What To Eat In England
Wed, Jul 29, 2009
For a country with over a thousand years of history, you’d figure there would have been plenty of time to learn how to cook. Unfortunately, the early English people passed over cooking lessons in favor of learning how to build a more effective torture device.
Most of the food we ate in England was forgettable and not even worthy of the paltry amount of photograph space it would take up on my digital camera. Some of the food looked good, but sprucing up dishes with a more artistic presentation doesn’t make it taste any better. And the boring taste certainly didn’t justify the high prices.
Perhaps we just didn’t find a good restaurant serving British food. (Then again, I’m not forking over £100 a plate to have Gordon Ramsay yell at me.) However, there really aren’t that many restaurants serving British cuisine anyway. London is ethnically diverse and the most popular foods are Chinese and Indian.
We loved two Asian chain restaurants: Ping Pong (a dim sum house) and Wagamama (a ridiculously named restaurant with ridiculously good modern Asian food). And we found our absolute favorite Indian joint in the world: The Punjab Restaurant (read our review here).
Outside of exotic cuisine, we can’t vouch that your taste buds will be happy with English food. But here’s a brief rundown of what you can expect to eat if you are so daring:
Fish and chips — the quintessential food of England. Is it good? Well, yeah, it’s pretty hard to screw up anything fried. We ate fish and chips a few times. The crust was always golden brown with a light crunch, and the fish (usually cod) was flaky and moist. There wasn’t much flavor, but that’s where the malt vinegar comes in handy. Don’t get English “chips” confused with American chips; “chips” are just French fries.
The full English breakfast is a sloppy, terribly unhealthy hodgepodge of incongruent items such as fried tomato, baked beans, eggs, bread and black pudding (which is blood sausage).
By the way, the definition of “pudding” means two shockingly different things for Americans and Brits. American pudding is a smooth, creamy dessert item. But in England, pudding can be anything from sausage to bread. There’s generally nothing smooth or creamy about any food with the word “pudding” in it in the UK.
Bangers and mash is an English sausage the size of a bratwurst served over mashed potatoes and gravy.
Meat pies are basically like chicken pot pies, with steak and kidney pie being one of the most popular. Shepherd’s pie is slightly different: the crust is made from mashed potatoes instead of dough.
I got these types of pies confused with something called a mincemeat pie, which is a really deceiving name. I expected to cut into it and witness a sea of broth with chunks of meat floating like islands. Instead, my mincemeat pie was a room temperature concoction of sweet dried fruits and nuts that was way more appetizing than the name suggests.
The Sunday roast is a traditional dish usually served on… get this… Sunday. It’s a hearty plate of roast beef, steamed (and therefore tasteless and limp) vegetables, roasted potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Again, don’t be fooled by the word pudding. There’s nothing pudding-like about Yorkshire pudding, it’s simply a biscuit.
Beef Wellington is beef tenderloin wrapped in a puffy pasty and baked. I’m used to sweet cream in my pastries, not meat. But I can get used to this.
Jellied eels is exactly what it sounds like: chunks of eel in a clear, pungent Jell-O that takes like the ocean. It’s not as popular today as it was in the 18th century when it was cheap food for lower class citizens.
Ploughman’s Lunch sounds nothing like a real man’s lunch. It’s a piece of cheese, a pickle, pickled onion and a slice of bread. Ploughman’s Lunch is usually served in pubs.
Haggis is more prominent in Scotland than in England, but we saw it on quite a few menus. Haggis is all the left over parts of sheep, seasoned and molded into a ball with oatmeal, then shoved in its own stomach and boiled for hours. Sounds delicious, right?
Lancashire hotpot is like a stew; it consists of meat and vegetables that’s slowly cooked in the oven all day, then draped with sliced potatoes or pastry.
Sticky toffee pudding is a popular dessert made with a rich, nutty cake (like a bread pudding) and covered in warm toffee sauce.
You’ll find the word “rocket” on many menus. Rocket is just a cooler name for arugula, a sharp tasting lettuce.
When all else fails (and it probably will), British tea is always delicious, full-bodied and reliable. High tea is a great way to take a break, try a few teas with milk and indulge your sweet tooth with pastries. Just remember that afternoon tea is considered more touristy than traditional (and that means pricey).
Robin 
Hank 
Jetpacker 
Mate you really didn’t experience England, or London Properly.
Yes we are very multicutural which means there is a lot of Chinese, Inidan and Turkish food such as Donar kebabs. And sadly due to political correctness and too put it bluntly the lack of control over immigration our heritage and food along with it is harder to come by now than it was. Not that I hold anything against any other culture.
