British food long had a poor reputation, but in recent decades the country has undergone a real gastronomic revolution: quality local produce, markets, creative chefs and an extraordinary variety of world cuisines, a legacy of the Empire and of immigration. And traditional dishes, when well made, are comforting and tasty.
Breakfast
The full English breakfast is an institution: fried or scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans in tomato sauce, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, toast and sometimes black pudding. Each nation has its own version: the Scottish breakfast adds a potato tattie scone and sometimes haggis, Northern Ireland's Ulster fry adds soda bread and potato bread, and the Welsh version adds seaweed laverbread. On weekdays, though, many Britons make do with cereal, porridge or toast with marmalade or with Marmite, a savoury yeast spread that people either love or hate.
The great classics
- Fish and chips: cod or haddock fried in batter with thick chips, seasoned with salt and malt vinegar, often served with mushy peas. The best is eaten on the coast.
- Sunday roast: Sunday lunch, with roast beef, lamb, pork or chicken, roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy and Yorkshire pudding, a kind of baked batter soufflé.
- Pies: savoury pies filled with meat and vegetables, such as steak and ale pie or chicken and mushroom pie; shepherd's pie and cottage pie, by contrast, are minced meat topped with mashed potato.
- Bangers and mash: sausages with mashed potato and onion gravy.
- Pasty: the Cornish pastry parcel, born as the miners' lunch.
- Ploughman's lunch: a cold plate of cheese, bread, pickles and apple, a pub classic.
The cuisines of the four nations
In Scotland the national dish is haggis, made with sheep's offal, oats and spices, served with neeps and tatties, especially on the evening of 25 January, Burns Night. Scotland also offers excellent salmon, seafood, venison and shortbread. Wales is famous for cawl, Welsh rarebit and Welsh cakes (see Welsh traditions). In Northern Ireland people eat stews, potato bread and smoked salmon.
Afternoon tea and puddings
Afternoon tea is a ritual born in the 19th century: tea served with cucumber sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and small cakes. In London's grand hotels it is an elegant experience; in the south-west you enjoy the simpler cream tea. Britons drink about a hundred million cups of tea a day, almost always with milk. Among the desserts, known as puddings, are sticky toffee pudding, apple or rhubarb crumble with custard, trifle, Eton mess of strawberries, cream and meringue, and the festive Christmas pudding.
Cheese, curry and world food
The UK produces hundreds of cheeses, from Cheddar to Stilton, from Wensleydale to Red Leicester. Curry is now regarded as a national dish: chicken tikka masala has been called a symbol of modern Britain, and cities such as Birmingham, with its balti, Bradford and London, with Brick Lane, are famous for Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi restaurants. London has every cuisine in the world, and food markets such as Borough Market are a must (see where to eat in London).
Drinks
As well as tea and pub beer (see British pubs), the UK is the home of Scotch whisky, made in more than a hundred distilleries in the regions of Speyside, the Highlands, Islay and the Lowlands, of gin, revived in recent years by hundreds of small distilleries, of cider from Somerset and Herefordshire and, increasingly, of excellent English sparkling wines from Sussex and Kent.
See also travel tips, British pubs and cost of living.