http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/food/index.htmBackground
British cuisine is shaped by the country's temperate climate, its island geography and its history. The latter includes interactions with other European countries, and the importing of ingredients and ideas from places such as North America, China and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of post-war immigration.
As a result, traditional foods with ancient origins, such as bread and cheese, roasted and stewed meats, meat and game pies, and freshwater and saltwater fish, are now matched in popularity by potatoes, tomatoes and chillies from the Americas, spices and curries from India and Bangladesh, and stir-fries based on Chinese and Thai cooking. French cuisine and Italian cuisine, once considered alien, are also now admired and copied. Britain was also quick to adopt the innovation of fast food from the United States, and continues to absorb culinary ideas from all over the world.
These trends are exemplified by the ubiquitous spaghetti bolognese which has been a common family meal in Britain since at least the 1960s. More recently there has been a huge growth in the popularity of dishes influenced by the Indian Sub-Continent (a throwback to the times of British influence in the region), though modified to suit British tastes. The British curry, essentially a holdover from the days of the British Raj (and subsequently embellished by immigrants), may be hotter and spicier than the traditional North Indian variety, though Bangladeshis and Southern Indians find it insipid. The post-war introduction of refrigeration, in parallel with the rise of the supermarket, has led to the packaging of such foods into oven-ready meals which, often cooked by microwave oven, have now replaced "meat and two veg" in many homes.
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New cuisine
The increasing popularity of celebrity chefs on television has fuelled a renewed awareness of good food and New British cuisine has shaken off much of the stodgy "fish and chips" image. The best London restaurants rival those anywhere in the world, in both quality and price, and this influence is starting to be felt in the rest of the country. There is even a wave of chefs struggling to retain the classic greatness of British country cooking, for example Fergus Henderson.
There has been a massive boom in restaurant numbers driven by a renewed interest in quality food, possibly due to the availability of cheap foreign travel. Organic produce is increasingly popular, especially following a spate of farming crises, including BSE.
There has also been a quiet revolution in both quality and quantity of places to dine out in Britain, in particular, the humble Public House has been transformed in the last twenty or so years. Many have made the transition from eateries of poor reputation to rivals of the best restaurants, the so called Gastropub — very often they now are the best restaurants in smaller towns. The term "Pub Grub", once derogatory, can now be a sign of excellent value and quality dining. Some credit for this sea change has to go to the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), for helping to improve the quality of pubs and their products in general, and some to the privatisation of breweries, which forced many pubs to diversify into dining in order to survive as a business, as well as a greater appreciation and demand among consumers.
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Traditional cuisine
"To eat well in England, you should have breakfast three times a day."
—William Somerset Maugham (attributed)
Ulster fry, a variant of British cooked breakfastsThe Sunday roast is perhaps the most common feature of British cooking. The Sunday dinner traditionally includes roast potatoes accompanying a roasted joint of meat such as beef, lamb or pork, or a roast chicken and assorted vegetables, themselves generally roasted or boiled and served with a thick gravy. Yorkshire pudding and onion gravy is often served as either a starter or accompaniment to the main course. Since its wide-spread availability after World War II the most popular Christmas roast is turkey. Game meats such as venison which were traditionally the domain of higher classes are occasionally also eaten by those wishing to experiment with a wider choice of foods, due to their promotion by Celebrity Chefs, such as Antony Worrall Thompson, although it is not generally eaten in the average household.
At home, the British have many original home-made desserts such as rhubarb crumble, bread and butter pudding, spotted dick and trifle. The traditional accompaniment is custard, known as crème anglaise (English sauce or English Cream) to the French. The dishes are simple and traditional, with recipes passed on from generation to generation. There is also Christmas pudding.
Fish and chipsNotably, Britain is famous for its fish and chips, and has a huge amount of restaurants and take-away shops catering to it, it's possibly the most popular and uniquely British dish. The advent of take-away foods during the industrial revolution, lead to foods such as fish and chips, mushy peas, and steak and kidney pie with mashed potato (pie and mash). These were the staples of the UK take-away business, indeed British diets for many years, though ethnic influences, particularly Indian and Chinese, have led to the introduction of ethnic take-away foods. [1] From the 1980s onwards, a new variant on curry, the balti, began to become popular in the area around Birmingham, and by the mid 1990s was commonplace in Indian restaurants and takeaways over the country. Kebab houses, pizza restaurants and American-style fried chicken restaurants aiming at late night snacking have also become popular in urban areas.
Sunday roast consisting of roast beef, roast potatoes, vegetables and yorkshire puddingAt teatime, especially in Devon and its associated areas, meals eaten include scones with jam and butter or clotted cream, while nationwide, assorted biscuits and sandwiches are often eaten. Teatime is not practised by many British people in the 21st century, having been replaced by snacking, or simply ignored, although regional variations do exist and many areas such as Devon and Cornwall feature establishments catering to tourists with traditional cream teas.
The full English breakfast (also known as "cooked breakfast" or "fried breakfast") also remains a culinary classic. It's contents vary, but it normally consists of a combination of bacon, fried eggs, grilled tomatoes, fried bread, black pudding, baked beans, fried mushrooms, sausages, hash browns, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, and other variations on these ingredients and others.
Bacon Sandwiches, often referred to as "bacon Sarnies" or "bacon butties" are commonplace as well, sometimes eaten as an informal outdoor breakfast or in midmorning as a workplace snack.
A unique sandwich filling is Marmite, a dark brown savoury spread made from yeast extract, with a tar-like texture and a strong, salty taste. There are also butterfly cakes, simple small sponge cakes which can be iced or eaten plain.
Tea, usually served with milk, is consumed throughout the day and is sometimes drunk with meals. Coffee is perhaps a little less common than in continental Europe, but is still drunk by many, typically with milk. Italian coffee preparations such as espresso and cappuccino are extremely popular, especially in more urban areas, while tea, though still an essential part of British life, is less ubiquitous than it was. In recent years herbal teas and specialty teas have become popular. In more formal contexts wine can be served with meals, though for semi-formal and informal meals beer or cider may also be drunk.
Kedgeree, a popular breakfast dish in the Victorian eraIn the Victorian era, during the British Raj, Britain first started borrowing Indian dishes, creating Anglo-Indian cuisine, some of which is still eaten today although many once-popular Anglo-Indian dishes such as kedgeree have largely faded from the scene.
Another formal British culinary tradition rarely observed today is the consumption of a savoury course, such as Welsh rarebit, toward the conclusion of a meal. Most main meals today end with a sweet dessert, although cheese and biscuits may be consumed as an alternative or as an addition. In Yorkshire, fruit cake is often served with Wensleydale cheese. For formal meals, coffee is a usual culminatory drink.
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Reputation abroad
British cuisine still suffers from a relatively poor international reputation, being typically represented by dishes consisting of simply cooked meats and vegetables (so called "meat and two veg") that need to be accompanied by bottled sauces or other condiments after cooking to make them more palatable. Many think that food served in Britain often fails to reach the same general level of excellence that can easily be found across the English Channel in France. In fact French president Jacques Chirac in 2005 openly proclaimed that British food was the second-worst in Europe, after Finnish.
During the Middle Ages, British cuisine enjoyed an excellent reputation; its decline can be firmly traced back to the late 18th century when the majority of the British population began to move away from the land, and was compounded by the effects of rationing during two World Wars (rationing finally ended in 1954), followed by the increasing trend toward industrialised mass production of food. However, in Britain today there is more interest in food than there has ever been before, with celebrity chefs leading the drive toward raising the standard of food in the UK.
In 2005 British cuisine reached new heights when 600 food critics writing for Restaurant magazine named 14 British restaurants among the 50 best restaurants in the world with the number one spot going to The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire and its chef Heston Blumenthal. However, many of the restaurants, while located in the UK, do not serve traditional British cuisine - for example, Le Gavroche which serves French food - or are headed by non-British chefs such as Pierre Gagnaire.