But I think you really failed to find much of the British Grub that is around. It’s like me going to the states and claiming the only thing to eat in America is Mcdonalds and Taco Bell and I do visit Anaheim yearly, I hold an Annual pass to Disneyland and am an Angels fan. I’ve found plenty of spots besides just fast food joints to eat.
For starters you fail to understand British food, we’ve got a long history and yes we have our fast food, Fish and Chips which isn’t spicy, it’s fish fried in flour and water batter, some things you enjoy the delicate flavours, it’s not necessarily healthy but enjoy it once in a blue moon, I prefer place, it’s got a more fishy taste to cod.
For the record any fish and chips I’ve had in Anaheim has been more like fish fingers and fast food fries..
But we have lots of different dishes and popular foods here that aren’t swimming in grease or bland, we invented the Sandwich and if you visit a local bakery, not some over priced cafe’ which serves Expresso, you’ll be able to enjoy a nice doorstep (Thick filled sandwich) of fresh baked bread with traditional fillings such as Ploughmans, Coronation chicken etc, cheese and onion etc..
Most the popular dishes in Great Britain aren’t fancy unlike French Cuisine which comes from royalty, our food are dishes passed down by the common folk, farmers and people of this Island.
The best places to find real English food are the Pubs, local restraints were the native English eat.
The picture and description of Sunday Roast is way off. For starters we don’t steam meat, I’ve never had steamed meat, and hence why it’s called a “Roast” your picture looks like a Birds-eye Microwave meal. Yorkshire pudding is a baked flour batter which is very tasty and nothing like a Biscuit at all, biscuits are like savoury scones. We eat mainly chicken in the U.K although a nice bit of roast beef to the point where it’s falling off the bone is popular too.
We enjoy things like Hot pot. which is a stew with vegetables meat, and often potato dumplings, think Gnocchi for comparison.
We often have cold lunches such as sandwiches or mixed salads like cut up boiled eggs, Ice berg lettuce, cherry tomatoes.
We have some very good deserts like Apple Crumble or Bread Pudding. A lot of our food is limited in ingrediants as thats what our ancestors had to use, we’ve been through two world wars and unlike America which didn’t experience carpet bombing, blockades and rationing, we didn’t have the vast ingrdiants and too this day it’s stuck in our culture, such as tinned and pickled foods. As a small island of 3 we held back Nazi invasion and made do with what we had, whilst larger countrys fell. Brits don’t like to complain we enjoy the simple things in life and we’re stooped in history and fashioned very much on the examples of the nation during WW2 at our darkest and finest hours.
Occasionally when out in the country visiting an old stately home, people may enjoy a proper spot of tea with Scones, mini sandwhichs and eclairs but this is very much a steriotype from the past.
As for breakfast, a Proper fry up is nice once in a while and it’s simple and steeped in history…lots of calories and protein to give the workman energy for the day, we tend to eat Cheese on toast or Cerel for breakfast with jam and fruit.
British and Irish sausages are normally made from raw pork or beef mixed with a variety of herbs and spices and cereals, many recipes of which are traditionally associated with particular regions (for example Cumberland sausages). They normally contain a certain amount of rusk, or bread-rusk, and are traditionally cooked by frying, grilling or roasting prior to eating.
Due to their habit of often exploding due to shrinkage of the tight skin during cooking, they are commonly referred to as bangers, particularly when served with the most common accompaniment of mashed potatoes to form a bi-national dish known as bangers and mash.
You can find all sorts of restraints serving world food such as Italian, pizza is popular here and there’s something to suit everyone’s taste. You can’t judge an entire nation based on a few eat out spots especially in the capital where people only generally commute to work and eat at quick spots which don’t offer the real food and get ripped off. Pub grub offers a wide range and by pub grub I don’t mean a chain owned pub a proper pub with a real chef cooking dishes, it’d open your eyes to British food.
As for my counter argument on what America offers to eat besides barbeque, what is it?
All the most popular foods in the states are from other countries,
Pizza = Naples Italy
Hamburgers= Hamburg Germany
Hot dogs= Frankfurt Germany
Burritos = Mexico
All of which you can get in the Uk admitidly with smaller portions unless you visit say Frankie and Bennys which is just like the grub stateside and leaves you with no option but to take a diet after visiting one.
Americans would consider all these foods to be from their country no doubt as they are popular staples of the American diet and most people do associate them with America, but if that’s true for America, then you’ve got to count, Chinese, Indian, Turkish food as part of our staple as we do enjoy a good kebab, curry or spring roll.
When your next over in the uk, I suggest you pick up a guide on good spots to eat or look around for the locals…not tourists, as central London isn’t the real England, it’s tourist and work district, I live on the outskirts in East London and in Walthamstow market we have one of London’s increasingly rare pie and mash shops, L. Manze, opened in 1929 and still serves the traditional meat pie, mushy peas, ‘liquor’ (gravy) and mashed potatoes, with jellied eels on the side. It’s not some factory made crap which you probably ate…but the real thing the full monty..
