PANCAKESBritish people eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday in February or March. For pancakes you need flour, eggs and milk. Then you eat them with sugar and lemon. In some parts of Britain there are pancake races on Shrove Tuesday. People race with a frying pan in one hand. They have to "toss" the pancake, throw it in the air and catch it again in the frying pan. ROAST BEEF AND YORKSHIRE PUDDING This is the traditional Sunday lunch from Yorkshire in the north of England. It is now popular all over Britain. Yorkshire pudding is not sweet. It's a simple mixture of eggs, flour and milk, but it's delicious. Two common vegetables with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding are Brussels sprouts and carrots. And of course there's always gravy. That's a thick, brown sauce. You make gravy with the juice from the meat. HAGGIS Haggis is a traditional food from Scotland. You make it with meat, onions, flour, salt and pepper. Then you boil it in the skin from a sheep's stomach — yes, a sheep's stomach. In Scotland, people eat haggis on Burns Night. Robert Burns (Scots people call him "Rabbie" Burns), was a Scottish poet in the eighteenth century. Every year Scots people all over the world remember him and read his poems. TEA Tea is Britain's favourite drink. It's also a meal in the afternoon. You can eat tea at home or in a hotel. Tea at the Ritz hotel in London is very good. You can drink Indian or China tea. There are cucumber sandwiches and scones. (Scones are plain cakes. You eat them with jam and cream.) There are chocolate cakes and cream cakes too.
Afternoon tea is taken at about 5 o'clock but can hardly be called a meal. It is a cup of tea with bread-and-butter and cake or biscuits. In most well-to-do English 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. The evening meal is called dinner or supper j depending on its size. Englishmen usually begin it with soup followed by fish or some kind of meat with potatoes or vegetables, then fruit or coffee. In most houses this meal is the chief and the last one of the day. Working people usually have supper in the evening. Supper is a light meal. It is a meat dish, followed by canned food or tea and cake It is taken between 7 or 9 o'clock as a rule. (after C.E. Eckersley "Essential English for Foreign Students", Book 2) ADDITIONAL TEXT 4 In the past, traditional steakhouses were very popular places, but now many people prefer foreign food. Every British town has Indian and Chinese restaurants, and large towns have restaurants from many other countries too. Pubs are also very popular. There are over 60,000 pubs in the UK (53,200 in England and Wales, 5,200 in Scotland and 1,600 in Northern Ireland). British people drink an average of 99.4 litres of beer every year. More than 80% of this beer is drunk in pubs and clubs.
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