I've two fellows coming from England to stay for a month or so. I'd like to have food they recognize in the fridge. What do people across the sea generally like for breakfast/lunch/dinner?

Admittedly they'll probably get a good introduction to Canadian food (is there such a beast? ) but a taste of home is all to the good.

I don't know where I could find Jaffa cakes. I'd never heard of them before reading this forum.

Chips (the potato slices kind).

The Full English Breakfast is a wonderful thing. Each one will take approximately a month off your life. It requires bacon and eggs (fried, poached or scrambled), and at least three of the following:

Tomatoes
Baked beans
Sausages
Black pudding
Fried bread
Toast
Boiled Eggs
White pudding

Other delicious traditional British recipes:

Steak and kidney pie

Any kind of curry, particularly balti

A decent cup of tea - it's an essential of life.

You forgot the Hash Browns

Whoops, so I did!

A roast, which involves some sort of roasted meat (chicken is my personal preference, but beef is very common), roasted potatoes, veg (usually boiled, pick your options from cabbage, carrots, peas, sprouts, or pretty much anything else you can boil), gravy (that's very important).

A general principle of British food is 'meat and two veg'.

Fish and chips: battered, deep fried fish and a portion of think-cut chips, none of that 'french fries' nonsense. Or 'freedom fries' either.

Badly made pizzas.

Make sure the chips are greasy, and that there's about a ton more than any sane person could actually eat! (if I never eat in another chippie again, it'll be too soon...I discovered in the UK that I really dislike chips)

Good cheese. I have no idea what Canadian cheese is like, but I can't look at American cheese the same way anymore. The cheddar just....isn't cheddar. It's like some weird version of double Gloucester or red Leicester. Which are okay...but I do miss mature cheddar. Wensleydale and stilton I do NOT miss, though...errgghh.

You can order stuff like hobnobs and jaffa cakes online if you really want. Along with various other things like Ribena and crazily flavored crisps (they have a lot of meat flavored crisps there....like prawn cocktail and roast chicken). Just google for it, and you should find various websites that sell UK food.

Roast chicken potato chips I can find in Canada. I'm not a fan but they are here.

If I were in Calgary I could also find a variety of sweets in a store called The British Pantry. My friend (from Poole originally) dragged me there for way, way too much sugar. I'm thinking of returning the favour for her birthday with Canadian candy.

By fried bread at breakfast do you mean french toast? Beans? at breakfast?

Marmite and Colemans English mustard. And scones! (NB- not all together )

Oh, and perhaps honey or lemon curd- I know it is an international thing, but you can't beat them

Fried bread is what it says, slices of bread, fried. Possibly in a frying pan. You can use the fat left from the meat. And yes, baked beans are part of the breakfast.

And black pudding is a must.

I'm not sure what you mean by french toast. What Americans call french toast, Brits call eggy bread. I have no idea what Canadians mean by it.

French toast = bread, dipped in egg and milk mix, and then fried. Served warm with maple syrup or fruit jam and butter.

I agree! But they call that eggy bread over there.

Nooooooo - what's wrong with you people? Do you guys put syrup on everything!

Eggy bread goes with tomato ketchup. You don't add sweets to a savoury dish!!!

Noo. You add a bit of vanilla to the egg mixture, then put maple syrup or jam on when it's done. It's so clearly a sweet dish.

French toast with...ketchup? That's just...blasphemy!

It may be French Toast with syrup but it's bloody well Eggy Bread with ketchup.

Firstly, adding milk to the eggs is weird.

Secondly, eggy bread is savoury. It deserves salt and pepper. It's fried eggs, people. What's next, chocolate coating the stuff?

Thirdly:



No, you have to use the fat left from the meat. Specifically, the bread should be fried in the bacon grease. Otherwise it's kind of bland, doesn't taste of much.

And, yes. Actually, breakfast is the only context I'll eat baked beans. I normally can't stand them.

All I can tell you is that I was very much impressed with black currant juice when I visited England.

I think we have discovered the difference between eggy bread and french toast. Eggy bread = greasy and savory. French toast = fluffy and sweet.

That's the conclusion I came to after Commie IMed me with expletives asking why Americans made everything sweet, anyway

You do! You do it with beer, too! *shakes fist*

Ohh yea Gods...

It's not American food unless it has 2 and a half bags of sugar in it.

Best British meal. A pint of Guinness washed down with some cider. Perhaps a JD and coke for desert.

And grease! Don't forget the grease! If possible, go all the way and deep fry it.

I had waaaay more greasy food in the UK than I do here! You people fry PINEAPPLE for goodness sake.

There's an idea, you could make them some pineapple fritters!

Hmm. But the fact that I noticed more greasy food in the UK may also be related to the fact that I almost never, ever eat out in the US. And when I do, it's pizza...which is basically the same both places.

