Analyse the text:

Text 1: English Cuisine
Ukrainian restaurants are fond of claiming to offer “European cuisine” and one of
the main threads of “European Cuisine” is that of England – itself often dramatically
distinct from Scottish, Welsh and Irish cuisine. Once clearly recognizable,
English cuisine is today a fusion of English, Indian, Chinese and several other European
cuisines. Here we attempt to untangle just what is that is actually eaten in England.
English cuisine has long suffered from accusations of being bland, unimaginative
and boring. Its culinary highlight was roast beef, to such an extent that the French
nicknamed the English les rosbif. The yeomen of the Guard at the Tower of London
are still called “Beefeaters”. Even today, although there are many thousands of
85
restaurants offering the cooking of over 180 countries in New York, there is allegedly
not one single restaurant serving solely English food.
Historically eating turnips, parsnips, swedes, with buckwheat as the staple in the
middle Ages, the British excitedly adopted potatoes after their introduction from the
New World, and for special occasions, boiled beef and carrots complemented a glass of
gin. Little changed until after the Second World War. Despite being a European hub of
the spice trade, only salt and pepper was commonly used until recently and garlic was
despised by the majority of the population before the Gastronomic Revolutions in the
1960s. The special dish created to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
in 1953 called, not surprisingly, Coronation Chicken, was scandalous in that it
contained a hint of Indian curry spices.
Exotic exceptions long found in classical English cuisine were few, such as ginger
beer and chocolate limes. The former is a sweet non-alcoholic soft drink with ginger
and the latter are lime-flavoured boiled sweets with a chocolate centre. Ginger and limes
were both introduced from the West Indies in the 17th century.
National classic dishes that excite gourmets are few, expensive and only for the
elite – such as venison, Dover sole, pheasant and salmon. The most esoteric is roast
swan, forbidden by law to be eaten other than by Royalty and the dons at Oxford and
Cambridge Universities by Royal Charter.
More usual are lamb (often eaten with mint sauce), pork (often eaten with apple
sauce), chicken, duck (often eaten with orange sauce), white sea-fish (frequently eaten
with tartare sauce) and inevitably beef (when roasted, eaten usually with Yorkshire
puddings). British sausages or “bangers”, eaten with brown sauce, are uniquely
flavoured with pepper and various cereals to give them an unusual flavour that often
surprises foreign visitors.
Pies with short pastry or flaky pastry continue to be popular – the most popular
fillings for hot pies being steak and kidney, beef and onion, chicken and mushroom,
lamb and mushroom, cheese and onion and, meat and potato.
Fish consumed in Britain is most frequently sea fish as no point in Britain is far
from the sea. River fish most usually eaten are salmon or trout, while pike, perch and
other such river fish are rarely eaten. Most fish is bought cooked and hot from Fish and
Chip shops although fish fingers made from cod and cooked from frozen, are very
popular, especially as a children’s meal.
The traditional English breakfast has now become the traditional British breakfast
– the traditional oat porridge breakfast in Scotland has mostly disappeared. Despite
perhaps every episode of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories produced in Russia
featuring Holmes and Watson breakfasting on oat porridge, this was not the case in the
original literature and extremely rare in England.
The English breakfast is designed to make people fat, with its usually fried
components being a selection (or sometimes all) of bacon, eggs, sausages, black
pudding , mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans and fried bread.
A fried breakfast may be preceded by cereals and milk, and followed by toast with
marmalade. Orange marmalade is by far the most popular although lime marmalade
may be found. Although traditionally the British drank Indian tea with milk, coffee, also
86
usually drunk with milk, is more widespread in the 21st century. At the same time, the
convenience of instant coffee is being overtaken by the preferential taste of natural
coffee.
Statistics vary enormously as to the extent of vegetarian attitudes to food in
Britain. It is probably the case that up to half the population will reduce their meat
intake, occasionally or frequently, for dietary or ideological reasons with a proportion of
those being vegetarian and a small percentage vegan. For example, vegetarian lasagne
is frequently offered alongside traditional lasagne and often omnivores will choose the
vegetarian option purely for variety.
While yoghurt was only a food-faddist’s rarity 30 years ago, today it is a popular
breakfast food, along with fromage frais. Whereas cream until the past few years was
always fresh and sold as single, double or whipped, recently “crème fraîche” has
appeared on almost all supermarket shelves.
