Attitudes to food

The explanations above can only serve as a partial excuse for the unfortunate reputation of British cuisine. Even in fast food restaurants and everyday cafes, the quality seems to be lower than it is in equivalent places in other countries. It seems that British people simply don't care enough to bother.

The country has neither a widespread 'restaurant culture' nor a 'cafe society'. In the middle of the day, people just want to eat up quickly and are not interested much in quality (the lunch break is an hour at most). Young people and families with children who eat at fast food places are similarly not interested in quality. Little effort is made to make the hamburgers tasty because nobody expects them to be. The coffee is horrible not because British people prefer it that way but because they don't go to a cafe for a delicious, slow cup of coffee - they go there because they need the caffeine.

Even at home, food and drink is given relatively little attention. The coffee is often just as bad as it is to the cafes. British supermarkets sell far more instant coffee than what the few people who drink it often call 'real' coffee. Instant coffee is less trouble. Meals tend to be eaten quickly and the table cleared. Parties and celebrations are not normally centred around food. For example, if a British person expresses a liking for barbecues, this does not necessarily mean that he or she likes barbecued food - it is understood to mean that he or she enjoys the typical barbecue atmosphere.

When the British do pay attention to food, it is most frequently not to appreciate it but to notice what they don't like about it. Food hits the headlines only in the context of its dangers: for example in 1993, when it was discovered that 100 tonnes of six-year-old beef had been allowed to go on sale; or when a government minister announced that the country's eggs were infected with salmonella. In the early 1990s, everybody in the country knew about " mad cow disease' (a disease affecting the brains of infected cattle). There are quite a large number of vegetarians in Britain and an even larger number who are aware of the implications for their health of what they eat. " Health food shops' are as abundant in the country's high streets as delicatessens.

British people have been mostly urban, having little contact with 'the land', for longer than the people of other countries. Perhaps this is why the range of plants and animals which they will eat is rather narrow. There are plenty of enthusiastic British carnivores who feel quite sick at the thought of eating horsemeat. To most people, the idea of going out to pick wild plants for the table is exotic. It is perhaps significant that when the British want to refer to the people of another country insultingly, they often allude to their eating habits. Because of the strange things they do with cabbage, for example, the Germans are 'krauts'. Because of their outrageous taste for frog's legs, the French are 'frogs'.

However, the picture is not entirely negative. While the British are conservative about ingredients, they are no longer conservative about die way they are served. In the 1960s, it was reported that the first British package tourists in Spain not only insisted on eating (traditionally British) fish and chips all the time but also on having them, as was traditional, wrapped up in specially imported British newspaper! By now, however, the British are extremely open to die cuisine of other countries. The country's supermarket shelves are full of the spices and sauces needed for cooking dishes from all over the world (the increasingly multicultural nature of the population has helped in this respect). In addition, there is increasing interest in the pure enjoyment of eating and drinking.

(from Britain The country and its people)

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Answer the following questions:

1. Why is British food terrible to European tastes?

2. Are the British interested in quality of food served in restaurants? Why?

3. What is the explanation for the fact that coffee is terrible in British cafes?

4. In what kind of places are you most likely to find good British cooking?

5. Are parties and celebrations centered around food in Britain?

6. When do the British pay attention to food and in what respect?

7. Why do the British refer to the people of another country insultingly?

8. What is the attitude of British people to German and French cuisine?

9. Is their attitude different to more distant cooking culture?

10. Are the British conservative about the way they are served?

V. Read the text and do the tasks: