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Introduction

Great Britain, an island country in northwestern Europe, is really four countries -- England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It goes by the familiar names of Britain and the United Kingdom, as well. It ranks 73rd in size among the countries of the world and has about one percent of the population.

Though this country contains few natural resources, it has played a prominent role world-wide. It started the Industrial Revolution and founded the largest, most powerful empire in the world -- and then declined. By 1900 its empire covered one-fourth of the world's land, containing one-fourth of the people. Though still a leader, it is no longer the world power it once was.

British cookery has been much maligned and has improved ramatically in the restaurants and country inns in the past decade.

Traditional British cuisine is substantial, yet simple and wholesome. The Brits have long believed in four meals a day. Their fare has been influenced by the traditions and tastes from different parts of the ritish empire: teas from Ceylon and chutney, kedgeree, and ulligatawny soup from India. The British nanny has also played a role with her nursery favorites, such as Bread and Butter Pudding, Spotted Dick, and Treacle Tart. Roast beef with Yorkshire Pudding and Plum Pudding are important contributions to international cuisine. Other popular dishes include Cornish Pasties and Beefsteak and Kidney Pie. The English developed a line of spicy sauces including ketchup, mint sauce, Worcestershire sauce and deviled sauce.

Today there is an emphasis on fine, fresh ingredients in the better restaurants and their markets offer countless worldly items. Salmon, Dover sole, prawns, game, and lamb are choice items. Wild fowl and game are specialties.

Among English cakes and pastries, many are tied to the various holidays of the year. Hot Cross Buns are eaten on Good Friday, Simnel Cake is for Mothering Sunday, Plum Pudding for Christmas, and Twelfth Night Cake for Epiphany. Local delicacies include Bath Buns, Chelsea Buns, Eccles Cakes, and Banbury Cakes. Cheeses are choice regional specialties, including Stilton, farm-house cheddars and Cheshire Cheese.

The Scottish have their own national dishes, based upon wild products and food, locally produced in this northern region. They include oats, barley, fowl, game, mutton, salmon, herring, and haddock. Oat cakes, shortbread, black buns, bannocks, finnan haddies and haggis are specialties.

Ethnic restaurants -- French, Italian, Indian, Greek, Thai and many others -- are very popular in the British Isles.

A Glossary of Foods and Terms

Tipsy Cake
a sherry-soaked pound or sponge cake with custard and cream

Bubble and Squeak
cabbage and mashed potatoes fried together

Angels on Horseback
oysters wrapped in bacon and grilled

Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding
possibly the most famous dish, prime rib of beef with a puffed flour, egg, and milk pudding

Cornish Pasties
individual potato and meat pies

Fish and Chips
Deep-fried white fish and potatoes

Hot Cross Buns
a yeast bun marked with a frosting cross

Cumberland Sauce
a currant jelly, wine, and mustard sauce

Old English Plum Pudding
a raisin and citron steamed pudding

Welsh Rabbit
the original name for rarebit, the Welsh dish consisting of cheese melted with beer, then poured on toast and broiled.

Ingredients

Clotted Cream
also called Devonshire cream, this rich English specialty has at least 55 percent butterfat and is spreadable

Double Cream
a rich cream with a minimum butterfat content of 48 percent

Gammon
mildly cured English ham

Caster sugar
superfine granulated sugar

Golden Syrup
an amber-colored syrup with a consistency of honey, made from refined cane sugar. Substitute one part dark corn syrup mixed with four parts light corn syrup.

Recipes

Chilled Cucumber Soup
makes 6 servings

1 large seedless cucumber
2 cups light cream
1 cup plain yogurt
3 tablespoons tarragon vinegar
1 garlic clove, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint leaves

Peel, seed, and grate the cucumber. In a bowl, stir together the cucumber, cream, yogurt, vinegar, garlic, and salt and pepper. Chill one hour. Serve with some of the mint stirred in and the remainder sprinkled on top.

Prime Rib with Yorkshire Pudding
makes six servings

4 pound prime rib of beef
Salt and pepper to taste

Yorkshire Pudding:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
Dash salt
1 teaspoon canola oil
2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 425ƒF. Season the meat with salt and pepper and place on a rack on a baking pan. Roast in the oven for 25 minutes, reduce the temperature to 325ƒF and continue roasting 50 minutes to one hour, or until the meat thermometer registers 150ƒF. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, milk, salt, oil and eggs, and beat until the batter is smooth. Let stand one hour. Preheat the oven to 425ƒF. Spoon two tablespoons of the fat off the roasting pan and brush it in a 9-inch baking pan. Pour in the batter and bake in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until puffed and set. Serve immediately with the roast beef.

Jacket Potatoes
makes 4 servings

4 equal-sized large russet potatoes
Sea salt
1/3 cup milk, approximately
2 tablespoons butter
Pepper to taste
1/2 cup grated Cheddar cheese
2 green onions, chopped

Preheat the oven to 400ƒF. Scrub the potatoes well and prick all over with a fork. Rub with salt. Place in a baking pan and bake in the oven for 50 minutes to one hour, or until tender when pierced with a knife. Remove from the oven, cut in half lengthwise, and using a spoon, scoop out the flesh into a bowl, leaving the skin intact. Mash the potatoes lightly and mix in the milk, butter, pepper, half the cheese, and onions. Pile into the shell. Top each with grated cheese. Place under the broiler until the cheese has melted and the top is lightly browned.

Welsh Rarebit
makes 6 servings

2 1/2 cups grated Cheddar cheese
1 ounce butter
1/2 cup ale
2 teaspoons prepared English mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 large slices buttered toast

Melt the cheese and butter in the ale in a small pan over low heat, stirring. Add the mustard, salt and pepper. Cut each slice of toast in half and arrange in a shallow ovenproof dish. Pour the cheese over the toast and place under the broiler until the cheese is bubbly.

