Traditional Meals in Britain

The usual meals in Britain are: breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. Breakfast is generally a bigger meal than they have on the Continent, though some English people like a continental breakfast of rolls, butter and coffee. But the usual English breakfast is porridge or cornflakes with milk or cream and sugar, bacon and eggs, marmalade made from oranges with buttered toasts and tea or coffee. For a change, you can have a boiled egg, cold ham or, perhaps, fish.

People in Britain generally have lunch about one o'clock. The businessman in London usually finds it impossible to come home for lunch, and so he goes to a cafe or restaurant; but if he is making lunch at home, he has cold meat (left over probably from yesterday's dinner), potatoes, salad and pickles with a pudding of fruit to follow. Sometimes people have a mutton chop or steak and chips followed by biscuits and cheese, and some people like a glass of light beer with lunch.

Afternoon tea you could hardly call a meal but it is a sociable sort of thing as friends often come in then for a chat while they have their cup of tea, cake or biscuit.

In some houses dinner is the biggest meal of the day. In a great many English homes people make the midday meal the chief one of the day, and in the evening they have the much simpler supper – an omelette or sausages, sometimes bacon and eggs, and sometimes just bread and cheese, a cup of coffee or cocoa and fruit.

Some people also have «high tea». They say there is no use for these afternoon teas where you try to hold a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of bread and butter about as thin as a sheet of paper in the other. They have it between five and six o'clock, and have ham or tongue and tomatoes and salad or sausages with good strong tea, plenty of bread and butter, then stewed fruit, with cream or custard and pastries or a good cake. And that's what an Englishman calls a good tea.

Topical Vocabulary

1. Answer the questions:

1. What do people eat for breakfast in Britain?

2. When do people generally have lunch? What do people eat for lunch?

3. What is afternoon tea?

4. What is the chief meal of the day? What does it consist of?

5. What do people in Britain eat for the midday meal and supper?

6. What is high tea?

2. Translate into English:

1. Континентальный завтрак состоит из булочек с маслом и кофе.

2. Традиционный английский завтрак состоит из каши или кукурузных хлопьев со сливками, яичницы с беконом и тостов с маслом.

3. Лондонский бизнесмен идет на обед в кафе примерно в час дня, поскольку не может поехать домой обедать.

4. На обед англичане обычно едят котлету или бифштекс с жареной картошкой, салатом и маринованными овощами.

5. Иногда за обедом англичане выпивают стакан легкого пива.

6. Послеобеденный чай – скорее повод для общения, чем трапеза.

7. Обед или плотный ужин с чаем – главная трапеза английского дня.

8. С кофе или чаем, англичане обычно съедают тост с маслом и сыром или джемом, печенье или пирожное.

UNIT 6

British Economy

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