Guide to the Food of England

[back to Food Diary Index]

The following information is based mostly on notes made during a short trip to the UK in 2005. These are just our food experiences and you may have a totally different experience depending on your budget, where you travel and where you eat.

Fish & Chips

English food is very fatty and salty, with loads of pastry products and warmimg winter foods. They call breakfast breakfast, the midday meal 'dinner', and the evening meal 'tea' - even though the main drink in England is tea! Breakfast time is usually between 7-9am  and may consist of a typical English breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, mushrooms, baked beans with a cup of coffee/tea, however it is very common to just have cereal, toast, juice and coffee. Lunch is between 12 noon-2pm, which usually consists of a snack meal of a sandwich, soup, crisps, fruit and a drink. Dinner is usually between 6 - 8pm and is mainly based around meat, potatoes and two vegetables. It is also a tradition to have a Roast dinner at lunch time on a Sunday, however this is a fading tradition.

Traditional Foods

Fish and chips - Cod is the main fish type used. The fish pieces are often pre-cooked and served on request as opposed to being cooked on request as in Australia!

Mushy peas - made from Marafat peas (large green peas), which are dried first, then soaked (in bicarb soda), cooked and mashed and eaten with fish and chips. Adds a sweet taste to this very salty dish.

Chip Butty - hot chips served in a tea cake (or bread roll).

making fudge in Cambridge

Scraps - Left over bits of fried batter, just added to a serve of fish and chips for free

Cornish pasties - This meat and vegetable filled pastry parcel has origins a long way back. It was originally made for coal miners working in dusty and dirty surroundings and the outside wrap was inedible and only there to protect the filling from contamination. Eventually the wrap was made out of pastry. Found in all bakeries.
Another famous pie from this country is the steak and kidney pie.

Sunday roast - found in every pub! All types of meats, served with potato and a range of vegetables.

English Breakfast - A traditional breakfast which is still commonly consumed today, consisting of eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomato, all fried, with baked beans and toast.

Supermarket

Ready to eat packaged foods are very common, especially in London. Most of the fruit and vegetables are packaged in bundles and wrapped in plastic, and you can often not buy loose pieces.

Fruit in a Church

Bread products

• Bread roll — is called anything from bap, tea cake, and oven bottom (slightly thinner and dusted with flour, and called so because it is cooked on the bottom of the oven). ANother version is the Yorkshire flat cakes or butty.
  
• Muffin — This is rather confusing - the english muffin in Australia is just a muffin in England, and a muffin (of the sweet variety) is an American muffin on England.
  
• Crumpet — also a traditional English food.
  
• Scones— very popular and the same as in Australia.

Ploughman's lunch

A selection of bread products and cold meats and cheeses with a little salad. For the hard working people.

Black Pudding

Yorkshire Specialties

• Yorkshire pudding — made from flour, egg and milk, which sits for a while, before baking in a oven in small or large cake like portions. It comes out like a pastry crust and usually served with stew or roast meals.
  
• Toad in a hole — Yorkshire pudding with sausage meat in the middle
  
• Black pudding — wheat husks and dried blood in a sausage. Just couldn’t bring myself to try this! Also found in Scotland.
  
• Pork pie — jellied pork meat, containing a range of non-descript animal sections, made into a pastry pie.

Devonshire tea

Scones served with jam and clotted cream (with texture between butter and cream), always taken with a cup of tea in the afternoon

Cakes, Biscuits and Puddings

• Dumplings (Scotland) — dessert/sweet (dried fruit/flour/sugar) (like xmas pudding)
• Victoria sponge
• Trifle — traditional English pudding, made of sponge cake, custard and jelly
• Bakewell pudding
• Shrewberry biscuit
• Bread & butter pudding — sugar/dried fruit/bread/butter/egg/milk
• Semolina/Custard
• Spotted Dick — sponge pudding with raisins/sultanas
• Jam roly poly — rolled up sponge with jam
• English Crumpets — ‘muffin’ spread it with butter/jam
• Mince pies — pastry filled with mince (fruit) meat, occasionally with brandy/rum
• Treacle pudding (steamed pudding with syrup topping)
• Pancakes (plain flour/egg/milk/butter)

Desserts

• Parkin — cake made from oats, wheat flour, treacle, golden syrup and has a hint of ginger.
  
• Flap Jack — whole oats mixed with treacle, butter and sugar and cooked for the briefest time to form a very sweet and sticky treat.
  
• Yorkshire curd tart — a pastry tart with filling made from curdled milk and currents.
  
• Hobnob — chocolate covered biscuit apparantly good for dunking in tea and coffee

Drewy drinking a beer

Drinks

• Beer is consumed in pints, lots of local varieties including Carling and Newcastle ...
  
• Tea is the prefered drink of most English people. Coffee is still drunk but a definitely in second place.
  
• Dandelion and Burdock flavoured soft drink

Fast Food

Take away food is also very popular, with a selection of Indian, Italian, Chinese, Greek, Thai on offer depending on your location.  There are also a number of sandwich outlets such as GREGS and SUBWAY.  And off course there is many classic English take away’s offering fish (battered) & chips.  Most of the multinational fast food outlets are also on offer including McDonalds, KFC, Pizza hut etc. An unusual menu item at McDonlads we saw was a McQuorn burger, a vegetarian burger made from an artificially made fungus.

Others

• Marmite — like vegemite only more gooey and a little sweeter
  
• Marmalade — very popular taost spread. Made from citrus fruits and includes the skin to give a more bitter taste.
  
• Rubharb — grown locally in the north of England. Good for pie or crumble. Is the same family as burdock and dandelion.
  
• Licorice — Pontifact, an area near to Leeds was the first to invent licorice. They also invented a licorice based cake (unfortunately I never tried it) called ponfreet.

[ back to Food Diary Index ]

Related Pages

• more UK Photos
• England Travel Guide

Do you have feedback, a comment or correction? Let us know