Someone on a slimming diet will have to give up eating sweets and chocolates, too. The British are one of the biggest consumers of sugar and confectionery in the world.

TEXT 1. Food and Digestion.

TEXT 2. English Food

Food in Britain has had a bad reputation abroad for a very long time. Visitors from foreign countries complain about the meals they order in restaurants and cafes. The British themselves do not like to complain in public so the standard of meals is not always good or reliable. But in a city like London there is great variety.

Traditional British food, with its emphasis on puddings, pies, cakes, meat dishes and fried food, no longer forms a main part of most people's diet because of the trend towards lighter, more easily prepared food. Traditional methods of preserving meat and fish, such as salting and smoking, are no longer necessary and food such as kippers (smoked herrings), salt pork and beef, and bacon are eaten less frequently than before. Nevertheless, many traditional dishes survive, especially those associated with special occasions.

There are many regional dishes, usually named after a county, such as Lancashire hotpot, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, which are popular all over the country. There are many different kinds of regional cheese, including the best-known, Cheddar, as well as Cheshire, Leicestershire and Stilton, each with its own distinctive colour, flavour and consistency. Welsh rarebit is a popular dish of toasted cheese.

The British have always liked meat dishes, from the traditional roast beef to popular favourites such as 'bangers and mash' (sausages and potatoes), shepherd's pie (also called cottage pie), toad in the hole (sausages baked in batter), steak and kidney pudding, steak, and bacon and eggs. Scotland has its traditional haggis (ливер в телячьем рубце).

Beef, lamb, mutton, pork and chicken are the most common kinds of meat. Sauces that traditionally accompany meat are mint sauce for lamb, horseradish sauce for beef, apple sauce for pork and cranberry sauce for turkey.

A 'typical' good British meal is a roast joint of meat, potatoes and one other vegetable. It is still the custom in many families to eat the roast meat hot on Sundays and cold for as many days of the week as possible. The meat—beef, lamb or pork—may be served with two lots of potatoes. They are cooked in two different ways—some are roast with the meat, and others are served boiled or mashed.

Fish and chips is a favourite fish dish, although fish fingers and fish cakes are also popular, especially with children. Cooking fish and chips the pieces of fish are dipped in butter (a mixture flour and water) and then dropped into deep boiling oil for a few minutes. They come out crisp and hot and are then wrapped in grease-proof paper and handed to the customer to take away. Attached to some shops is a small cafe where you can eat your fish and chips without taking them home. Everybody seems to have fish and chips at home at least once a week. Every English town has in its side streets and shops.

Kippers are split, salted and smoked herrings; they can be grilled or fried, and nothing should be added to them but a little butter and they need no longer than five minutes on each side. Kippers are eaten either for breakfast or supper. Plaice, cod, herrings and mackerel are the most common kinds of fish. Trout and salmon are usually considered a luxury, especially, when they have been smoked.

Eggs are eaten boiled, fried, poached or scrambled, with boiled eggs usually preferred soft, and traditionally cooked for three minutes.

English cheeses deserve to be better known. The "king" of cheeses is Stilton, a blue-veined cheese both smooth and strong. It is best when port is drunk with it. Cheddar, Cheshire and Lankashire cheeses are all pleasing to the palate, and cream cheeses are to be had in various parts of the country. In Devon, excellent whipped cream is made, which goes well with English strawberries and raspberries.

A vegetable is usually boiled in water and served plain—it may be cauliflower, cabbage or Brussel sprouts — a favourite green vegetable. A visitor to Britain will see some of the following dishes in "restaurants and in private houses:

Potatoes ('spuds') are one of the most common vegetables, served either as chips, roast or mashed potatoes, or baked in their skins (jacket potatoes).

Puddings of all kinds are typically British, and the word itself can describe both delicious and sweet dishes, or mean simply “dessert” in general. Other familiar desserts are fruit-based ones such as apple pie or gooseberry fool.

Among the best-known sweet dishes are rice pudding, bread-and-butter pudding, steamed pudding, suet pudding and Christmas pudding. Plum pudding (which does not contain plums) is another name for Christmas pudding. Plum pudding is sure of its place of honour on the Christmas dinner table. The Christmas pudding is a direct descendent of the old plum porridge, beloved by English people in the Middle Ages. In those days it was made of beef or mutton broth thickened with brown bread, with prunes, raisins, currants, ginger and maize being added to the boiling mixture. This was served as a thick soup in a large tureen and eaten at the beginning of the meal. In the 18-th century, plum pudding began to change its character with the addition of flour. The porridge was thus turned into plum pudding and it became the custom to eat it at the end of the meal. Nowadays, in addition to then basic mixture of flour, bread-crumbs, suet and eggs, the ingredients of the Christmas pudding includes raisins, currants chopped almonds and walnuts, grated carrot and (on place of the discarded mutton broth) a good measure of brandy, whiskey or ale. After being boiled for several hours, the pudding is stored until time comes for heating it on Christmas day when it is brought to the table on a large dish, big, round, dark-brown, with a flag or a piece of holly stuck in at the top of it. The Christmas pudding is covered with white sauce. Receiving each slice, the guests are warned to eat carefully Scones-small soft teacakes of barley of wheet flour, usually of quadrant or triangular shape.

