Food and Drink

A light afternoon meal of tea, sandwiches, scones and cakes, served between about three and five o'clock. It is a treat and…

Bacon in buttered bread — Britain's definitive hangover cure, breakfast on the move, and the subject of a permanent argument about which…

Sausages and mashed potato with onion gravy: a plain, cheap, deeply comforting British dinner and a pub menu fixture.

What the British call cookies: sweet, usually crisp, eaten with tea, and ranked by the entire nation according to how well they…

A dark, crumbly sausage made from pork blood, fat and oats, sliced and fried as part of a cooked breakfast — and…

The public house: Britain's neighbourhood bar, living room and village hall combined, where you order at the bar, buy in rounds, and…

Leftover potato and cabbage from a roast dinner, fried together into a crisp cake — the classic British use for yesterday's vegetables.

Britain's dominant chocolate maker, founded by Quakers in Birmingham in 1824, and the source of Dairy Milk, Creme Eggs and a long-running…

A mild, creamy, tomato-based curry that was almost certainly invented in Britain, and which a foreign secretary once called a true British…

Hot chips in buttered white bread — carbohydrate inside carbohydrate, a Northern English staple, and entirely unapologetic about it.

A thick, golden, spoonable cream made by gently heating full-fat milk until a crust forms — the essential partner to scones in…

A folded pastry parcel of beef, potato, swede and onion with a thick crimped edge, originally made as a hot lunch a…

Minced beef in gravy topped with mashed potato and baked — the older of the two potato-topped pies, and the one shepherd's…

What the British call potato chips — thin, crisp, and sold in flavours that visitors from elsewhere find genuinely alarming.

Round, spongy griddled cakes full of holes, toasted and eaten dripping with butter — a British teatime staple with no American equivalent.

A plain, wheaty, semi-sweet biscuit invented in Scotland in 1839, and Britain's most reliable partner for a cup of tea.

The British confusion over what to call the evening meal — a question of region and class as much as of time,…

A mid-morning break for tea or coffee and something small to eat, taken at around eleven o'clock — a minor but genuine…

Battered deep-fried white fish served with thick-cut chips, bought from a takeaway shop and eaten with salt and vinegar. Britain's best known…

Britain's spirit: juniper-flavoured, catastrophic in the eighteenth century, respectable by the nineteenth, and the subject of an enormous craft revival since 2010.

A savoury brown sauce made from meat juices, poured generously over roast dinners, chips, pies and — in the North — almost…

A bakery chain with over 2,500 branches selling sausage rolls, pasties and cheap coffee, and occupying a place in British affection out…

Scotland's national dish: sheep offal minced with oatmeal, suet and spices, traditionally cooked in a stomach lining, and considerably better than its…

A substantial cooked evening meal eaten at a table — historically working-class, and entirely different from the afternoon tea it is now…

Spiced, fruited sweet buns marked with a cross on top, eaten toasted with butter around Easter — and now, to general complaint,…

Scotland's bright orange soft drink, sold since 1901, and one of very few national markets where a local brand has outsold Coca-Cola.

A small sponge disc topped with orange jelly and covered in dark chocolate — and, following a famous court case, legally a…

Chopped eel stewed and set in its own savoury jelly, eaten cold — the most notorious East London food, and now genuinely…

A dark, intensely salty yeast extract spread, thinly scraped onto buttered toast, and so divisive that its own advertising is built around…

Small sweet pastry pies filled with mincemeat — a spiced mixture of dried fruit and suet containing no meat at all —…

Dried marrowfat peas soaked and cooked until they collapse into a thick green purée — the traditional accompaniment to fish and chips,…

A minced beef pie with mashed potato and parsley "liquor", eaten in tiled East London shops that have changed almost nothing in…

A dark, spiced, gin-based liqueur served long with lemonade, fruit, mint and cucumber — the drink of the British summer and of…

Seasoned sausagemeat baked in a tube of flaky puff pastry — Britain's default hot savoury snack, eaten from bakeries, at parties and…

A light, slightly sweet baked round, split and spread with clotted cream and jam, and eaten as the centrepiece of a cream…

A hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausagemeat, coated in breadcrumbs and fried or baked — a picnic and pub staple, and probably not…

Whisky made and matured in Scotland for at least three years — Britain's largest food and drink export, and legally protected in…

Minced lamb in gravy under a mashed potato crust, baked until browned — and not to be confused with cottage pie, which…

A steamed suet pudding studded with dried fruit, served hot with custard — and the possessor of the most sniggered-at name in…

A dark, moist sponge made with dates, drenched in toffee sauce and served hot with cream or custard — Britain's best-loved modern…

The national drink of Britain: strong black tea, usually with milk, drunk throughout the day and treated as the answer to almost…

A cooked breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage, beans, tomato, mushrooms and toast, eaten far more often at weekends and in cafés than…

A cold pub plate of cheese, bread, pickle, onion and salad — traditional in appearance and largely invented by the cheese marketing…

Named after an eighteenth-century earl, the sandwich is a British invention and now the country's dominant lunch — over four billion bought…

Britain's weekly ritual meal: roast meat, roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy and Yorkshire pudding, eaten at lunchtime on a Sunday with family or…

Sausages baked into Yorkshire pudding batter and served with onion gravy — a plain, cheap and enormously satisfying British dinner.

A layered cold dessert of sponge soaked in sherry, fruit, jelly, custard and cream, served in a glass bowl — and the…

Two layers of plain sponge sandwiched with jam and sometimes cream, dusted with sugar — the benchmark British cake, and the standard…

A savoury sauce of melted cheese, mustard, ale and Worcestershire sauce, grilled onto toast — considerably more than cheese on toast, and…

A chain of around 800 large, cheap pubs housed in converted banks, cinemas and courthouses — universally called Spoons, and a genuine…

A savoury baked batter pudding, crisp and hollow, served with roast beef and gravy — nothing at all like an American pudding.