British cuisine
British cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United Kingdom. Historically, British cuisine means "unfussy dishes made with quality local ingredients, matched with simple sauces to accentuate flavour, rather than disguise it."[1] However, British cuisine has absorbed the cultural influence of those that settled in Britain, producing hybrid dishes, such as the Anglo-Indian Chicken tikka masala, hailed as "Britain's true national dish".[2]
Vilified as "unimaginative and heavy", British cuisine has traditionally been limited in its international recognition to the full breakfast and the Christmas dinner.[3] However, Celtic agriculture and animal breeding produced a wide variety of foodstuffs for indigenous Celts and Britons. Anglo-Saxon England developed meat and savory herb stewing techniques before the practice became common in Europe. The Norman conquest introduced exotic spices into Great Britain in the Middle Ages.[3] The British Empire facilitated a knowledge of India's elaborate food tradition of "strong, penetrating spices and herbs".[3] Food rationing policies, put in place by the British government during wartime periods of the 20th century,[4] are said to have been the stimulus for British cuisine's poor international reputation.[3]
British dishes include fish and chips, the Sunday roast, and bangers and mash. British cuisine has several national and regional varieties, including English, Scottish and Welsh cuisine, which each have developed their own regional or local dishes, many of which are geographically indicated foods such as Cheshire cheese, the Yorkshire pudding, Arbroath Smokie, and Welsh rarebit.
Modern British cuisine
Modern British (or New British) cuisine is a style of British cooking which emerged in the late 1970s, and has become increasingly popular since. It uses high-quality ingredients local to the United Kingdom, preparing them in ways which combine traditional British recipes with modern innovations, and has an affinity with the Slow Food movement.
It is not generally a nostalgic movement, although there are some efforts to re-introduce pre-twentieth-century recipes. Ingredients not native to the islands, particularly herbs and spices, are frequently added to traditional dishes (echoing, perhaps not always intentionally, the highly spiced nature of much British food in the medieval era).
Much Modern British cooking also draws heavily on influences from the cuisines of the Mediterranean and, more recently, Middle Eastern, South Asian, East Asian, and Southeast Asian cuisines. The influence of northern and central European cuisines is significantly slighter.
The Modern British style of cooking emerged as a response to the perceived poor quality of British cuisine following the Second World War, and the resulting popularity of foreign cuisine in Britain in the decades that followed. Modern British cuisine has been very much influenced and popularised by television personalities such as Fanny Cradock, Delia Smith, Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver.
A major influence has been the Food Programme, made by BBC Radio 4.
Varieties
| British cuisine |
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English cuisine
English cuisine is shaped by the climate of England, its island geography and its history. The latter includes interactions with other European countries, and the importing of ingredients and ideas from places such as North America, China and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of immigration.
Scottish cuisine
Scottish cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions and practices associated with Scotland. It shares much with British cuisine, but has distinctive attributes and recipes of its own. Traditional Scottish dishes such as haggis exist alongside international foodstuff brought about by migration.
In addition to foodstuffs, Scotland produces a variety of Scotch whiskies.
Welsh cuisine
Welsh cuisine has influenced, and been influenced by, other British cuisine. Although both beef and dairy cattle are raised widely, especially in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, Wales is best known for its sheep, and thus lamb is the meat traditionally associated with Welsh cooking.
Dates of introduction of various foodstuffs and methods to Britain
Prehistory (before 43 AD)
- bread from mixed grains: around 3700 BC[5]
- oats: around 1000 BC[5]
- wheat: around 500 BC[5]
- rabbit: late Iron Age/early Roman[6]
Roman era (43 to 410)
- apple (?)
- asparagus [7]
- celery
- chives [8]
- coriander [9]
- cucumber
- marjoram
- marrow
- onion
- parsnip
- pea
- pheasant [22]
- rosemary
- spearmint [10]
- turnip
- wine
Middle ages to the discovery of the New World (410 to 1492)
- kipper: 9th century (from Denmark or Norway)
- rye bread: Viking era,[11] around 500 AD[5]
- peach (imported): Anglo-Saxon
- orange: 1290[12]
- sugar cane: 14th century[13]
- carrot: 15th century[14]
1492 to 1914
- turkey: 1524[15]
- cayenne pepper,[16] parsley:[17] 1548
- refined sugar: 1540s[12]
- lemon: 1577 (first recorded cultivation)[18]
- peach (cultivated): 16th century[18]
- potato: 1586
- horseradish:[19] 16th century
- tea: 1610 or later[20]
- banana (from Bermuda):[21] 1633
- coffee: 1650[22]
- chocolate: 1650s
- broccoli: before 1724[23]
- tomato (as food):[24] 1750s
- sandwich: named in 18th century
- curry: 1809 (first Indian restaurant)
- rhubarb (as food): early 1800s[25]
- three-course meal: about 1850 (developed from service à la Russe)[7]
- fish and chips: 1858 or 1863[12]
- Marmite: 1902[26]
- ice cream: 1913[12]
After 1914
- sugar beet: 1914-1918
- sliced bread: 1930[12]
- Chinese restaurant: 1950 (first to open in Soho)
See also
References
- ^ UKTV. "British cuisine". uktv.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-05-23.
- ^ BBC E-Cyclopedia. "Chicken tikka masala: Spice and easy does it". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 28 September.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c d Spencer, Colin (2003). British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231131100.
- ^ Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls and Consumption, 1939-1955, Oxford Up (2002) ISBN 978-0199251025. For general background, see David Kynaston Austerity Britain, 1945-1951, Bloomsbury (2007) ISBN 978-0747579854.
- ^ a b c d "Bread in Antiquity", Bakers' Federation website [1]
- ^ "Unearthing the ancestral rabbit", British Archaeology, Issue 86, January/February 2006 [2]
- ^ a b "Cooking by country: England", recipes4us.co.uk, Feb 2005 [3]
- ^ "Chives", Steenbergs Organic Pepper & Spice [4]
- ^ "Coriander",The Best Possible Taste[5]
- ^ Grieve, M. "Mints", botanical.com - A Modern Herbal [6]
- ^ Hovis Fact File (PDF)
- ^ a b c d e "Food History Timeline", BBC/Open University [7]
- ^ Lee, J. R. "Philippine Sugar and Environment", Trade Environment Database (TED) Case Studies, 1997 [8]
- ^ Stolarczyk, J. "Carrot History Part Two - A.D. 200 to date" [9]
- ^ Turkey Club UK [10]
- ^ DeWitt, D. "Pepper Profile: Cayenne", fiery-foods.com [11]
- ^ "Properties and Uses: Parsley", Herbs and Aromas [12]
- ^ a b "Fruits Lemon to Quince", The Foody UK & Ireland [13]
- ^ Coleman, D. "horseradish", Herb & Spice Dictionary [14]
- ^ Dunlop, F. "Tea", BBC Food [15]
- ^ Forbes, K. A. "Bermuda's Flora" [16]
- ^ "Coffee in Europe", The Roast & Post Coffee Company [17]
- ^ "Vitamin C - Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts", Your Produce Man, April 2005 [18]
- ^ Cox, S. "I Say Tomayto, You Say Tomahto...", landscapeimagery.com, 2000 [19]
- ^ "National Rhubarb Collection", RHS Online, 2006 [20]
- ^ "Marmite", Unilever brand page [21]