Cumberland Sauce
makes about 1/2 cup

1/4 cup red currant jelly
2 tablespoons orange zest
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup dry red wine
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
Dash powdered ginger

Heat the jelly over hot water in a double boiler and mix in the other ingredients. Use as a sauce with ham, pork, or game.

Sherry Trifle
makes 8 servings

1 small sponge cake
3/4 cup raspberry or strawberry jam
2/3 cup sherry
6 ounces macaroons
2 1/2 cups milk
4 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup slivered toasted almonds

Slice the sponge cake horizontally and cut it into large pieces, then spread it with jam. Place the cake pieces, jam sides up, in layers in a 2 to 2 1/2 quart glass serving bowl. Pour the sherry over and let stand for one hour. Meanwhile, heat the milk. Beat the egg yolks with sugar until light, pour in the hot milk and whisk. Cook over low heat, stirring, until the custard thickens. Let cool to room temperature, then pour over the trifle. Cover and refrigerate several hours. To serve, whip the cream, spread over the top, and sprinkle with nuts.

Lemon Curd
makes about 1 cup

2 lemons
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 eggs, beaten

Grate the zest from the lemons and squeeze the juice. Place in a saucepan with the sugar and butter and heat slowly until the butter melts, stirring. Stir into the eggs, return to the pan, and cook, stirring, over low heat until the mixture thickens. Serve on scones or biscuits or with sponge cake.

Smoked Salmon Pinwheels
makes about 1 dozen sandwiches

6 thin slices soft brown bread, crusts removed
3/4 cup low-fat cream cheese
1 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon each chopped parsley and watercress
6 thin slices smoked salmon
Dash cayenne

Using a rolling pin, slightly flatten and stretch the bread. Cream the cheese with lemon juice, parsley, watercress, and cayenne, and spread over the bread. Cover with salmon and carefully roll; wrap each roll in plastic wrap and refrigerate two hours. To serve, remove wrapping and cut each roll in thin slices.

Cookbooks

The late Elizabeth David is considered one of the finest English cookbook authors. Her books include:

Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen
English Bread and Yeast Cookery
Summer Cooking; Penguin Books
An Omelette and a Glass of Wine

Chronicle Books has published two small books by Rosa Mashiter:
A Little English Book of Teas
A Little English Cookbook

The London Ritz Book of Afternoon Tea
by Helen Simpson
specializes in the tea ceremony with recipes.

Jane Grigson's British Cookery, published by Atheneum (1984; 231 pages; $24.95), is a comprehensive cookbook with
photographs, covering the areas throughout the United Kingdom.

Great British Cooking: a Well Kept Secret by Jane Garmey, published by Random House (1992; 295 pages; $15.00),
contains 200 recipes for the classics.

Great New British Cooking by Jane Garmey contains innovative contemporary recipes and updated renditions of traditional dishes, collected and modified from her travels.

Dining in England

English Breakfast
The traditional English breakfast is a bountiful event, and generally included in the price of a stay at a bed and breakfast hotel. It includes a glass of orange juice, a bowl of cereal, and a plate of crisply grilled bacon, sausage, or finnan haddie, fried or scrambled eggs, and grilled tomato halves, sautÈed mushrooms, and fried bread. A rack of freshly made toast, butter, and marmalade and tea or coffee accompanies.

Lunch in a Pub or as a Picnic
A Pub lunch is a fun way to enjoy the midday repast. Pubs are located throughout the country and offerings include both sandwiches and hot food along with beer and ales. Smoked salmon
and cress on brown bread and the Plowman's Lunch, a plate of cheese, chutney, pickles, and bread are classic.

A picnic is a delightful way to savor a historic sight on a beautiful day. The delicatessens sell fine cheeses and meats and it is easy to pick up bread and fruit from small shops in the countryside. I have enjoyed picnics on the grounds of York Cathedral, Rievaulx
Abbey ruins, and Fountains Abbey.

Afternoon Tea
Afternoon tea is a custom, often served between 4 and 6 PM. It can include a plate of delectable little sandwiches -- cucumber, seafood, deviled meat or egg -- scones, buns, tarts and cakes. Tea shops offer scones with clotted cream or Devonshire cream and jam.

Restaurants
Dining in London offers a wealth of ethnic restaurants in a wide price range. My favorites include:

Dell 'Ugo at 56 Frith Street, a three story establishment with a wine bar, bistro and restaurant.

Four Seasons Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel
Le Cafe du Jardin for pre-theater modest dining.

Orso at 27 Wellington for Italian fare
Cafe at the Royal Academy provides a pleasant quick lunch.

Henry Togna, the owner of a charming, elite hotel with the name and address of 22 Jermyn Street, favors:

The River Cafe, Thames Wharf, Rainvelle Road W6
La Caprice, Arlington St., SW1
Olivo, 21 Eccleston St., SW1
Oliveto, 21 Eccleston St., SW1

Traveling to England

For information, contact:
British Tourist Authority
Thames Tower, Black's Road
Hammersmith, London W6 9 #EL

Accommodations range from modest bed and breakfast inns to elegant country house hotels, such as Lucknam Park near Bath; Gidleigh Park, in Devonshire; Sharrow Bay Country House, Ukswater; Le Manoir Quatre Saisons, near Oxford; and Greywalls, Gullane. St. Andrews Old Course Hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland, is another choice destination.

Use your new-found knowledge of Britain by attempting the companion crossword puzzle to this article!

Lou Seibert Pappas is a former food editor of the Palo Alto Times Tribune and a home economist with Sunset Magazine. She currently writes food, home, and travel-related articles for national magazines and newspapers and is the author of more than 30 books.

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