Yorkshire pudding is a traditional English batter pudding baked with roasted meat. The batter is made from flour, eggs, spice and salt out into strips and put together with meat which is roasting. When it is ready, it gets nicely brown and crispy and has a pleasant taste.

There are many varieties of bread and cake. Bread is white or brown. There are different kinds of loaf, including the specially shaped cottage loaf and cob loaf. For a ‘continental’ breakfast, many people now prefer French-type rolls such as croissants. For tea, jam tarts, toasted teacakes and cup-cakes, buns are often eaten, especially in winter. Otherwise bread and butter with jam, honey, meat or fish paste or some other spread is usual for the meal. Sponge cake and trifle are also favourites.

Baker’s dozen. It has been the custom in both England and the United States for the owner of the bakery to add a free bun, cake or the like, if the customer buys a dozen. A baker who forgets to give his customer the thirteenth, free of charge, soon loses hid customers. It is also a trick to invite a customer to buy more in order to get something "free of charge"

A cake can be large, needing to be cut or sliced, or small, for one person. Gingerbread is not bread but a ginger-flavoured cake. The many different kinds of biscuit include chocolate, digestive biscuits, ginger nuts and custard cream’s. Custard- a sweet mixture of eggs and milk, sweetened and flavoured baked or boiled. Water biscuits or crackers are usually eaten with cheese.

Some foods are traditionally prepared for a particular festival or celebration. Christinas pudding is eaten at Christmas, pancakes are often served (as a sweet course, with lemon and sugar) on Shrove Tuesday, and hot cross buns are eaten on Good Friday. Special big cakes are prepared for weddings and birthdays. Wedding cakes are usually elaborately iced and decorated with two or more tiers; birthday cakes are also normally iced, with the person's age shown by the number of small candles stuck in the icing.

The British enjoy eating sweets, especially chocolate, and the many popular types of confectionery include toffee (ириска), marshmallows mints and boiled sweets. Sticks of rock are traditionally popular in holiday resorts, as are ice cream, candy floss and other 'fun foods'.

In recent years there has been an increase in the consumption of convenience and unhealthy 'junk' foods, Convenience foods are ready to cook or eat. They are manufactured or processed. They are sold tinned (canned), or dried, or sealed in plastic bags or aluminium foil, Convenience food sales in Britain make up 25% of all expenditure on food.

Fresh fruit is a natural convenience food, which Britons can buy all the year round. Some kinds of fruit, such as apples and pears, are grown in Britain, but a lot is imported. Popular imports are oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and bananas. Children's favourite convenience food is fishfingers.

There is a growing interest in healthy, natural or 'organic' foods. Natural foods

There has been a change of diet during the last few years. Some people prefer not to eat factory-made, processed foods. They have turned to a diet of nuts, honey, dried fruits, like dates, and organically-grown cereals and vegetables. They want to eat goods without chemical fertilizers or additives. Special 'Health Food Stores' opened in High Streets and shopping centres to supply these natural foods. The demand has increased greatly so that the big supermarkets now sell health foods, too. The goods bought are usually more expensive than the other food in supermarkets.

Slimming. Women, and particularly young girls, like to have slim figures. This often means dieting. They have to change their eating habits and not eat fattening foods like potatoes and bread. Men, too, are increasingly worried about being fat. They are encouraged by their doctors to reduce their weight for health reasons.

Someone on a slimming diet will have to give up eating sweets and chocolates, too. The British are one of the biggest consumers of sugar and confectionery in the world.

At the same time, the British diet now includes many dishes that would formerly have been regarded as exotic or unusual. Among the most popular are Chinese, Indian and Italian, which have largely been popularized by ethnic restaurants.

In the USA too the food of many different nationalities has become part of the national diet. Particularly American dishes, though, are southern tried chicken, pumpkin pie, hot dogs, burgers, apple pie and hash browns (potato pancakes, often served at breakfast).

More and more, people buy hot food from a 'take-away' and eat it at home. This is quicker than cooking a meal and cheaper than eating in a restaurant. The most common take-away foods in Britain are fish and chips, hamburgers, and Chinese foods. The fish is fried in oil. The chips are cooked in oil, too. The fish frier supplies his customers with a ready-cooked meal at midday and in the evening; they can either take it home wrapped in paper, or eat it in the shop. He may also serve fried sausages with chips and hot meat pies with peas—a pie is made of meat enclosed in pastry.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1857