Things are looking upWe have talked about strange new foods being brought here from other continents. Another result of British adventures overseas was that in the 20th century lots of people came to the UK from the colonies and ex-colonies: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, from West Africa and the Caribbean, from Hong Kong and the Greek-Turkish island of Cyprus. There were already many other immigrants living in Britain, especially Irish, Jews and Italians. All these people brought with them their own ways of eating, and they did not simply give them up on arrival in their new home. Far from it. Immigrants are usually keen to preserve their own traditions, and food is one of the most powerful parts of a culture. You may stop wearing the traditional clothes, you may forget your music, your language, even your religion; but when you see and smell a dish that your grandmother used to make, you are suddenly a member of the community again. Some of these newcomers realised that there was a niche in the market for new and exciting food, so they opened restaurants. The British diet was transformed from a dull menu of boiled vegetables and roast meat to a fantastic mix of international delicacies! A nice cup of tea!
Tea is more than just a drink to the British - it is a way of life. Many people drink it first with breakfast, then mid-morning, with lunch, at tea-time (around 5 o'clock), with dinner, and finally just before bed. As a nation, they get through 185 million cups per day! No less than 77 per cent of British people are regular tea drinkers; they drink more than twice as much tea as coffee. Most people use tea bags these days, but serious tea lovers still go through an almost Japanese-style ceremony: warm the pot, add tealeaves and boiling water, cover the pot with a cosy to keep it hot, leave to brew for five minutes and then pour into delicate china cups with saucers. The selection of tea is very personal: Darjeeling, Breakfast Tea, Assam, Earl Grey, Lapsang Souchong and many others. Tea has worked its way into the language, too. At work people have tea breaks, even if they drink coffee or cola. Many British people call the main evening meal tea, even if they drink beer with it (it is also known as dinner or supper). When there is a lot of trouble about something very unimportant, it is a storm in a tea cup. When someone is upset or depressed, people say they need tea. In fact, tea is the universal treatment for all sorts of problems and emergencies. As novelist Anth. Burgess (author of A Clockwork Orange) wrote: the best thing to do, when you've got a dead ba| and it's your husband's, on the kitchen floor and you don't know what to do about it, is to make yourself a good strong cup of tea." Indian The British use the general term Indian although many, if not most, of the restaurants are actually Pakistani; others are Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan. The general term curry is used to describe a wide range of different dishes; what they have in common are strong colours, smells and flavours. Spices and herbs are the essence of Indian cooking: garlic, chillies, coriander, ginger, cumin and many others. In fact, Indian food is totally different from traditional British food - and yet it has become massively popular. In Britain there are more Indian restaurants than any other type. They are not only in the big cities - you will find one in almost every small town. Curry is now officially the country's most popular restaurant dish, having overtaken the traditional fish 'n' chips! More than two million British people go out for an Indian meal each week. Add to that the millions of ready-made Indian meals which are bought in supermarkets and taken home to the microwave - and all the Indian-style meals that the British now cook themselves, with varying degrees of success!
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