UNIT 3

5. PUBS

The British pub (short for 'public house') is unique. This is not just because it is different in
character from bars or cafes in other countries. It is also because it is different from any other public
place in Britain itself. Without pubs, Britain would be a less sociable country. The pub is the only
indoor place where the average person can comfortably meet others, even strangers, and get into
prolonged conversation with them. In cafes and fast food restaurants, people are expected to drink their
coffee and get out. The atmosphere in other eating places is often rather formal. But pubs, like fast food
restaurants, are classless. A pub with forty customers in it is nearly always much noisier than a cafe or
restaurant with the same number of people in it.
Each pub has its own name, proclaimed on a sign hanging outside, always with old-fashioned
associations. Many are called by the name of an aristocrat (for example, 'The Duke of Cambridge') or
after a monarch; others take their names from some traditional occupation (such as 'The Bricklayer's
Arms'); they often have rural associations (for example, 'The Sheep Shearers' or 'The Bull'). It would
certainly be surprising to see a pub called 'The Computer Programmers' or "The Ford Escort'. For the
same reason, the person who runs a pub is referred to as the 'landlord' (he is nearly always a man) -
even though he is, in reality, the exact opposite. He is a tenant. Nearly all pubs are owned by a brewery.
The 'landlord' is simply employed by the brewery as its manager. But the word is used because it
evokes earlier times when all pubs were privately owned 'inns' where travellers could find a bed for the
night. The few pubs that really are privately owned proudly advertise themselves as 'free houses'. The
practical significance of this for the customer is that a much wider variety of beers can usually be found
inside.
Even a newly built pub is often designed to look, inside and out, as if it were several hundred
years old. The windows are small because, unlike the large plate-glass windows of cafes, they help to
make the pub feel homely. It is difficult to see inside the pub from the outside. The Victorians thought
that it was somehow not proper for people to be seen drinking. That is why very few pubs have tables
outside. Instead, many have a garden at the back. Because children are only allowed inside a pub if the
pub has a children's certificate, a garden can be an important feature for some customers.

How to shut the pub

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 Although pubs can now stay open longer than they were allowed to previously, they still have to
close at their advertised closing time. Therefore, the traditions of "closing time” have remained in
place. Several phrases are connected with this process which are well-known to everybody in the
country.
A few minutes before the official closing time, the landlord or barman shouts ‘last orders, please',
which means that anybody who wants to buy another drink should do so at once.
When closing time arrives, the barman shouts "Time, ladies and gentlemen, please", and, as with
his first shout, possibly accompanies this with the ringing of a bell.
However, customers do not have to leave immediately. They still have "drinking-up time”. This is
a concept which is recognized in law and is assumed to last about ten minutes.

6. TEA

“The first cup of tea moistens my lips and throat. The second shattersmy loneliness. The third
causes the wrongs of life to fade gentlyfrom recollection. The fourth purifies my soul. The fifth lifts me
to the realms of the unwinking gods”.
Chinese mystic of the Tang Dynasty
The most popular beverage in the English speaking world has always been and continues to be the
TEA, even if the British like it very hot, while the Americans prefer it iced.
The owner of a coffeehouse in the City of London started serving tea by the cup in the year 1657
and ever since the British have been "in love" with it. The origins of the tea are lost in the remote
history of oriental antiquity. One legend speaks of the first cup of tea at 2037 BC when several tea
leaves fell off a tree into a pot of water which a Chinese emperor was boiling for drinking purposes.
In Britain, tea drinking spread quickly. By less than fifty years after it was introduced, it was the
drink of aristocracy, literary men and soldiers. Tea drinking became somewhat of a cult. In Queen
Victoria's time, tea was part of the British diet, the recognized beverage for church meetings as well as
society parties. Since then the British and tea have become addicted to one another. There is a steady
rise in British tea consumption which currently estimated at 2000 cups per year for everyone including
little babies.
Like the Chinese and many other tea-drinking peoples, the British make a kind of ritual of tea. The
method of brewing is a rigorously hewed to as the language of a marriage ceremony. The warmed pot
is always to the kettle, not vice versa. The freshly boiling water is poured on the leaves, one spoonful

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 for each person and one for the pot. Dissent arises over the use of milk (not cream, not boiled). Some
add milk to tea, others add tea to milk.
The British violently disagree with the Americans' tea drinking habits. At issue, of course, is the
tea bag and the drinking of iced tea. The British regard the American custom of suspending tea bags in
water as near sacrilege. No real Englishman would think of using tea bags except for camping or
picnicking.
For millions of Americans, summertime is iced-tea time. Ironically, this typically American
beverage was invented by an Englishman. He has been trying unsuccessfully to sell hot tea at the St.
Louis World's Fair in 1904. When he iced it people bought.

7. ATTITUDES TO FOOD IN BRITAIN

I
Britain and good food are two things which are not commonly associated. Visitors to Britain have
widely varying opinions about all sorts of aspects of the country, but most of them seem to agree that
the food is terrible. Why? One reason could simply be that British tastes are different from everybody
else's. However, the most common complaint is not so much that British food has a strange, unpleasant
taste, but rather that it has very little taste at all. The vegetables, for example, are overcooked. It is all
too bland.
Another explanation may be that most visitors to Britain do not get the opportunity to sample
home cooking. They either eat the food cooked in an institution, such as a university canteen, or they
“eat out” a lot, usually in rather cheap restaurants and cafes. These places are definitely not where to
find good British food. Typical British cooking, which involves a lot of roasting, does not suit the
larger scale production or the quick preparation which is required in such places. For one thing, food
should, according to British people, be eaten hot, which is difficult to arrange when feeding large
numbers of people. In addition, the British have not got into the habit of preparing sauces with grilled
food in order to make it tastier.
The explanations above can only serve as a partial excuse for the unfortunate reputation of British
cuisine. Even in fast food restaurants and everyday cafes, the quality seems to be lower than it is in
equivalent places in other countries. It seems that British people simply don't care enough to bother.
The country has neither a widespread “restaurant culture” nor a “cafe society”. In the middle of
the day, people just want to eat up quickly and are not interested much in quality. Little effort is made
to make the hamburgers tasty because nobody expects them to be. The coffee is horrible not because

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 British people prefer it that way, but because they don't go to a cafe for a delicious, slow cup of coffee -
they go there because they need the caffeine.
Even at home, food and drink is given relatively little attention. The coffee is often just as bad as it
is in the cafes. British supermarkets sell far more instant coffee than what the few people who drink it
often call 'real' coffee. Instant coffee is less trouble. Meals tend to be eaten quickly and the table
cleared. Parties and celebrations are not normally centered around food. For example, if a British
person expresses a liking for barbecues, this does not necessarily mean that he or she likes barbecued
food - it is understood to mean that he or she enjoys the typical barbecue atmosphere.
However, the picture is not entirely negative. While the British are conservative about ingredients,
they are no longer conservative about the way they are served. In the 1960s, it was reported that the
first British package tourists in Spain not only insisted on eating (traditionally British) fish and chips all
the time but also on having them, as was traditional, wrapped up in specially imported British
newspaper! By now, however, the British are extremely open to the cuisine of other countries. The
country's supermarket shelves are full of the spices and sauces needed for cooking dishes from all over
the world (the increasingly multicultural nature of the population has helped in this respect). In
addition, there is increasing interest in the pure enjoyment of eating and drinking.

II
A “fry-up” is a phrase used informally for several items fried together. The most common items
are eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, and even bread. It is not always accompanied by
“chips”(the normal British word for French fried potatoes). The British eat rather a lot of fried food.
Although it is sometimes poetically referred to as “the stuff of life”, bread is not an
accompaniment to every meal. It is not even normally on the table at either lunch or the evening meal.
It is most commonly eaten, with butter and almost anything else, for a snack, either as a sandwich or as
toast (a British household regards toasting facilities as a basic necessity). On the other hand, the British
use a lot of flour for making pastry dishes, both savoury and sweet, normally called 'pies', and for
making cakes.
Eggs are a basic part of most people's diet. They are either fried, soft-boiled and eaten out of an
'egg cup', hard-boiled (so that they can be eaten with the fingers or put into sandwiches) or poached
(steamed).

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 Cold meats are not very popular. To many British people, preserved meats are typically
'Continental'.
It is common in most households for a family meal to finish with a prepared sweet dish. This is called
either 'pudding', "sweet" or 'dessert' (class distinctions are involved here). There is a great variety of
well-known dishes for this purpose, many of which are served hot (often a pie of some sort).
The British are the world's biggest consumers of sugar - more than five kilograms per person per
year. It is present in almost every tinned food item and they also love 'sweets' (which means both all
kinds of chocolate and also what the Americans call 'candy').
As well as large amounts of hot drinks such as tea, coffee and cocoa, British people - especially
children — drink squash (a sweetened fruit concentrate that has to be diluted with water) and brand-
name 'soft' (non-alcoholic) drinks. They also expect to be able to drink water straight from the tap.
Before the 1960s, wine was drunk only by the higher social classes and was associated in most
people’s minds with expensive restaurants. Since that time, it has increased enormously in popularity.
Beer is still the most popular alcoholic drink. The most popular pub beer is 'bitter', which is
draught (i.e. from the barrel), has no gas in it and is conventionally, as are all British beers, drunk at
room temperature. A sweeter, darker version of bitter is ‘mild’. These beers have a comparatively low
alcoholic content. This is one reason why people are able to drink so much of them! In most pubs,
several kinds of bottled beer, usually known as ‘ales’, are also available.
Beer which has gas in it and is closer to continental varieties is known as “lager”. During the
1980s strong lager became popular among some young people. Because these people were used to
drinking weaker traditional beer. They sometimes drank too much of it and became aggressive and
even violent. They therefore became known as "lager louts'.
In some pubs, cider is available on draught, and in some parts of Britain, most typically in the
English west country, it is this, and not beer, which is the most common pub drink.
Shandy is half beer and half fizzy lemonade. It has the reputation of being very good for
quenching the thirst.

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