British cuisine
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As as result, traditional foods with ancient origins, such as bread and cheese, roasted and stewed meats, meat and game pies, and freshwater and saltwater fish, are now matched in popularity by potatoes, tomatoes and chillies from the Americas, spices and curries from India and Bangladesh, and stir-fries based on Chinese and Thai cooking. French cuisine and Italian cuisine, once considered alien, are also now admired and copied. Britain was also quick to adopt the innovation of fast food from the United States, and continues to absorb culinary ideas from all over the world.
- 1 Background
- 2 Take-away food
- 3 Vegetarianism
- 4 Seafood
- 5 Lists
- 5.1 British food writers and chefs
- 5.2 Examples of British cuisine
- 5.3 Meals
- 5.4 Dates of introduction of various foodstuffs and methods to Britain
- 5.4.1 Prehistory (before
- 5.4.2 Roman era (
- 5.4.3 Middle ages to the discovery of the New World (
- 5.4.4
- 5.4.5 After
- 6 Rationing
- 7 References
- 8 See also
- 9 External links
Background
These trends are exemplified by the ubiquitous spaghetti bolognese (known colloquially as Spag Bol or Spag Bog) which has been a common family meal in Britain since at least the 1960s. More recently there has been a huge growth in the popularity of dishes like chicken tikka masala and lemon chicken, dishes with Indian, Bangladeshi and Chinese origins respectively, though modified to suit British tastes. Indeed, chicken tikka masala was first prepared in Britain rather than in India. The British curry, essentially a holdover from the days of the British Raj (and subsequently embellished by immigrants), may be hotter and spicier than the traditional North Indian variety, though Bangladeshis and Southern Indians find it insipid. The post-war introduction of refrigeration, in parallel with the rise of the supermarket, has led to the packaging of such foods into oven-ready meals which, often cooked by microwave oven, have now replaced "meat and two veg" in many homes.
New cuisine
The increasing popularity of celebrity chefs on television has fuelled a renewed awareness of good food and New British cuisine has shaken off much of the stodgy "fish and chips" image. The best London restaurants rival those anywhere in the world, in both quality and price, and this influence is starting to be felt in the rest of the country. There is even a wave of chefs struggling to retain the classic greatness of British country cooking, for example Fergus Henderson.There has been a massive boom in restaurant numbers driven by a renewed interest in quality food, possibly due to the availability of cheap foreign travel. Organic produce is increasingly popular, especially following a spate of farming crises, including BSE.
There has also been a quiet revolution in both quality and quantity of places to dine out in Britain, in particular, the humble Public House has been transformed in the last twenty or so years. Many have made the transition from eateries of poor reputation to rivals of the best restaurants, the so called Gastropub — very often they now are the best restaurants in smaller towns. The term "Pub Grub", once derogatory, can now be a sign of excellent value and quality dining. Some credit for this sea change has to go to CAMRA, for helping to improve the quality of pubs and their products in general, and some to the privatisation of breweries, which forced many pubs to diversify into dining in order to survive as a business, as well as a greater appreciation and demand among consumers.
Traditional cuisine
—William Somerset Maugham (attributed)
Despite the fast-food reputation, traditional British cuisine has survived, largely in the countryside and amongst the upper classes.
The Sunday roast is perhaps the biggest culinary indication of a steadfastly traditional household. The Sunday dinner traditionally includes a Yorkshire pudding accompanying, or occasionally followed by, a joint of meat and assorted vegetables, themselves generally roasted or boiled. The most common joints are beef, lamb or pork; chicken is also popular. Since its wide-spread availability after World War II the most popular Christmas roast is turkey. Game meats such as venison are traditionally the domain of the higher classes. Game, while being a classic English preserve, is not generally eaten in the average household.
At home, the British have many original home-made desserts such as rhubarb crumble, bread and butter pudding, spotted dick and trifle. The traditional accompaniment is custard, known as crème anglaise (English sauce) to the French. The dishes are simple and traditional, with recipes passed on from generation to generation. The pudding tradition reaches its height with the Christmas pudding.
At teatime, traditional British fare includes scones with jam and butter or clotted cream, as well as assorted biscuits and sandwiches. A unique sandwich filling is Marmite, a dark brown savoury spread made from yeast extract, with a tar-like texture and a strong, salty taste. A hand-made favourite is butterfly cake. Some schools teach young children how to bake such sweets during cookery lessons.
Tea is consumed throughout the day and is sometimes drunk with meals, especially at teatime. Coffee is perhaps less common than in continental Europe, and is usually served as a long drink, typically with milk. However, Italian coffee preparations such as espresso and cappuccino are rising in popularity (and quality), while tea, though still an essential part of British life, is less ubiquitous than it was. In recent years herbal teas have become popular. In more formal contexts wine is generally served with meals, though for semi-formal and informal meals beer or cider may also be drunk.
The full English breakfast (also known as "cooked breakfast" or "fried breakfast") also remains a culinary classic. In the Victorian era, during the British Raj, Britain first started borrowing Indian dishes, creating Anglo-Indian cuisine, some of which is still eaten today although many once-popular Anglo-Indian dishes such as kedgeree have largely faded from the scene.
Another formal British culinary tradition rarely observed today is the consumption of a savoury course, such as Welsh rarebit, toward the conclusion of a meal. Most main meals today end with a sweet dessert, although cheese and biscuits may be consumed as an alternative or as an addition.
Reputation abroad
British cuisine still suffers from a relatively poor international reputation, being typically represented by dishes consisting of simply cooked meats and vegetables (so called "meat and two veg") that need to be accompanied by bottled sauces or other condiments after cooking to make them more palatable. Many think that food served in Britain often fails to reach the same general level of excellence that can easily be found across the English Channel in France. In fact French president Jacques Chirac openly proclaimed that British food was the second-worst in Europe, after Finnish.During the Middle Ages, British cuisine enjoyed an excellent reputation; its decline can be firmly traced back to the late 18th century when the majority of the British population began to move away from the land, and was compounded by the effects of rationing during two World Wars (rationing finally ended in 1954), followed by the increasing trend toward industrialised mass production of food. However, in Britain today there is more interest in food than there has ever been before, with celebrity chefs leading the drive toward raising the standard of food in the UK.
In 2005 British cuisine reached new heights when 600 food critics writing for Restaurant magazine named 14 British restaurants among the 50 best restaurants in the world with the number one spot going to The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire and its chef Heston Blumenthal. However, Restaurant Magazine is itself a British publication, so the inclusion of so many British restaurants was not surprising. Also, many of the restaurants, while located in the UK, do not serve traditional British cuisine - for example, Le Gavroche which serves French food - or are headed by non-British chefs such as Pierre Gagnaire.
Despite the availability of better quality fare, pre-packaged "ready meals" that require little preparation time have become more popular over the last 30 years - but they have themselves advanced considerably from their very basic beginnings.
Take-away food
The rise of the Industrial Revolution was also paralleled by the advent of take-away foods such as fish and chips, mushy peas, and steak and kidney pie with mashed potato (pie and mash). These were the staples of the UK take-away business for many years, though ethnic influences, particularly Indian and Chinese, have led to the introduction of ethnic take-away foods. Grove, P., Grove, C. "The History of the 'Ethnic' Restaurant in Britain", Menu Magazine [link] From the 1980s onwards, a new variant on curry, the balti, began to become popular in the area around Birmingham, gradually spreading to other parts of the country. Kebab houses, pizza restaurants and American-style fried chicken restaurants aiming at late night snacking have also become popular in urban areas.