Despite the availability of better quality fare, pre-packaged "ready meals" that require little preparation time have become more popular over the last 30 years - but they have themselves advanced considerably from their very basic beginnings.
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Vegetarianism
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Since the end of World War II when their numbers were around 100,000, increasing numbers of the British population have adopted vegetarianism, especially since the BSE crisis of the 1990s. As of 2003 it was estimated that there were between 3 and 4 million vegetarians in the UK, one of the highest percentages in the western world, and around 7 million people claim to eat no red meat. It is rare not to find vegetarian foods in a supermarket or on a restaurant menu.
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Lists
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British food writers and chefs
Eliza Acton
"Mrs Beeton" [2]
Fanny Cradock
Johnnie Cradock
Elizabeth David
Clarissa Dickson-Wright
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Keith Floyd
Jane Grigson
Ainsley Harriott
Graham Kerr
Nigella Lawson
Rustie Lee
Jonathan Meades
Jamie Oliver
Gordon Ramsay
Gary Rhodes
Nigel Slater
Delia Smith
Rick Stein
Antony Worrall Thompson
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Examples of British cuisine
For fuller lists, see the British section of the list of recipes and Category:British cuisine. For traditional foods protected under European law, see British Protected designation of origin.
Savoury dishes
Balti
Bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potato)
Black pudding
Bubble and squeak
Cauliflower cheese
Cheese
Chicken Tikka Masala
Cornish pasty
Cottage pie
Cumberland Sausage
Dumplings
Faggots
Fish and chips
Full English breakfast
Haggis (Scotland)
Hash
Jellied eels
Lancashire Hotpot
Laverbread (Wales)
Pie and mash
Pork pie
Shepherd's pie
Scouse
Sunday Roast
Toad-in-the-hole
Ulster fry (Northern Ireland)
Welsh rabbit
Yorkshire pudding
Sweet dishes
Bread and butter pudding
Christmas pudding
Cranachan
Clotted Cream
Dumplings
Knickerbocker glory
Mince pie
Queen of Puddings
Spotted dick
Sticky toffee pudding
Custard
Trifle
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Meals
breakfast, elevenses, brunch, lunch, dinner, supper, dessert, Tea
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Dates of introduction of various foodstuffs and methods to Britain
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Prehistory (before 43 AD)
bread from mixed grains: around 3700 BC [3]
oats: around 1000 BC [3]
wheat: around 500 BC [3]
rabbit: late Iron Age/early Roman [4]
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Roman era (43 to 410)
apple (?), asparagus [5], celery, chives [6], coriander, cucumber, marjoram, marrow, onion, parsnip, pea, pheasant [23], rosemary, spearmint [7], turnip, wine
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Middle ages to the discovery of the New World (410 to 1492)
kipper: 9th century (from Denmark or Norway)
rye bread: Viking era [8], around 500 AD [3]
peach (imported): Anglo-Saxon
orange: 1290 [9]
sugar cane: 14th century [10]
carrot: 15th century [11]
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1492 to 1914
turkey: 1524 [12]
cayenne pepper [13], parsley [14]: 1548
refined sugar: 1540s [9]
lemon: 1577 (first recorded cultivation) [15]
peach (cultivated): 16th century [15]
potato: 1586
horseradish [16]: 16th century
tea: 1610 or later [17]
banana (from Bermuda) [18]: 1633
coffee: 1650 [19]
chocolate: 1650s
broccoli: before 1724 [20]
tomato (as food) [21]: 1750s
sandwich: named in 18th century
curry: 1809 (first Indian restaurant)
rhubarb (as food): early 1800s [22]
three-course meal: about 1850 (developed from service à la Russe) [5]
fish and chips: 1858 or 1863 [9]
Marmite: 1902 [23]
ice cream: 1913 [9]
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After 1914
sugar beet: 1914-1918
sliced bread: 1930 [9]
Chinese restaurant: 1950 (first to open in Soho)
Pot Noodle: 1979 [24]
参考资料：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_cuisine