English cuisine

English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England.

It has distinctive attributes of its own, but also shares much with wider British cuisine, largely due to the importation 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.

English cuisine history

In the Early Modern Period the food of England was historically characterised by its simplicity of approach and a reliance on the high quality of natural produce. Traditional meals have ancient origins, such as bread and cheese, roasted and stewed meats, pies, boiled vegetables and broths, and freshwater and saltwater fish.

Bread

There is a wide variety of

traditional breads in Great Britain.

Crisp

Baguette

BagelCottage loaf

Brown bread Focaccia

Malt loaf

CheeseThe English Cheese Board states that there are over 700

varieties of English cheese. English cheese is generally hard, and made from cows' milk.

Cheddar Double Gloucester

Cottage cheese

Tangy cheshireCornish yarg

Caerphilly, sage derby

Fish and seafoodAlthough a wide variety of fish are caught in British

waters, only a few species are widely eaten. Cod, haddock, plaice and skate are the fish-and-chip shop favourite.

Stargazy pieFish pie

Fish soup

Many seaside towns have shellfish stalls located at the beach, harbour, or seafront. Traditionally these sell snack-sized pots of cockles, mussels, jellied eels, shell-on or peeled prawns, crab meat, whelks, winkles (small and large sea snails) and oysters.

Shellfish

Crab Oysters

Pies, pastries and savoury puddings

The English tradition of meat pies dates back to the Middle Ages. Savoury puddings are made with a soft suet casing, the most famous being steak an kidney pudding.

Meat pies

Cottage pie

Steak and kidney pudding

SausagesEnglish sausages are colloquially known as

"bangers". They are distinctive in that they are usually made

from fresh meats and rarely smoked, dried, or strongly flavoured.

England will stock at least a dozen types of English sausage: not only Cumberland and Lincolnshire but often varieties such as pork and apple, pork and herb; pork and mozzarella, and others. There are estimated to be around 400 sausage varieties in the United Kingdom.

Cumberland sausage

lincolnshire sausage

Black puddings and white puddings

It is made from pig's blood and White puddings other ingredients.

Pig's trotters, tripe and brawn are

ingredients of white pudding. But doesn’t

contain pig blood.

SandwichesEngland can claim to have given the world

the word "sandwich", although the eponymous John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich was not the first to add a filling to bread.

English sandwiches are made with two slices of bread, or some kind of roll.

Common types of sandwich are roast beef, chicken salad, ham and mustard, cheese and pickle, egg mayonnaise, prawn mayonnaise, tuna and jam.

A light breakfast might consist of breakfast cereal, muesli, boiled or scrambled eggs, toast and conserves or sometimes poached kippers.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the upper classes ate elaborate breakfasts including such dishes as kedgeree and devilled kidneys.

Now, the substantial breakfast is the full English breakfast. A traditional full English breakfast includes bacon, fried or scrambled eggs, fried or grilled tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried bread or toast with butter, sausages and black pudding, usually served with a mug of tea.

Breakfast

Kedgeree

Devilled kidneys

Full English breakfast

Breakfast cereals

Afternoon tea may include scones with jam and clotted cream (together known as a cream tea). There are also fairy cakes, simple small sponge cakes which can be iced or eaten plain. Nationwide, assorted biscuits and sandwiches are eaten.

Afternoon tea

Scones Fairy cake

Cotton sponge cake

Biscuits

The Sunday roast was once the most common feature of English cooking. It is traditionally eaten every Sunday.

It includes roast potatoes accompanying a roasted joint of meat such as beef, lamb, pork, duck or chicken and assorted other vegetables, themselves generally boiled and served with a gravy or roasted with the meat in its juices, which are then used as or added to the gravy.

Sauces and jellies are chosen depending on the type of meat: horseradish or various mustards for beef, mint sauce or redcurrant jelly for lamb, apple sauce for pork and cranberry sauce for turkey.

The Sunday roast

 Roast potatoes Roasted lamb

Gravy

Mustards Redcurrant jelly

Traditional desserts are generally served hot and are highly calorific. There are a number are variations on suet pudding, and "pudding" is the usual name for the dessert course in England.

There is also an elaborate dried fruit based Christmas pudding, and the almond flavoured Bakewell tart originating from the town of Bakewell.

Dessert

Apple pie Bakewell tart Banoffee-Pie

Christmas pudding Eton mess Trifle

Catherine of Braganza, Portuguese wife of Charles II, took the Portuguese habit of tea to Great Britain around 1660, subsequent to the introduction of coffee. Initially, its expense restricted it to wealthy consumers, but the price gradually dropped, until the 19th century, when tea became as widely consumed as it is today.

Strong tea served with lots of milk and sometimes two teaspoons of sugar, usually in a mug.

Earl Grey tea is a distinctive variation flavoured with Bergamot. In recent years, tisanes and speciality teas have also become popular.

Hot drinksTea

Black teaEarl Grey tea

Introduced in the 17th century, coffee quickly became highly popular by the 18th century.

The coffee houses of London were important literary, commercial and political meeting-places.

Coffee is now perhaps a little less popular than in continental Europe, but is still drunk by many in both its instant and percolated forms, often with milk (but rarely with cream).

Coffee

Cappuccino Espresso

Frappuccino

Hot chocolate and cocoa were promoted by temperance campaigners in the 19th century, and remain fairly popular.

Other drinks

Hot chocolate

Dandelion and burdock was originally a lightly fermented beverage similar to root beer. Later versions were more artificially made and alcohol free.

 Tizer and Lucozade are British carbonated drinks, the latter marketed as an energy drink.  

.

Soft drinks

Lucozade

Dandelion and burdock

England is one of the few countries where cask conditioned beer is still a major part of the market.

In Britain, "cider" always means an alcoholic drink of fermented apple juice and is served by the pint or half pint like beer.

Beer and cider

Beer

Cider

Wine often accompanies formal meals. By the late, 20th century wines from around the

world were available to the mass market.Mead, fermented honey, was popular in the Middle

Ages, but is now a curiosity.

Wine and mead

Wine Mead

Thanks for your attention