I actually read Cal's post as saying "British" instead of "American".

I'm tired. And slightly tipsy. Bah.

And it's people in the North who fry everything. "Culinary experimentation" is Northern slang for "let's see what else we can batter". It's grim up north.

Yeah, but I lived in the American South, and we had deep fried Oreos. I think the battering thing has caught on... *shudder*

Proper British food is meant to insulate you from the cold. When we're being healthy I suspect most UK people eat Italian inspired food, pasta with herbs, garlic, tomatoes, salad, that kind of thing. Even pizza can be fairly healthy when you use good ingredients!

Heya Ashbless,

Long time no chat. First off what part of England are they from?. Most of the yobbos posting are from the south, they don't know what the hell to cook ......skinny little runts they are.

There are some over all british meals like the "English breakfast" and the "Sunday lunch". Both are easy to make, but would shock most places as the fat content is through the roof.

If you can give us abit more info then we could provide food menus to their locality.

That's a fair point (except for the skinng little runt bit. I'm quite tall).

Like accents, we've got a lot of regional food for such a tiny island.

Don't listen to him!! Firstly he's from Wales, secondly he's tubby and thirdly he kicks puppies!

He also piked all the red kidney beans from my Chili. Seriously - he's a bloody menace with a fork that man!

Over all that's the truth...but i did ask if could have them ....and they were nice, red kidney beans are yummy food.

Cheers Spacehappy!

Sorry, I don't know which part of England they're from. I'll probably know in about a week or so.

The two fellows are from the middle of England and are having a great time out here. The one was joking about talking his fiancee into moving out as he doesn't want to go back.

They just haven't encountered -20 degree celcius yet. *nods* Then they'll be keen to go back. Seriously though, they're looking forward to trying skiing.

As for food they've had to suffer mostly Canadian cooking. They seem to be surviving though.

I'm leaving them to their own cooking skills now that I'm working again. Juggling three part-time jobs doesn't leave too much time free.

They seem to really like apple crisp but claim to have never had it before. Does Apple Crisp sound familiar to anyone? Pumpkin pie wasn't liked as much but Pumpkin loaf (sort of a cake) disappeared quickly.

Apple crisp doesn't ring bells, but I grew up with several apple trees in the garden so I think I've probably had every apple recipe under the sun just maybe with a different name.

I hear that pumpkin pie is an aquired taste, but I don't think I've ever tried it.

Apple crisp is a fairly simple baked desert. Peel and slice up 1/2 a baking dish full of apples. Mix up brown sugar, quick oats (rolled oats? the breakfast porridge oats anyway) and some butter. Put the oat mix over the apples and bake for half to 3/4 of an hour. Serve warm with ice cream or milk.

Pumpkin pie usually happens around the very beginning of November because I like it and because I usually have a carved jack o' lantern just sitting there.

O.O Go and make a pumpkin pie! You poor deprived child! No pumpkin pie....
*lives off of pumpkin pie during the winter....*

Spamming my own thread here to say the Englishman are returning home today.

It's been great having them at the B&B and I hope they can scrape together the money for a return visit sometime.

They've sampled the Canadian bar food (such as it really isn't) and find English pub food and Canadian home cooking to be far superior. They were polite and didn't say anything about the beer. Though they sampled that a couple different nights as well.

They've tried skiing and enjoyed. They've experienced shovelling snow and didn't.
One of them had a truly frightening Canadian experience of hitting an elk on the highway. An elk is a fairly large animal. It dented the front, hood (bonnet), and caved in part of the roof. The windshield was shattered and thank goodness for shatter resistant glass or the guys would've been covered in sharp glass shards. One windshield wiper was found in the back seat. Everybody was okay, understandably shaken, but just fine. They had their cell (mobile) to call for help as the S.U.V. vehicle was totalled.

Thanks for your help with food ideas.

/end spam

Jebus, an Elk can total a tank!.

But the real question is .....did you cook for them, or did you back out

Nobody mentioned faggots, I think they should be mentioned, if only for the comedy value because I don't quite recalled what's in them. So here goes:

Faggot, and chips, with gravy.

My Aunt did the main cookery that was et, truthfully. Otherwise they were pretty much left on their own with a foreign kitchen.

I'll probably regret asking but what, aside from derogatory term for gay and amusing term for wood, is a faggot?

Imagine a Dumpling ...made of meat, and afew other bits. That's a faggot, with gravy and peas they can be really nice.

I went off faggots some years ago, since a mate that apprenticed as a butcher told me what actually went in them.

Have you ever had peas and rice, Space? It's rice cooked with red kideny beans in it.

No that was just an ugly rumour i have never had red kidney beans ever ...

Nope. Never heard anything about you sneaking Snugglebum the Destroyers kidney beans.

Never.*








*may be fibbing.