I’d be happy to give you some good eat spots across London and my Homeland which would hopefully open you up to English food and not just a stereotype.
Although I love many things about America, what most Americans eat is mass produced junk which although tastes great, but it is artificial and you don’t get the real thing. I couldn’t find milk in the Anahiem Ralphs which didn’t have additional ingredients and cheese was all processed. What sort of people drink milk from cows on steroids? And you insult our food…tisk tisk
We have the largest selection of cheese in England and many great cheeses, Cheddar, Red Leicester, Gloucester, Cheshire, Wensleydale to name a few, and I’ll never get why in the states Cheddar is orange and rubbery?
We also offer the biggest selection of traditional sweets “Candy”, which I’ve got to say I found the American equivalent to be very limited to gummie bears and hard candy which weren’t to my taste, tasted very artificial but hey you guys like it and that’s fine, but try some British Candy. Milk bottles, coca cola bottles, white mice, sugar mice, Jellie babies, wine gums (I’m a fan of Sports mixture), Licorice, Toffee, treacle, or chocolates decent too, try thorntons, Cadburys, Mars..
What you wrote is like me writing a guide to American food and saying there is only Mcdonalds hamburgers and Taco Bell, Americans seem to be unable to cook so employ Mexican immigrants to do it for them.
I have been to the england and tasted the food and I like it, it’s not what we eat back home but you don’t go to a country to eat the same thing. I had this red wiener thing, called Saveloy in a fish and chip shop and it was suprisingly flavorsum, I even prefiered it to a hot dog.
http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/features/
THIS COULD HELP YOU OUT…
so sad when people visit a country and don’t even experience the place they’re in…
It’s like me going to Disneyland and assuming all of California is the same.
Gordon Ramsay, is that you?
Just kidding, Robin, thank you for taking the time to explain British food more thoroughly.
But remember, it’s not just us who finds British food particularly… unappetizing. A recent poll voted it the worst in the world!
http://thejetpacker.com/what-country-has-the-worst-food/
And America came in second, so it’s not like we have a glowing reputation either. All we’re known for is BBQ, hotdogs and hamburgers, fried chicken and mashed potatoes, wings, maybe gumbo or jumbalaya or something from the south.
Yes, most of our food is processed and unhealthy, and chain restaurants take precedence. But this has become such a point of contention that documentaries have been made about it (i.e.: Food, Inc.) and people are slowly starting to change their ways, buying organic, going to farmer’s markets — thankfully.
So while American food isn’t that great… it’s not like we’re running away to the UK for the food.
Here in the UK it’s health food madness, you can’t find artificial flavours any-more, everything has 100% Natural Flavours and No artificial colours, Whilst I agree that’s good on the whole, Smarties were meant to have artificial flavours, never been the same since. I say reduce the overall amount in daily dieets, but one pack of sweets with food colouring won’t kill me.
But I guess it’s the other extreme in the states. I doubt it will change all that much state-side, look how much money is raked in by Kfc or MacDonalds, and how people seem to drive short distances such as 2 miles or less when they could just walk. People were shocked to see me and my brother walking to Disney when it was only 2 1/2 miles, they all took a bus.. I think America on the whole is set in it’s ways.
But I know that’s not everyone, there are people who do exercise and eat healthy, I’m sure the people down by Crystal cove or in San Francisco are very picky about what they eat maybe a little to far into the healthy extreme..
such as people who live on Buckwheat juice, and think they can detox with acai berrys.
I think it’s striking a balance, enjoy the unhealthy things in moderation, get the ruffage and protein and carbs your body needs but don’t get to the point where it’s only good enough if it’s edamame beans picked by monks in the Himalayan mountains or wine made by the elders of a small village in France who hand pick and marinate in oak barrels.
End of the day it’s a lot of marketing b*llshit, organic food really shouldn’t cost as much as it does and to date there’s no proof it is any better for us, after all; are not all chemical compounds derived from natural sources, we can’t invent new Elements only take what is already here on earth and use it.
I agree the less chemicals the better but many non organic farms are excluded simply because they don’t have organic hay for the animals or there’s a nearby chimney or they’re feed is organic, despite the fact they’ve not included any chemicals and they’re livestock is well cared for and healthy.
But as for organic food, I do eat some organic things, veg as If it looks like a nice Iceberg Lettuce I’ll throw it in the shopping trooly, but the Tesco basics range of fruit and veg is locally grown and good quality, to achieve the organic stamp farms have to go to ridiculous lengths and often at a cost,sourcing abroad and often aren’t at all fairtraide. Fact is allow we’d like to be chemical free in food, the chemicals aren’t going to kill us, and without them the worlds population would starve to death.