As supermarkets spread and grew in size, their “in-store bakeries” have caused an
explosion in the choice of kinds of fresh bread and today most supermarkets will offer a
wide range of French, Italian, Greek, Indian, German and even sometimes traditional
Scottish, Irish and Welsh breads.
Regional dishes are also plentiful. London, for example, has the wonderfullynamed Toad in the Hole – pork sausages cooked in batter.
The most widespread take-away food (called “carry-out” food in Scotland) always
used to be from the ubiquitous Fish and Chip Shop. A “chippie” has huge deep-fat
fryers, once using lard but today usually using vegetable oil and small ovens in order to
cook potatoes and various fish and meat dishes. Chips are large and finger-sized and so,
being less crispy and, containing less fat than American fries or Belgian/French pommes
frites, have their own particular taste and softness. They are usually eaten sprinkled with
salt and malt vinegar. Fish is usually white sea-fish such as cod or haddock, covered in
batter and deep-fried until crispy. Pies and pasties are always sold but the fillings vary
by region. A chippie also sells pickled onions, pickled eggs, mushy peas and chicken
portions.
Most chippies around Britain will also sell, deep-fried in batter, sausages, cod roe,
burgers, sometimes black pudding, mushrooms and pineapple rings. In the North-East
of England and Scotland, small haggises may be deep-fried in batter and Glasgow
chippies are notorious for deep-fried Mars bars in batter.
Generally, sweet dishes tend to traditionally be in three groups: stodgy puddings
served with hot custard, cakes and fruit dishes.
The British have always brewed beer and although historically mead, made with
beer and honey, was once drunk in the Middle Ages, today pubs serve bitter or mild
beer, and lager. Each region has its own preferences and often bottled specialities such
as strong winter ales, IPA, stout or porter. Originally always served draught from
barrels, there was a move to “bright” pressurized keg beers in the 1960’s, that by the
1970’s reversed to trends towards “Real Ale”, again served draught and pulled by a
“beer engine” rather than fed by C02 pressure. The Scots have tended to have heavier,
stronger beers, indeed often called “a pint o’ heavy” graded traditionally by shillings,
from the strength and hence the amount of duty payable on each barrel.
87
The south-west regions of England, as well as Breton area in French Brittany have
always been famous for cider made from apples, usually sold filtered and ‘bright’.
There is also a stronger form of cider which is cloudy and unfiltered, called “scrumpy”.
Traditionally, a rooster was thrown in the vat when scrumpy was being made to give
additional flavour.
Gin has always been the principal spirit drink in England, and whisky in Scotland
and Ireland. Rum, the traditional drink of the Royal Navy, and brandy or cognac have
also been commonly drunk. And finally, the only widespread wines in the past used to
be champagne, sherry and port. The latter two being fortified wines, tended to be drunk
in small quantities.
Everything began to change in the 1960s. Before then, wine, garlic and foreign
food were regarded with distrust if not distaste. Then a tendency toward the new, the
unusual and variety began to accelerate. Forty years ago in Coventry, a provincial city
roughly the size of Vinnitsya, there would have been no take-away food other than from
one of about 60 Fish and Chip shops. Today there are about 25 chippies, 30 Chinese
take-aways, 20 Indian take-aways, 10 Kebab houses, 10 Pizza take-aways and a few
offering Thai, Nepalese, American burgers or other cuisine.
Supermarkets now stock vast ranges of products and ingredients from literally all
over the world, especially Indian, Chinese, Italian, French, Thai, Mexican and Greek.
Pasta and rice are today’s staples as much as potatoes, with dishes that vary hugely in
scope.
Wine used to be an insignificant minority drink, but over the past 30–40 years has
begun to challenge beer as the main alcoholic drink. Today the most popular wines are
from Australia and New Zealand, both red and white, and most supermarkets and offlicences will stock wine from at least 20 countries. There has since the 1980’s been a
challenge to the pub as “wine bars” have opened around the country selling a wide
range of wines by the bottle or by the glass.
The most popular British dish today is either lasagne or Chicken Tikka Masala,
depending on which survey is read.
Chicken Tikka is a traditional Indian dish, a kebab of marinaded chicken breast
cooked in a tandoor. But Chicken Tikka Masala was created in Britain, probably in
Glasgow in the late 1960s when a legendary Glaswegian insisted on his chicken tikka
and rice having a sauce, so the Indian chef quickly produced a tomato-based sauce with
garam masala spices.
What once was clearly ‘traditional’ cuisine and often unimaginative, is today one
of the most varied in the world, bringing together both dishes from around the world as
well as ‘fusion’ cooking so popular today.