FOOD

&
DRINK
BRITAIN AND GOOD FOOD ARE TWO
THINGS THAT ARE
NOT
COMMONLY ASSOCIATED
MAYBE THIS IS WHY THEY ARE
NOT
COMMONLY ASSOCIATED
 PEOPLE JUST WANT TO EAT

QUICKLY
So, even at home, food and drink are given little attention
THE COFFEE EXAMPLE

 It’s often horrible, not because British people prefer it

that way but because they just don’t care very much.
When they go to a café, they go there for relaxation,
conversation and «caffeine»; the quality of the coffee
itself is of relatively minor importance

BUT

 British supermarkets sell far more instant coffee than

real coffee. Even at home, they make instant coffee
because it’s less trouble
SO WHEN DO THE BRITISH PAY
ATTENTION TO FOOD?

Not to appreciate it but to consider its health implications!

EATING THE BRITISH WAY
what they eat – and how
Generalizations are dangerous. However, there are some distinctive features that may
be noted:

 People eat A LOT of fried food. There’s a word – “fry up” – used informally to
denote several items fried together.

 Bread is commonly eaten – but it’s NOT an accompaniment to every meal. It’s
most commonly eaten with butter and almost anything else, for a snack.

 Tons of eggs
 SNACKS.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgiojA4S6jU
WHEN PEOPLE EAT WHAT

 BREAKFAST is usually a packeted “cereal” (e.g. cornflakes) and/or toast and

marmalade.

 Some time ago Somerset Maugham said that «to eat well in England, you should
have breakfast three times a day»
 However, people do not always eat the “traditional” British breakfast; When they
do, it looks like this:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HL9TLH0uEM
 ELEVENSES is, conventionally, a cup f tea and biscuits at around 11am. In fact,
people have tea or coffee and biscuits whenever they feel like it…
… and this is usually quite often.
LIFE STRUGGLES in Britain

David Beckham shows us tea is a serious thing

 LUNCH is typically at 1PM
 TEA for the urban working class (+ a wide range of the population in Scotland,
Wales and Ireland) is the evening meal, eaten as soon as people get home from
work (around 6pm). For other classes, it means a cup of tea and a snack at around
4pm.
 DINNER is the other word for the evening meal. It suggests a later time than tea.
The word is also used in connection with a special meal, as when friends are
invited for a dinner party. The same word is also sometimes used to refer to the
midday meal in schools, which is served by the dinner ladies.
EATING OUT
 Not so long ago, going to a restaurant was a rare event for most British people,
confined to the richest part of society. By now, it’s become common for a larger
number of people.

 a lot of restaurants in Britain offer non-British food, because people want

something different when they go out to eat. By now, people have got used to
several kinds of “ethnic” cuisine and Britain’s towns and cities are dominated by
restaurants offering them, for example, Italian, Indian and Chinese cuisine.
4 TYPES OF TYPICAL BRITISH
EATING PLACES:

 the greasy spoon, or workman’s

café, because it is frequented
principally by manual workers,
offers mostly fried food, filling
meals and is characterised by an
informal atmosphere.
 The fish and chip shop, used
mainly for takeaway meals,
offers, of course, fried fish.

 https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX
bMzsi8rOM
 The tea rooms, placed in the
centre of towns and cities, are
open only during the day and for a
different kind of clientele.

 https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AltI
HRhnVv8
 Lastly, the fast food is maybe
more common in Britain than
it is in most other countries.
It’s very cheap, and unlike the
other types of eating places, it
doesn’t have social pretension.
ALCOHOL
 The British attitude to alcohol in Britain is ambivalent. On the one hand alcohol is
accepted as a deeply-rooted part of the national culture and identity. The prevalent
attitude to getting drunk is that if it doesn’t cause violence or fights in the streets
outside the pub, there is no shame attached to it by public opinion.
 On the other hand, the Puritan tradition has led to the generalized idea that
drinking is something very dangerous which should be regulated by more
restrictive laws.

 Very often in the media we find stories about the massive amount of alcohol
drunk by teenagers; but in fact in Britain people under 18 cannot be served or
drink any kind of alcohol in pubs. Both teenage drinking and alcohol consumption
in general are now seen as major social problems, even though the British actually
consume less alcohol per head of the population than many other countries in
Europe. This may be due to the fact that, for many British people, drinking is
confined to pubs
 The British Government is now more relaxed towards pubs about laws limiting
their opening hours. The softening-down of a totally negative attitude to alcohol
has been balanced by increasing concerns about its very bad impact on people’s
health.

 Nevertheless, alcohol in general and especially beer remains a crucial part of the
lives of many people
Beer is the most popular alcoholic drink in pubs. Among the beers, the most popular
kind of beer is known as ‘bitter’, draught from the barrel. A sweeter, darker version is
called ‘mild’. These types of beer are known as ‘ales’

BEER FESTIVAL IN BRITAIN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzVWXJy0hUw
The debate about licensing laws is still
ongoing.

 Further relaxing of the laws planned in 2005 caused a fierce political débacle. The
medical profession, residents’ group, and most of the police were against this
permissive plan. The debate essentially revolves around the issue of so-called
‘binge drinking’, in other words the idea that drunkenness is largely caused by
drinking too fast, because of the pubs’ limited opening times.
THE BOOZE CRUISE
HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=8NYRRLNGM9W
PUBS
HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=JQCHJMO8R4KS
 The British pub is unique, different from bars or cafés in other countries and from
any other public place in Britain, and classless: a comfortable place where the
average person can meet others, sometimes even strangers, and get into
conversations with them. Without pubs, Britain would be a less sociable country.
The local pub plays a crucial role in in the social life of almost every
neighbourhood, and its customers, often known as ‘regulars’, go there to drink
predominantly beer and spirits.

 See Z. Smith’s handout

BAR
 We can also find differences with respect to the British pub of 30 years ago: that
type of pub was even more peculiar, it used to serve almost nothing but beer and
spirits, and the only things you could eat were ‘bar snacks’ such as peanuts and
crisps. Nowadays, in order to widen their appeal, most of them serve coffee, wine
and hot food.
NEVERTHELESS,
PUBS HAVE MANTAINED THEIR
SOUL
The main aspect differentiating them from the type of bar we are accustomed to is the
absence of waiter service. This may seem uncomfortable to a stranger, but in fact it
is exactly what the British person looks for when he goes into a public place: an
informal place when you are not necessarily expected to be on your best behaviour, a
place when you can walk around and chat with people at different tables or at the bar,
and, last but not least, a place where you are not expected to go in, sit down, order,
eat and drink and then leave, but a place where you can relax and feel at home.
 This ‘home to home’ aspect is encouraged by the relationship between the pub
customers and those who work there, who are expected to know the ‘regulars’
personally and what they usually drink and to chat with them when they are not
serving other people. This relationship is also encouraged by the availability of
pub games (most typically darts) and sometimes a television for the Premier
League games.
Darts are something serious in Britain…

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULIXxl_E0gg

 Surprisingly, even in Italy…

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmqWPZhFMPo
 A notable aspect of pubs is represented by the predominant idea of its tradition:
each pub has its own name, written on a sign outside, very often with old-
fashioned or monarchic/aristocratic name associations (e.g. ‘The Duke of
Cambridge’).

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INJCF_FoX2c
 For these reasons, people refer to the person who runs a pub as the ‘Landlord’
even though s/he is, in reality, a tenant. Nearly all pubs are owned by commercial
companies, and the ‘landlord’ is simply employed by the company as the pub
manager, but by using the term ‘landlord’, British people evoke earlier times
when all pubs were privately owned inns where travellers could find a beer, a
spirit and a bed for the night.