English Gastronomy

People always complain about English food - how it's boring, or too greasy, or all tastes the same, or is only meat. I am here to tell you that that is not entirely true. Yes, traditional English food is sausage and mash, shepherd's pie, fish and chips, and beer. The fish and chips can be good; I haven't tried the others because they're meaty. But now that England, and London in particular is becoming much more ethnically diverse, their food is improving greatly. Someone famous (I forget who) said that the new national food of the UK is chicken tikka masala. It's true, Indian food is everywhere and is always delicious. (And for the vegetarians out there, Indian restaurants always have a plethora of veggie options. Yum.) Thanks to these same Indians, all London eateries offer vegetarian options - falafel burgers, veggie pies, kebabs, etc.

In the area of snacks, the English excel. Only three words are necessary: tea, nutella, digestives. Tea is consumed at every opportunity and in great quantities. When you order a tea, you're given English breakfast with milk, unless you specify otherwise. At a cafe once, curious, I asked what kind of tea their "normal tea" was, and the man looked at me strangely and replied, "it's just tea." All right then. Nutella is eaten on toast. Also all the time. In England, the first ingredient in nutella is hazelnuts; here in the US, it's sugar. I don't understand. Digestive biscuits (McVities) are pure deliciousness. They're kind of like a graham cracker and kind of like a cookie, but better than both. They also come in many varietes - plain, dipped in chocolate, or oaty (Hob Nobs). I could live on digestives. (And as far as I know, they have nothing to do with your digestion.)

While I'm talking about food, I might as well describe the typical English breakfast. They are huge meals, served in many pubs at brunch time on weekends, and consist of sausage, eggs, grilled tomato and mushroom, baked beans, black pudding, bubble (mashed potatoes baked with veggies), toast, and tea. Even an English breakfast can come vegetarian - with veggie sausage, sans black pudding. It's delicious, but one breakfast could feed a horse. Or a hungry student who wants to pay only 5 pounds for an entire days' worth of food...