British Cuisine

Foreigners often say that food in Britain is uninteresting and plain, noting fancy, it lacks originality and excellence. But British food is not as bad as some people think. There are many enjoyable dishes which can please even a demanding eater. A characteristic feature of British food is the high quality of the ingredients and the simplicity of the way in which they are used. British food is greatly influenced by local agricultural conditions and depends on geography and climate. For instance, in Scotland, where oats grow better than wheat, local dishes use oatmeal(овсяная мука) rather than wheat flour. Scottish national dish, porridge, using oats, is only eaten with a pinch of salt.

Haggis is aScottish dish containing sheep’s pluck (ливер, потроха) heart,liver and lungs minced with onion, oatmeal, suet ['s(j)uːɪt] почечное сало, spices, and salt, boiled in a bag made from the animal’s stomach for approximately three hours.

British beefsteak is unsurpassed and is accompanied by roast potatoes, or potatoes in their jackets.

England is famous for hard cheeses, they have been made in Britain for 800 years. The king of cheeses is Stilton. English favourites are also Cheddar, Cheshire and Lancashire cheeses.

Fish and chips is a popular and relatively inexpensive British dish. It consists of a plaice (камбала) or cod (треска)fried in batter (жидкое тесто)and is served hot with fried chipped potatoes. The dish is sold in special shops (‘ fish and chips ‘shops). You can eat it in the shop and it can be taken away. You can eat fish and chips in the street as you walk along, or take it home. Traditionally fish and chips were served up wrapped in old newspaper. Nowadays (thanks to hygiene laws) they are wrapped in greaseproof (жиронепроницаемый) paper and sometimes paper that has been specially printed to look like newspaper. You often get a small wooden or plastic fork to eat them with too, although it is quite ok to use your fingers.

Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding is a traditional English family lunch on Sunday. Yorkshire pudding is traditionally served with roast beef. Yorkshire pudding was devised as a means of making use of the fat that dropped while the meat was roasted in the oven. It is a light savoury ['seɪv(ə)rɪ]острый, пикантный dish baked from a batter (жидкое тесто) of flour, eggs and milk. The Yorkshire pudding was traditionally served first. It is often claimed that the purpose of the dish was to provide a cheap way to fill the diners, and stretch the lesser amount of more expensive ingredients.

Bangers and Mash (mashed potatoes and sausages). Bangers are sausages in England. (The reason sausages were nicknamed bangers is that during wartime rationing they were so filled with water they often exploded when they were fried.)

In many countries breakfast is a snack rather than a meal, but the traditional English breakfast is a full meal. Somerset Maugham wrote “. If you want to eat well in England, eat breakfast three times a day”

Some people start with a bowl of cereal and milk. Next there is always something cooked –usually fried they eat bacon and eggs, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes. Yorkshire ham is also a breakfast specialty. Finally there is toast and marmalade, and tea or coffee.

Apple pie is a favourite sweet in England. There are lots of ways of cooking apples. The English bake them, stew them, put them in jam, cover them with pastry, to make an apple pie and sometimes they cover them with toffee (ириска) and put them on a stick, to make toffee apples.

A special place in the life of the British is occupied by tea. They are the world’s greatest tea drinkers. They drink a quarter of all the tea grown in the world each year.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-16