Food

Today I want to talk about food in general and especially in the United Kingdom. Food is the most important thing in everyone's life because it is the base of our existence. Humanity always tried to improve the taste of food and we are finding new ways of cooking and preparing it. So I would say today for most of us eating and drinking is more than a job that we have to do, but it is fun and perhaps a kind of hobby.

Many people believe that British food is strange or even tasteless and eating it is more torture than fun. I personally have never really tried British meals or drinks or specialities, but I think that such a great mass of people can't be wrong when they say that British food doesn't taste good at all.

Breakfast

Most of us start their day with a breakfast. But there are some different types of breakfasts. Some persons like to eat cereals and fruits and like to drink  fruit juices or milk in the morning. This would be the healthiest way. Other ones prefer porridges, bacon, toast, honey, eggs, tea and bread - these are the maximalists. The third big group drinks just a coffee or a glass of milk when they wake up.

In England - where breakfast is more important than in many other countries - nearly 50% of the population still eat the famous typical English breakfast that is known all over the world: Bacon and eggs and perhaps also sausages and tomatoes.

Many scientist believe that a good and healthy breakfast is the most important meal because it improves your physical and psychical possibilities throughout the day.

Lunch

In England lunch can have several courses with a starter like supper, then a main course like meat or fish with vegetables then a pudding or dessert like an apple-pie and then perhaps, cheese or biscuits, but in general it  is far less important than in Austria for example. Some traditional British meals are:

Haggis (This originally Scottish dish is made from oatmeal, sheep's heart, lungs an liver)

Fish n´ chips (This is the best known typical English meal)

And at the end of the meal Yorkshire pudding (a mixture of eggs, milk, water and salt) or Syllabub (sweetened whipped cream with wine).

Nowadays the fast food  business is growing in importance and perhaps it will soon rule out the traditional lunch, because today many people just don't have enough time to eat a complete meal during their break. For example Mc Donald's sold 50,000 millions of burgers in the year 1984 and by 1993 100,000,000,000 millions of burgers were sold all over the world.

Dinner

In the evening it is time for dinner. Many people like to eat in a restaurant especially in the evening, because it is different from eating at home and you can be sure that the quality of the food is ok most of the time.

Tea

Tea is the typical British drink. So I want to talk a bit about this kind of drink. The typical tea consists of bread and butter and jam. Cookies and biscuits. But tea is not an English invention. It was intentioned 5000 years ago by the Chinese and was first brought to England by sailors in the seventeenth century. Throughout the last two centuries its popularity raised extremely and soon it was the national drink of England. Teatasting is a real job in England and it takes about five years to train a professional tea taster. There exist hundreds of different types and flavours of tea today - one of the best is the Darjeeling tea that should be drunken with a slice of milk. An average Britain drinks about thirty cups of tea a week and this is about 50% of the total amount of liquid he drinks.

Healthy meals

There are many types of eaters. Some persons believe that for a healthy life no meat or even no animal products like milk or eggs are necessary - these are the vegetarians. Most of us don't think so or just don't act so and also scientist split up in different opinion groups, when they are asked what way is the right way to nutritiate.

What is not typical in Austria is normal in GB and USA: Pupils have their lunch at school. Nowadays there is a discussion running if the normal school lunch is really healthy and if our children really nutritiate in the right way, because they eat less vegetables, fruits and more fast food than ever before.