Mealtimes in Britain

Menu of London’s café in the street.

Photo: Julia Kudryashova

The British people usually have a big breakfast before they go to work and the meal at midday is not spent with the members of the family but with workmates or schoolmates. Lunch is normally eaten between 12.30 pm and 1.30pm. Most people finish work at five thirty. It often takes at least an hour to get home from the school or workplace so people usually have their evening meal or "dinner" between 6.30pm and 8pm.

On Sundays people don't have to work so they take the opportunity eat together with their family. Sunday lunch is usually the best meal of the week. Many typically British meals are eaten for Sunday lunch. For example roast beef or roast chicken and Yorkshire pudding.

Sunday roast.

Photo: Julia Kudryashova

Everyone in Britain understands that "breakfast" is the first meal of the day. But if you ask a British person what the words "dinner, lunch, tea, elevenses, supper" mean, most of them will give you a different answer according to what part of the country they are from or from what social class they are from.

Breakfast.

British breakfast is much bigger than in most other countries. Many people like to have a breakfast with fried bacon and eggs, fried bread and possibly fried tomatoes or black pudding. People who don’t want to eat a lot early in the morning prefer toast and marmalade with tea or coffee. Cereals are also very popular. The most common are cornflakes with milk. They are made with different grains such as corn, wheat, oats etc. Many people eat "porridge" or boiled oats in the morning.

Lunch

Some factories and schools have canteens where you can eat the packed lunch. A packed lunch is a plastic container with sandwiches, a packet of crisps, an apple and a can of something to drink, for example, coca-cola.

Dinner

Nowadays most British people eat meals from many different countries, for example, spaghetti or curry. In fact, now the British don't eat much British food. However the most typical thing to eat for dinner is "meat and two vegetables ". This consists of a piece of meat with two different boiled vegetables. This is covered with "gravy". One of the vegetables is almost always potatoes. The British eat a lot of potatoes.

“Fish and chips” is very popular in Britain.

Photo: Julia Kudryashova

Поиск по сайту: