History

Romano-British agriculture, highly fertile soils and advanced animal breeding produced a wide variety of very high quality foodstuffs for indigenous Romano-British people. Anglo-Saxon England developed meat and savoury herb stewing techniques and the Norman conquest reintroduced exotic spices and continental influences back into Great Britain in the Middle Ages as maritime Britain became a major player in the transcontinental spice trade for many centuries after. Following the Protestant Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries " plain and robust" food remained the mainstay of the British diet, reflecting tastes which are still shared with neighbouring north European countries and traditional North American Cuisine. In the 18th and 19th centuries, as the Colonial British Empire began to be influenced by India's elaborate food tradition of " strong, penetrating spices and herbs", the United Kingdom developed a worldwide reputation for the quality of British beef and pedigree bulls were exported to form the bloodline of major modern beef herds in the New World. Developments in plant breeding produced a multiplicity of fruit and vegetable varieties, with British disease-resistant rootstocks still used globally for fruits such as apples.

During the World Wars of the 20th century difficulties of food supply were countered by official measures, which included rationing. The problem was worse in WWII, and the Ministry of Food was established to address the problems (see Rationing in the United Kingdom). Due to the economic problems following the war, rationing continued for some years, and in some aspects was more strict than during wartime. Rationing was not fully lifted until almost a decade after war ended in Europe, so that a whole generation was raised without access to many previously common ingredients. These policies, put in place by the British government during wartime periods of the 20th century, ^[5] are often blamed for the decline of British cuisine in the 20th century.

In common with many advanced economies, rapid urbanisation and the early industrialisation of food production as well as female emancipation have resulted in a highly modern consumer society with reduced connection to the rural environment and adherence to traditional household roles. Consequently, food security has increasingly become a major popular concern.^[8] Concerns over the quality and nutritional value of industrialised food production led to the creation of the Soil Association in 1946. Its principles of organic farming are now widely promoted and accepted as an essential element of contemporary food culture by many sections of the UK population, and animal welfare in farming is amongst the most advanced in the world. The last half of the 20th century saw an increase in the availability of a greater range of good quality fresh products and greater willingness by many sections of the British population to vary their diets and select dishes from other cultures such as those of Italy and India.

It is not generally a nostalgic movement, although efforts have been made to re-introduce pre-20th-century recipes. Ingredients not native to the islands, particularly herbs and spices, are frequently added to traditional dishes (echoing the highly spiced nature of much British food in the medieval era).

Much of Modern British cooking also draws heavily on influences from Mediterranean cuisines, and more recently, Middle Eastern, South Asian, East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines. The traditional influence of northern and central European cuisines is significant but fading.

The mid-20th-century British style of cooking emerged as a response to the depressing food rationing that persisted for several years after the Second World War, along with restrictions on foreign currency exchange, making travel difficult. A hunger for exotic cooking was satisfied by writers such as Elizabeth David, who from 1950 produced evocative books whose recipes (mostly French and Mediterranean) were then often impossible to produce in Britain, where even olive oil could only normally be found in dispensing chemists rather than food stores. By the 1960s foreign holidays, and foreign-style restaurants in Britain, further widened the popularity of foreign cuisine. Recent Modern British cuisine has been very much influenced and popularised by TV chefs, all also writing books, such as Fanny Cradock, Clement Freud, Robert Carrier, Robert Irvine, Keith Floyd, Gary Rhodes, Delia Smith, Gordon Ramsay, Ainsley Harriott, Nigella Lawson, Simon Hopkinson, Nigel Slater and Jamie Oliver, alongside The Food Programme, made by BBC Radio 4.

English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but also shares much with wider British cuisine, partly through the importation of ingredients and ideas from North America, China, and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of post-war immigration.

Traditional meals have ancient origins, such as bread and cheese, roasted and stewed meats, meat and game pies, boiled vegetables and broths, and freshwater and saltwater fish. The 14th-century English cookbook, the Forme of Cury, contains recipes for these, and dates from the royal court of Richard II.

English cooking has been influenced by foreign ingredients and cooking styles since the Middle Ages. Curry was introduced from the Indian subcontinent and adapted to English tastes from the eighteenth century with Hannah Glasse's recipe for chicken " currey". French cuisine influenced English recipes throughout the Victorian era. After the rationing of the Second World War, Elizabeth David's 1950 A Book of Mediterranean Food had wide influence, bringing Italian cuisine to English homes. Her success encouraged other cookery writers to describe other styles, including Chinese and Thai cuisine. England continues to absorb culinary ideas from all over the world.

Irish cuisine is a style of cooking originating from Ireland or developed by Irish people. It evolved from centuries of social and political change and mixing between the different cultures on the island, predominantly English and Irish. The cuisine takes its influence from the crops grown and animals farmed in its temperate climate. However, the development of Irish cuisine was affected negatively by the English conquest in the early 17th century because this forced the impoverishment of the mass of the people through land dispossession and the organisation of Ireland's food economy to provide supplies to England and its armed forces. This also replaced the upper levels of cuisine with English norms. Consequently, the potato, after its widespread adoption in the 18th century became almost the only food of the poor (the vast majority of the population) and, as a result, is often now closely associated with Ireland. Many elements of Irish cuisine were lost or abandoned during this time and particularly from the Famine up until the mid 20th century, but are now being revived. Representative modern Irish dishes include Irish stew, bacon and cabbage, boxty, coddle, and colcannon.

Scottish cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions, practices and cuisines associated with Scotland. It has distinctive attributes and recipes of its own, but shares much with wider British and European cuisine as a result of local and foreign influences, both ancient and modern. Traditional Scottish dishes exist alongside international foodstuffs brought about by migration.

Scotland's natural larder of game, dairy products, fish, fruit, and vegetables is the chief factor in traditional Scots cooking, with a high reliance on simplicity and a lack of spices from abroad, as these were historically rare and expensive.

Welsh cuisine encompasses the cooking traditions and practices associated with the country of Wales and the Welsh people. Whilst there are a large number of dishes that can be considered Welsh due to their ingredients and/or history, dishes such as cawl, Welsh rarebit, laverbread, Welsh cakes, bara brith and the Glamorgan sausage have all been regarded as symbols of Welsh food. Some variation in dishes exists across the country, with notable differences existing in the Gower Peninsula; an historically isolated rural area which developed self-sufficiency in food production. See Cuisine of Gower.

While some culinary practices and dishes have been imported from its British neighbors, uniquely Welsh cuisine grew principally from the lives of Welsh working people, largely as a result of their isolation from outside culinary influences and the need to produce food based on the limited ingredients they could produce or afford. Welsh Celts and their more recent Welsh descendants originally practiced transhumance, moving their cattle to higher elevations in the summer and back to their home base in the winter. Once they settled to homesteads, a family would have generally eaten meat from a pig primarily, keeping a cow for dairy products.

Sheep farming is practiced extensively in Wales, with lamb and mutton being the meats most traditionally associated with the country. Beef and dairy cattle are also raised widely, and there is a strong fishing culture. Fisheries and commercial fishing are common and seafood features widely in Welsh cuisine.

Vegetables, beyond cabbages and leeks, were historically rare and the leek became a significant component of many dishes. It has been a national symbol of Wales for at least 400 years and Shakespeare refers to the Welsh custom of wearing a leek in Henry V.

Since the 1970s, the number of restaurants and gastropubs in Wales has increased significantlyand there are currently five Michelin starred restaurants located in the country.

Meals and Mealtimes in Britain - What Are They Called?