash")
Cornflour n—corn starch
Cos lettuce (pronounced "koss") n—the equivalent of iceberg lettuce
Courgette n (pronounced "korjett")—zucchini
Crisps n—chips
Crumpet n—resembles an English muffin
Cuppa n—cup of tea
Doner kebab n—like a Gyro
Double cream n—whipping cream
Dressing n—can mean either salad dressing or stuffing
Egg timer n—hourglass
Fairy cake n—cup cake
Fish fingers n—fish sticks
Gammon n—a large ham
Gherkin (silent "h") n—pickle
Ice lolly n—Popsicle on a stick
Ice pop n—Popsicle
Icing sugar n—confectioner's or powered sugar
Jacket potato n—baked potato
Jam n—jelly
Jelly n—Jell-o
Joint n—roasted meat (large piece of)
Kebab n—kabob
Lemonade n—a clear, fizzy drink like 7-up
Madeira cake n—pound cake
Mange tout (pronounced "monj too") n—snow peas
Marrow n—like a huge zuchinni
Minced meat n—ground meat
"Neat" a—straight (drinks)
Plonk n—cheap wine
Pork scratchings n—pork rinds
Porridge n—oatmeal
Pudding n—either dessert course or a heavy pudding
Rapeseed n—canola
Rashers n—strips of bacon
Rissole n—a fried patty containing (usually) leftover food, e.g., fish or meat and potatoes
Rosie Lee n—tea (well-known Cockney rhyming slang)
Runner beans n—stringy green beans
Sausage roll n—sausage wrapped in flaky pastry
Saveloy n—long, seasoned sausage
Savoury a—the opposite of sweet when describing taste
Scoff v—to gobble up
Scone n—biscuit; British scones are never served with gravy, only clotted cream and jam
Skate n—very common white fish
Soya n—soy
Spring onion n—green onion
Squash n—concentrated fruit juice that must be diluted with water before drinking
Swede n—yellow turnip
Swiss roll n—jelly roll
UHT milk—long life milk (Ultra Heat Treated) that keeps for several months
Victoria sponge cake n—two very light rounded cakes with jam (jelly) between them "99" n—an ice cream with a flaky chocolate stick in the top
AMERICAN WORDS THAT THE BRITS
DON'T SHARE
Canola—rapeseed
Confectioner's sugar—icing sugar
Chicory—endive
English muffin—nearest equivalent is a crumpet
Joe (as in "cup of")—coffee
Oleo—margerine
Pound cake—Madeira cake
Produce—green groceries
Skillet—frying pan
Soy—soya
Wiener—Sausage or hot dog
Yellow cake—not unlike the consistency of a Victoria sponge, but be warned—the Brits will fall about when you call it yellow cake.
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