Typical English Food and Dishes

English cuisine is known worldwide for its simplicity and minimalism. It usually uses fresh produce, and you will notice that most English recipes don’t really need master chef skills to do. These dishes are usually simply boiled, baked, roasted, or fried.

Despite its simplicity, English cuisine’s appeal lies in the heartiness it offers in every meal. Here are some of the delicious and filling dishes you can look forward to when visiting the UK:

Fish and chips. This is one of the most common, best loved, and most well-known of all English street food. Fish and chips is simply fish rolled in batter and deep fried then served together with chips or French fries. It is eaten with your fingers.

This snack is usually served in a rolled-up plain or brown paper, which is then rolled up again in more paper to serve as insulation so that your snack doesn’t quickly go cold.

Fish and chips is often served either with plain salt and pepper or a sprinkling of malt vinegar. This most famous English food is so delectable that it can, in fact, be found all over the world with different variations.

The first fish and chips were served in London during the 19th century. By the mid 1930s, this tasty snack had conquered all of England.

Yorkshire pudding. Yorkshire pudding is a savoury pudding eaten as a starter or as part of the main course. It is made using a simple batter mixture of milk, eggs, and flour, baked under a shoulder of mutton so that it catches the drippings. The pudding is then served hot with the mutton, gravy, and vegetables.

You can also serve Yorkshire pudding with jam and ice cream for dessert.

Bangers and mash. Bangers are traditional pork or beef English sausages. The term “bangers” started back in the World War II, when the sausages rationed to the soldiers had such high water content that if you were not very careful while cooking them, they exploded with a “bang” in the high heat. (Modern bangers are much better behaved, though.)

Mash, of course, is mashed potatoes. The two are served together for a quick, tasty, hearty working-man’s meal or pub grub. They are often served with jellied eels, another dish to look forward to in your English culinary escapade.

Toad-in-the-hole. People used to thinking of the English as a stiff, staid people would be very much surprised to hear of this exotic-sounding dish. The exoticness ends with the sound, though, as toad-in-the-hole is merely bangers cooked in Yorkshire pudding batter. The person who named it toad-in-the-hole must have had quite an imagination.

Incidentally, the bangers can be replaced by different kinds of meat. During wartime, it was common to make toad-in-the-hole with pieces of Spam.

Trifle. It’s not a meal if there’s no dessert. To wrap things up, try this classic English sweet called the trifle.
While the word trifle is usually used to describe “a thing of little value or importance,” the dish is hefty, sumptuous, and certainly nothing to be trifled with (pun completely intended).

This dessert is made up of sponge cake spread with jam and soaked in sherry, then topped with fruits such as raspberries and bananas, topped with thick custard, and garnished with whipped cream!

Louise Goldstein