The Great British Cake-Scoff: A Guide to British Food

So, I’ve put on a lot of weight since I’ve moved back to the UK and with very good reason. British food is not an internationally beloved cuisine. In most large cities around the world, you may be able to find a decent pizzeria, Chinese takeaway or Irish pub.

But, you will never ever find a good chippy or a proper British pub outside the British Isles.

Since being back, I have really appreciated things like Cadbury’s chocolate, fresh bread and never being more than a five-minute drive away from a pie. Who ate all the pies? Uh, me. Definitely me. With pleasure.

Here are just a few of my favourite British dishes, shared here to educate the rest of the world about the delicious-ness that is Great British food:

Breakfast

1. Bacon Butties

While the rest of the world is obsessed with streaky bacon, give me two slices of grilled back bacon between two slices of white bread and a good dollop of ketchup any day. Note: butties are sandwiches, not small butts.

2. Full English Breakfast

And when we say ‘full’, we mean it: sausage, bacon, mushrooms, a fried tomato, toast, baked beans, eggs and sometimes hash browns and black pudding (also not a pudding).

What is black pudding? Why it’s a delicious kind of sausage made from pigs blood and fat, which is much tastier when you don’t think too hard about how it’s made.

3. Marmite on Toast

Marmite’s slogan is, ‘love it or hate it,’ and I love it. Spread a thin layer on heavily buttered toast for the perfect breakfast/snack/comfort food. Unfortunately, this sticky, dark brown spread made from yeast extract is definitely an acquired taste.

Lunch and Dinner

4. Roast Dinner aka Sunday Lunch

While travelling, I meet a lot of people who assume that all the British like to eat is fish and chips. Although we love a good chippy tea every now and again, a meal that is much more common (some might even say weekly) is a proper roast dinner.

Note: the word ‘proper’ must precede the words ‘roast dinner’, just as ‘cheeky’ must precede the word ‘Nando’s‘.

Roast dinners are usually prepared and eaten on Sundays. They include meat, potatoes (roasted in fat, boiled, mashed or all three), an assortment of vegetables and gravy. The highest tier of roast dinners is a carvery, which is where big joints of meat are roasted and carved to serve. Look for a Toby Carvery for a great value version of this concept and you won’t be disappointed.

The meats should be served as follows: beef with Yorkshire pudding, turkey with cranberry sauce (the usual for Christmas dinner), chicken with stuffing, pork with apple sauce or lamb with mint sauce. However, most families cheat and include all the things with their meat because Yorkshire puddings are too delicious to pass up.

And then there’s the matter of cauliflower cheese…

If you want to be really British, then ask for a piece of bread at the end of your meal to soak up the remaining gravy!

Never underestimate the power of gravy.

5. Toad in the Hole

Speaking of Yorkshire puddings (which aren’t puddings), we need to talk about Toad in the Hole (which has nothing to do with toads). Do you know what’s better than sausages? Sausages hiding in an ocean of batter. With gravy.

Never underestimate the power of gravy.

6. Fish & Chips

No listicle about British food is complete without mentioning fish and chips. My regular order is a small cod and chips (don’t worry, it’s never small) with mushy peas. For those of you who have yet to enjoy this accompaniment, mushy peas are literally what they say on the tin.

I also like to pinch some curry sauce for chip-dipping and if I’m in the north of the UK, then I ask for scraps (extra bits of batter). Of course, salt and vinegar on the chips go without saying and be sure to keep some bread and butter handy for those chip butties (sandwiches).

However, if you’re new to the fish and chips concept and you prefer your fish less like fish and more like meat, then there’s a huge secret I’m going to let you in on: chippies sell more than just fish and chips!

You can order a pie, a battered sausage, fried chicken, or go ahead and order a doner kebab. You’re welcome.

7. Scampi and Chips

Why is this such a firm pub food staple? I don’t know. Battered prawns (that’s shrimp to some of you) with chips and peas doesn’t ever sound appealing, but sometimes I just get a hankering for it. Best enjoyed in a cosy pub with a pint. Don’t forget the tartar sauce.

8. Bangers and Mash

Sausages (the bangers), mash potato and a healthy dose of onion gravy. Never underest… you get it.

9. All the Pies

Pies are another staple, usually served with mash, peas and gravy (I’m beginning to see a pattern emerging here). Popular flavours include steak and kidney, beef and ale and chicken and mushroom. There should always be a generous pie crust to filling ratio.

