A long history of interactions and trades with other neighboring countries has influenced the British cuisine greatly, along with other factors, such as the mild climate and island geography. Foreign-influenced food in Britain have become increasing popular, completing with traditional dishes with origins rooted back from the beginning of the country.
Britain first started out with a poor selection of food, mainly due to the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. Most of the population works in factories and live in run-down housing, resulting in a decline of cooking. After the World War II, the average nutritional values were raised, which helped the situation a little bit. Influences from post-war immigrants help contribute more cultural dishes from other countries. New food spotted in Britain were; pasta, pizza, prawn cocktail, steak, chips and peas, spaghetti bolognese, chicken tikka masala, and much more. With new innovations such as refrigerators and microwave ovens lead to a rise in ready-made meals sold in supermarkets. The industrial revolution revealed popular take-away food like fish and chips, mushy peas, steak and pie and mash, with ethnic influences from India and China.
Now the popularity of celebrity chefs on television have gained the awareness of the new and improved British cuisine. A boom of new restaurants swept the nation after the interest in good quality food is renewed, including increase in organic food after farming crises. An increasing amount of the population (3-4 million) has adopted vegetarianism after a mad cow disease crisis. Also, 7 million claim to not eat red meat. Vegetarian food in stores and restaurants is not uncommon. Despite having a fast food reputation, traditional British dishes is still common today. The most popular traditional dish is Sunday roast, accompanied by Yorkshire pudding and assorted vegetables. Beef, pork, and lamb are also popular. At home, there are many home-made deserts such as rhubarb crumble, bread and butter pudding, spotted dick, and trifle, flavored with custard. Tea is an essential beverage drank throughout the day, accompanied with scones, biscuits, or sandwiches. The full English breakfast remains a classic.
The recent British cuisine still has a fairly bad international and represented as dishes of simply cooked meats and vegetables. Many thinks that British cuisine do not reach the same level of quality at the other European countries, like France. French president Jacques Chirac even openly claims that British food is the worst in Europe, following Finnish. During the Middle Ages, the Britain had a great reputation for their cuisine but that had changed when the majority of the population moved away in the 18th century. They are slowly regaining back the same quality and selection of food they once have through influences.
Hash is a combination of beef, often leftovers from last night’s corned beef or roast beef, onions, potatoes, and spices that are mixed together into a coarse, chunky paste and then cooked alone, or with other ingredients. In the United Kingdom it is eaten for lunch or dinner and in celebration of Ash Wednesday involves the serving and eating of hash.
Sunday roast is a traditional, popular meal to the British and Irish, made of roasted meat and other small accompaniments. The roasted meat can be beef, pork, lamb, chicken, duck, goose, gammon, turkey, or other game meat. The accompaniments range from boiled/roasted vegetables, Yorkshire pudding, relishes, crackling, etc. Traditionally, the meat was left in the oven before going to church on a Sunday morning, then returning back home to a fully cooked meal during lunchtime.
Kedgeree is a dish consisting of flaked fish, usually smoked haddock, boiled rice, eggs and butter. It originated amongst the British colonials in India and hence was introduced to the United Kingdom as a popular breakfast dish in Victorian times, part of the then fashionable Anglo-Indian cuisine. During that time, fish was often served for colonial breakfasts so that fish caught in the early morning could be eaten while it was still fresh. It is rarely eaten for breakfast now, but is still a common food.
Pork pie is a traditional British food. It consists of pork and pork jelly in a hot water crust pastry and is normally eaten cold. There are two main types of pork pie - one of which has the name Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. The main difference is that the Melton Mowbray pie uses uncured meat whilst the more common commercial pies use cured meat. Melton Mowbray pies also have hand-raised crusts and often look slightly irregular in shape after baking.
Bubble and speak
Bubble and squeak is a traditional British dish made with the shallow-fried leftover vegetables from a roast dinner. The chief ingredients are potato and cabbage, but carrots, peas, Brussels sprouts, and other vegetables can be added. It is traditionally served with cold meat from the Sunday roast, and pickles. Traditionally the meat was added to the bubble and squeak itself, although nowadays the vegetarian version is more common. The cold chopped vegetables (and cold chopped meat if used) are fried in a pan together with mashed potato until the mixture is well-cooked and brown on the sides. The name is a description of the action and sound made during the cooking process.
