BRITISH CUISINE

In India, British fusion foods are preferred in various hotels and restaurants.

HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN (UNITED KINGDOM):

The United Kingdom as a unified state can be treated as beginning in 1707 with the political union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland,[1] into a united kingdom called Great Britain.[note 1] Of this new state the historian Simon Schama said:

What began as a hostile merger would end in a full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world… it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history.

— Simon Schama, [2]

The first decades were marked by Jacobite risings which ended with defeat for the Stuart cause at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In 1763, victory in the Seven Years’ War led to the growth of the First British Empire. With defeat by the United States, France and Spain in the War of American Independence, Britain lost its 13 American colonies and rebuilt a Second British Empire based in Asia and Africa. As a result British culture, and its technological, political, constitutional, and linguistic influence, became worldwide.

The First World War (1914–1918), with Britain in alliance with France, Russia and the United States, was a furious but ultimately successful total war with Germany. The resulting League of Nations was a favourite project in Interwar Britain. In the Second World War France, the Soviet Union and the U.S. joined Britain as the main Allied powers.

 In, 1945–50 the Labour Party built a welfare state, nationalized many industries, and created the National Health Service. The UK took a strong stand against Communist expansion after 1945, playing a major role in the Cold War and the formation of NATO as an anti-Soviet military alliance with West Germany, France, the U.S., Canada and smaller countries. NATO remains a powerful military coalition. The UK has been a leading member of the United Nations since its founding, as well as numerous other international organizations. In the 1990s neoliberalism led to the privatisation of nationalized industries and significant deregulation of business affairs. London’s status as a world financial hub grew continuously. It joined the European Economic Community in 1973, thereby weakening economic ties with its Commonwealth. However, the Brexit referendum in 2016 committed the UK to leave the European Union, which it did in 2020.

For more info go to the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_Kingdom

GEOGRAPHY OF UNITED KINGDOM:

The United Kingdom is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. With a total area of approximately 248,532 square kilometres (95,960 sq mi), the UK occupies the major part of the British Isles archipelago and includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland and many smaller surrounding islands.[1] It is the world’s 7th largest island country.[2] The mainland areas lie between latitudes 49°N and 59°N (the Shetland Islands reach to nearly 61°N), and longitudes 8°W to 2°E. The Royal Greenwich Observatory, in South East London, is the defining point of the Prime Meridian.

The UK lies between the North Atlantic and the North Sea, and comes within 35 km (22 mi) of the north-west coast of France, from which it is separated by the English Channel. It shares a 499 km international land boundary with the Republic of Ireland.[3][4] The Channel Tunnel bored beneath the English Channel, now links the UK with France.

British cuisine is the heritage of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United Kingdom. British cuisine absorbed the cultural influences of its post-colonial territories – in particular those of South Asia. Food rationing policies put into place by the British government during the wartime periods of the 20th century[4] are widely considered today to be responsible for British cuisine’s poor international reputation. Well-known traditional British dishes include full breakfast, fish and chips, the Christmas dinner,[3] the Sunday roast, steak and kidney pie, shepherd’s pie, and bangers and mash.

People in Britain, however, eat a wide variety of foods based on the cuisines of Europe, India, and other parts of the world. Since appearing in Christmas dinner tables in England in the late 16th century, the turkey has become more popular, with Christmas pudding served for dessert.[7][8] The 16th-century English navigator William Strickland is credited with introducing the turkey into England, and 16th-century farmer Thomas Tusser noted that in 1573 turkeys were eaten at Christmas dinner.[9] Roast turkey is often accompanied with roast beef or ham, and is served with stuffing, gravy, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes and vegetables. In addition to Christmas pudding, trifle, mince pies, Christmas cake or a yule log are also popular desserts.[10]

POPULAR DISHES:

  1. Fish and Chips: Fried fish fillet is served with potato chips (French fries) and traditional sauces.
  2. Bangers and Mash: Also known as sausages and mash, this traditional dish consists of sausages and mashed potato, and is often accompanied with peas and gravy. This dish can usually be found on a menu in most pubs across the country,
  3. Full English Breakfast: This breakfast usually includes: bacon, sausages, eggs, baked beans, toast, mushrooms, tomatoes, hash browns and black puddings.
  4. Sunday Roast: The Brits love their Sunday Roast dinners. This dish is made up of: roasted meat (beef, chicken, lamb or pork), roast potato, Yorkshire pudding, stuffing, vegetables (usually a selection of: roast parsnips, Brussels sprouts, peas, carrots, beans, broccoli and cauliflower, not necessarily all) and gravy.
  5. Toad in the Hole: it includes sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter and is often served with gravy and vegetables. Yes, you’ve probably guessed British people love Yorkshire puddings.
  6. Shepherd’s Pie/Cottage Pie: in shepherd’s pie you use lamb whilst in cottage pie you use beef. And to confuse you even more, neither of these dishes are pies in the usual sense with pastry. Shepherd’s pie and cottage pie consists of: mince (lamb or beef), vegetables (such as; carrots, tomatoes, and onions), and potatoes which are on top of the meaty pie like filling.
  7. Steak and Kidney Pie: The ingredients include: beef, kidney, fried onion and gravy all wrapped up in pastry
  8. Black pudding: a blend of onions, pork fat, oatmeal and blood. It has protein, potassium, calcium and magnesium content.
  9. Eccles cake: this dish is named after the Greater Manchester town of the same name, these are small, round cakes made with flaky pastry and filled with currants.
  10. Laverbread: it is a traditional welsh dish that has little to do with bread. For making laverbread, seaweed is boiled, then minced or pureed and sometimes rolled in oatmeal before being fried.
  11. Scotch egg: it is a classic British dish in which hard boiled eggs wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and baked or deep fried.
  12. Bread and butter pudding: this pudding is made by layering slices of stale buttered bread, raisins and egg custard mix.
  13. Haggis: a savoury dish of minced sheep’s heart, liver and lungs with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and salt.

LOCAL FAMOUS FOOD:

  1. Cornish pasties: it is made by placing the uncooked filling on a flat pastry circle and folding it to wrap the fillings and then seal, then cooked.
  2. Yorkshire pudding: it is a dish that originated in Yorkshire, England. It is made from batter and usually served with roast and gravy.
  3. Arbroath smokies: these are types of smoke haddock (fish).
  4. Welsh cake: the cakes are known as bake-stones. Within Wales because they are traditionally cooked on a bake-stone, Welsh cakes are made from flour, sultanas, raisins and or currants cinnamon and nutmeg.
  5. Kippers: kipper is a whole herring, a small, oily fish that has been split from tail to head, gutted, salted or pickled and cold smoked, for breakfast in English.

 

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