Confusingly, there are also two pies that aren’t really pies at all. They are a mix of minced meat and vegetables, topped with mashed potato and baked in an oven:

Shepherd’s pie (not to be confused with a shepherd spy) is made with minced lamb, while cottage pie is made with minced beef.

Pork pies also exist, but they are served cold and are eaten as a snack or finger food in a buffet, like sausage rolls, either in mini form or slice form.

10. Chicken Tikka Masala

Yes, you read that correctly. What is the most popular British food? Curry. Chicken Tikka Masala is a hybrid dish created by Indian settlers in the UK and the curry-mad British palette.

Of all the foods I missed from my home country while I lived overseas, British curry (particularly Brummy Curry aka curry from Birmingham) was at the top of the list. Because you certainly can’t get it anywhere else. Not even in India.

11. Jacket Potatoes

This is the dish I cook most when I’m overseas, for myself and others alike. This is simply a baked potato with a crispy jacket (stick it in the oven for an hour, sprinkled with a little oil and salt).

Then you open up the potato, slap on a good wedge of butter and add your toppings, which can be anything. The standard is baked beans and cheese, but other popular toppings include chili con carne, cottage cheese (with pineapple or chives), tuna mayo (sometimes with sweetcorn), curry, and coleslaw.

Although not as prevalent as they used to be, you can sometimes see jacket potato stands on the streets; it’s the perfect sort-of-on-the-go meal.

12. Beans on Toast

Nothing in the cupboards? On a budget this week? Beans on toast it is! Toast the bread, slather some butter, pour on some baked beans, dump a load of grated cheese, and eat up before the bread gets soggy!

Desserts and sweets

13. Scones

After all that meat, potatoes and general stodge, how about something a little lighter for dessert? Like, I don’t know, freshly baked scones with a huge dollop of clotted cream and jam? Best served at afternoon tea, which – contrary to the opinion of other travellers I have met abroad – is only something we do for a special occasion, not every day.

As a side note, if you’d like a little guide to the best afternoon tea in York, Tales of a Backpacker has a great one.

14. Banoffee Pie

Bananas and toffee and cream, oh pie!

15. Eton Mess

This has to be the laziest dessert ever invented. Named after historic Eton College where it was traditionally eaten (geddit?) after a game of cricket, this includes strawberries, meringue and cream, all whisked up in a mess.

16. Strawberries and Cream

Pretty simple and best served with a round of Wimbledon. Don’t forget to sprinkle sugar on top of your strawberries and cream to really get the most out of one of your five a day.

17. Spotted Dick

I don’t actually care for spotted dick, but I had to include it on this list just to write that very sentence. Despite Yorkshire pudding and black pudding having ‘pudding’ in the name even though they are savoury, apparently the word ‘dick’ was perfectly appropriate for an actual pudding.

18. Battenberg

Why is this so delicious? Pink and yellow sponge in a checked pattern wrapped in marzipan. Why is in checked? Why is the sponge pink? And why is it wrapped in marzipan? Who knows!

19. Trifle

Beloved by grandmas all over the UK, this dessert is made with fruit, soggy sponge fingers soaked in sherry, custard and whipped cream. It’s so quintessentially British that a lemon swiss roll and amaretti variation on the trifle was made the official recipe for the Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations (see my attempt at recreation above).

What I love most about this dessert is it’s Italian translation, which you often see at gelaterias: Zuppa Inglese, which means English Soup!

Snacks

20. Scotch Eggs

A hard-boiled egg encased in sausage meat and covered in breadcrumbs. Eaten cold. It sounds horrific, but I have it on good authority from travellers to the UK that this was their favourite foodie find.

21. Cornish Pasties

The story goes that the wives of labourers in Cornwall would stuff meat and vegetables into hard pastry so that the workers could easily transport their lunch to work.

22. Shortbread

Originally from Scotland, just like many poorly-named British staples, shortbread is neither short nor bread. It’s a hard buttery biscuit that’s so moreish you won’t be able to eat just one stick.

23. Cadbury’s Chocolate

The best thing to come out of Birmingham since the Peaky Blinders, nothing tastes like a Dairy Milk back on home turf. Australian Cadbury’s just isn’t the same; it crumbles rather than melts. Also, nothing smells as good as Bourneville, where the original Cadbury’s Factory is.

The Best of British Food

It does seem like we eat rather a lot of sausages, potatoes, pies and gravy and cream… maybe that’s why I can’t fit into my jeans anymore…

Anyway, if you’re visiting the UK and reading this, be sure to try out a few of these dishes and if you’re British then I hope the pictures made your mouths water as much as mine did.

Now, I have the kind of munchies that only a slice of banoffee pie can fix…