Crème brûlée is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a layer of hard caramel, created by burning sugar under a salamander or other intense heat source. It is usually served cold in individual ramekins. The custard base is normally flavored with just vanilla, but it can be flavoured in a number of ways, with chocolate, liqueur, fruit etc.
Bread and butter pudding
Bread and butter pudding is a traditional dessert popular in British cuisine. It is essentially a baked form of French toast. It is made by layering slices of buttered bread scattered with raisins in an oven dish into which an egg and milk mixture (sometimes with vanilla or other spices added) is poured. It is then baked in an oven and served. Some people may serve it with custard, but often the pudding under the crust is runny enough to enjoy without sauce.
Toad in the hole
Toad in the hole is a traditional British dish. It consists of sausages in Yorkshire pudding mix, usually served with vegetables and gravy. Strong regional dialect has resulted in the dish being locally called "Tow'd in't th'ow" in some areas. Badly made toad in the hole is sometimes described as "frog in a bog". In some countries, including Australia and Canada, and in the U.S. region of New England, Toad in the Hole is the name of a dish that involves cutting a hole in a slice of bread, cracking an egg into it, and then frying it.
Ulster Fry, is a dish of fried food that is popular throughout the province of Ulster in Ireland. A traditional Ulster Fry consists of bacon, eggs, sausages, the farl form of soda bread, potato bread and tomato. Other common components include mushrooms, baked beans, wheaten bread, and pancakes. Black pudding, and/or white pudding may be added to create an Irish breakfast, though neither are used in a traditional Ulster Fry. All this is traditionally fried up in lard, though many people use sunflower or vegetable oil these days.
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chicken Tikka Masala is Chicken Tikka in a masala gravy.There is no standard recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala, but most are variants of tomato gravy with cream or coconut cream and various common spices. So popular is it that British politician Robin Cook described it as "a true British national dish".
Mushy peas are dried marrowfat peas which are first soaked overnight and then simmered until they form a bright green paste. They are a very traditional northern English accompaniment to fish and chips, and are considered a part of traditional British cuisine.
Bolognese sauce is a meat based pasta sauce originating in Bologna, Italy. Bolognese sauce is sometimes taken to be a tomato sauce. This is a mistake: authentic recipes have only a very small amount of tomato—maybe a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste. The people of Bologna traditionally serve their famous ragù with freshly made tagliatelle. Less traditionally, the sauce is served with rigatoni or used as the stuffing for lasagne or cannelloni.
Fish and chips
Fish and chips, a popular take-away food, consist of deep-fried fish in batter with deep-fried potatoes. For decades fish and chips dominated the take-away food sector in the United Kingdom, -.Australia, and New Zealand, and had considerable popularity in Canada, Ireland, South Africa, the United States, and some coastal towns of the Netherlands and Norway. Fish and chips also enjoy great popularity in Denmark.
Trifle is an English dessert dish made from thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, fruit juice or, more recently, gelatin dessert and whipped cream, usually arranged in layers with fruit and sponge on the bottom, custard and cream on top. Some trifles contain a small amount of alcohol - non-alcoholic versions use fruit juice instead, as the liquid is necessary to moisten the cake.
Steak and kidney pie
The steak and kidney pie is a distinctive British dish consists of diced beef steak and beef kidneys in a thick sauce. It is often a one-crust pie, which means that the filling is covered but not completely enclosed by the pastry. The sauce typically made of beef broth, flavored with salt, pepper and parsley, onions, and thickened with flour, cornstarch which is also called a beurre manié. Two-crust steak and kidney pies are best made with warm water crust pastry, which is less likely to get drenched in sauce, but one-crust pies may also be made with puff pastry or short crust pastry.
A scone is thick bread. made of wheat, barley or oatmeal and baking powder. The scone is a basic component of the cream tea. The scone is similar to North American biscuits. In fact, many recipes are identical.