Unit III. English Meals

The usual meals are breakfast, lunch, tea and din­ner; or, in some homes, breakfast, lunch, tea and sup­per.

An Englishman's day begins when he sits down to breakfast with his morning paper at about 7.00 or 7.30 in the morning. Breakfast is generally a bigger meal than they have on the Continent, though some English people prefer a " continental" breakfast of rolls and butter and coffee. But the usual English breakfast is porridge, bacon and eggs, marmalade (made from oranges) with buttered toast, and tea or coffee. For a change you can have a boiled egg, cold ham, or perhaps fish.

Round about 11 in the morning some Englishmen who work have their tea or coffee break.

Then at midday everything stops for lunch. Most offices and shops close for an hour from one to two. The English generally have lunch about one o'clock. At lunch people seldom eat soup. There are usually two courses in the midday meal - a meat course with a lot of vegetables, and a sweet dish, perhaps fruit andpudding or a pie with tea or coffee to finish. Englishmen are fond of good plain food, and they usually want to know what they eat. Englishmen like steaks, chops, roast-beef, Yorkshire pudding or fish and chips. A meat course is served with plenty of vegetables: peas, beans or cauliflower. They call green cabbage leaves or lettuces " salad. " And they eat it with the so-called " salad-dressing", a mixture of oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. The businessman in London usually finds it impossible to come home for lunch, and so he goes to a cafe or a restaurant. But if he is having lunch at home he has cold meat (left over probably from yester­day's dinner), potatoes, salad and pickles, with a pudding or fruit to follow. Some­times the English have a mutton chop, or steak and chips, followed by biscuits and cheese, and some people like a glass of light beer with lunch.

Afternoon tea you can hardly call a meal, but it is a sociable sort of thing, as friends often come in then for a chat while they have their cup of tea, cake or biscuit. Tea drinking is quite a tradition with the English. 5 o'clock tea is not usually served at the table though Englishmen don't find it conven­ient. Each person has a cup and saucer and a spoon in his hands. Strong tea is mostly drunk with sugar and cream or milk. Such tea is known as English tea. Tea with lemon is called Russian tea in Eng­land.

The evening meal is called dinner or supper, depending on its size. In some houses dinner is the biggest meal of the day and it comes rather late, when the family gather at home after their work and studies. But in a great many English homes, the midday meal is the chief one of the day, and in the evening there is usually a much simpler supper — an om­elette, or sausages, sometimes bacon and eggs and sometimes just bread and cheese, a cup of coffee or cocoa and fruit. It is taken between 7 and 9 o'clock as a rule.

When outing, that is on a picnic, the English load their luncheon baskets with allsorts of hamburgers or sandwiches made of slices of bread and butter with ham, cheese, raw tomatoes, cabbage leaves in between.

Then at any time between 10 and 12 an Englishman has his " night-cup" - a drink with a snack — and then off to bed ready for tomorrow.

Ex.1. In the list below cross out things an Englishman doesn't have for breakfast.

Pancakes, vegetable salad, beefsteak, porridge, plum pudding, toasts, prawn salad, cornflakes with milk, chicken, marmalade, baked potato, fried bacon, fried fish, eggs, garlic bread, pasta, mushrooms, coffee, tea, lemon, cream, scrambled eggs, cheese, tomatoes, fried eggs, butter, fruits, salad, orange juice, ice-cream, nuts, honey, jellied fish, cold cereals, chops.

Ex. 2. Enumerate all the meals an Englishman has. Name the typical dishes they have for each meal.

Ex. 3. Translate the sentences from Russian into English.

1) День англичанина начинается с завтрака и чтения утренней газеты. 2) Его любимый завтрак обязательно включает поджаренный бекон, тосты с джемом и чай. 3) Чай англичане пьют со сливками и сахаром. 4) Каждое утро я ем кукурузные хлопья с молоком. 5) В 11у нас утра перерыв, когда все пьют чай или кофе. 6) Есть еще один такой перерыв в течение дня — в пять вечера. 7) Чай пьют с печеньем или кексом. 8) Англичане не пьют чай с лимоном. Такой чай они называют " русский чай". 9) Англичане предпочитают простую еду: жареную рыбу с картофелем, овощи и какое-нибудь мясное блюдо. 10) На десерт обязательно что-то сладкое, часто знаменитый пуддинг.