Can I just ask since you live in the states what do you eat on a regular basis if your not a fan of the mainstream food.
I personally do enjoy many American dishes, especially Southern Cooking such as Jambalaya, which is just an Southern-state twist on Paella.
And I do like the occasional burger or fried chicken, but find I get sick of it very quickly on holiday and feel very sluggish if I don’t get my regular intake of fibre or fresh fish, we don’t just have battered..we are an Island, lots of different types of fish to eat, Trouts lovely cooked in foil with lemons, simple as that.
Oh and for the record, I don’t like jellied eals but do love small Atlantic prawns on their own cold or in a prawn cocktail; which reminds me I ordered what I thought was a prawn cocktail from room service whilst in the Sheraton Anaheim and got served what looked like the thing that jumps onto people’s faces in Alien, It was listed as a Shrimp Cocktail but these looked more like giant krill, so couldn’t figure what made them shrimp and they didn’t come with anything what I’d call a prawn cocktail sauce with is basically (mayo,ketchup,lemon juice, paprika, salt, pepper..or seafood sauce if it’s sold made up in the supermarket)
Very unappetising, these big tasteless fingerlike things on a plate next to chipotle sauce. Which is supposed to cause blood stains in your underpants…? So I choose not to eat that night…
Just wondering what is classification of Shrimp in the USA and what do you guys call a prawn?
On a regular basis, I’d say like most countries around the world we have our specialities with are heavy and rich, but average day to day meal is some form of meat or fish grilled or roasted with seasonal veg and either rice or some form of wheat product. To be fair it’s not like we or most countries only eat their regional cuisine, we eat a lot of pasta here, lasanges popular, mexican food is, stir frys, stroganoff as general home cooking.
Or a stew, the whole world eats stews. As for being voted worst in the world, I’d rather eat toad in the whole than frogs legs or snails, the so called “best country for dining” France doesn’t sound all that appealing to me…
Since we’ve grown tired of chains, we tend to eat at home a lot, though I’m ashamed to admit I’m terrible cook despite watching the Food Network.
We try to eat healthier and simply, generally grilled chicken or fish (sometimes bison) with vegetables, brown rice, beans. Every now and again we crave something bad, like BBQ, but my version of bad isn’t THAT bad: authentic tacos.
Orange County is about as health-centric as it gets. For example, in our area, we have a Farmer’s Patch, Whole Foods, Henry’s, Fresh & Easy and other farmer’s market style grocery stores. They’re becoming much more popular than the larger national chains.
I haven’t read enough to know whether organic is better for you or not, but I notice that when I do buy organic products, they tend to taste fresher. I’ve become addicted to organic avocados. And I prefer to buy eggs from cage-free chickens on principle. I don’t see the word “prawn” that much, but I eat shrimp often.
I’ve always wondered with normal eating habits are like for people in the south. I can’t imagine they maintain a steady diet of fried chicken and BBQ, but I know it’s popular.
As for the snails in France, I’ve gotta tell ya, despite sounding kinda nasty, they’re delicious! You barely taste the snail; it’s all garlic, butter and parsley. Most French food is really unhealthy, lots of cream, butter, thick sauces… but that’s what it makes it taste good!
See our food isn’t so Alien your normal diet sounds similar to us, Meat or fish, veg, carbs on a plate.
As for Free range, English people are animal lovers, people won’t buy battery eggs, they barely sell them or Danish pork, British meat tends to have the RSPB or RSPCA stamp of approval to say the animal was well treated.
With the organic taste thing, I think it’s the placebo effect, I’ve done a blind taste test with two carrots and no diffrence. Good produce is what counts organic or not.
America has the USDA to approve meat, but the regulations are disturbing. For instance, there’s a certain amount of old meat that’s allowed to be mixed in with new meat, a certain number of finger nails, hairs, insects, and rat parts that can be mixed in.
Even in L.A., we have a restaurant rating system. It seems like most restaurants get an A. But even a grade A has some leeway in terms of how many violations the restaurant can have and still get the A — cockroaches, rotten food, etc.
Anyway, it’s no surprise that our daily food is rather similar. Americans don’t go out to eat every night and I doubt Brits do either. Americans don’t eat hot dogs and hamburgers everyday and Brits don’t eat fish and chips everyday.
But, people who are visiting England will likely try traditional food, just as people who visit America will try the food we are known for. And that’s unfortunate for both of us!
Interesting, thank you! I spent my childhood in Yorkshire in the UK, and I’ve been trying to find a recipe for this delicious pie I remember eating all the time, but can’t remember what we called it!!!