There are lots of online articles about the quality of British food, naming ‘must-try’ dishes like fish and chips or roast dinners. But what about those English terms that don’t seem to make any sense? Even the word ‘food’ can be said in many different ways in the UK, including ‘grub‘, ‘scran‘, ‘nosh‘, or ‘munch‘. Don’t feel bad if you don’t quickly understand UK food vocabulary!
Should you buy a toastie, a bap or a sarnie? What’s the difference between chips, crisps and french fries? And what exactly is a ‘meal deal‘? Read on to find out.
Meal Deal
No guide to UK food vocabulary would be complete without the ‘Meal Deal’. This is found in places up and down the high street, famously in the shop Boots, but also in most supermarkets. This is (usually) made up of a sandwich or wrap, a drink and another item (crisps or chocolate bar). Instead of a sandwich, many shops offer salads (often pasta-based) or options like sushi instead. A meal deal will cost you less than if you buy items separately.
Bread and Sandwiches
Sandwiches (also known in the UK as ‘sarnies‘) are eaten all over the world, but in the English language there are many different names for them.
A ‘wrap’ consists of flatbread rolled around a filling: maybe hummus and salad or chicken Caesar.
A ‘toastie’ is short for a toasted sandwich. These are often pre-made and you take them to the counter for toasting. Americans refer to these as ‘grilled cheese’.
A ‘sub’ (or submarine sandwich) is made from a longer piece of bread – a soft subway roll or sometimes a French baguette. This is filled with either a hot or cold filling. You can buy subs in all sandwich-selling locations, but are the main focus of the Subway chain of sandwich shops.
A ‘bap’ or ‘roll’ is a large, soft, round sandwich, often filled with something hot: bacon or sausage for breakfast, for example. It’s similar to a burger bun, but without sesame seeds. You might also hear this being referred to as a ‘cob’ or ‘a barm’. Any of these words are fine and most people use them to describe the same thing.
Pastries, Pies and Pasties
‘Pastry‘ can have a number of different meanings. It can refer to the outside of a pie or a tart, with different types of pastry including shortcrust, filo and flaky versions. Pastry is the covering of a sausage roll or the outside of a quiche.
The term ‘pie‘ or ‘bake‘ is normally used to describe a baked dish with a pastry base and top. You can eat single-serve pies, or cut a slice of a larger one. The filling can be quite wet, meaning that the pastry surrounding it needs to be solid. Pies are both sweet and savory: beef, chicken and leek, ham or cheese and onion.
A ‘Cornish pasty’ is a handheld baked pastry, traditionally made in Cornwall in the south west of the UK. According to the Cornish Pasty Association, it dates back to the 1300s but became a common lunch item for poorer working families during the 17th and 18th centuries. Workers in the Cornish mines could not come home for lunch as they worked below the ground. Instead, their wives cooked them a pasty filled with potatoes, swede and onion. Meat was expensive so probably only added occasionally.
Chips, French Fries or Crisps?
A traditional British Fish and Chip shop (or ‘chippy‘) will sell different types of fried fish. Cod is the most popular choice here, with haddock in second place. Chip shop chips are always ‘fat’ or ‘chunky’ chips, with a slightly crispy outside and a soft, fluffy inside. They should be covered in salt and (malt) vinegar and be piping hot. For the true chip shop experience, try eating them straight out of a paper cone!
‘French fries’ or simply ‘fries’ are American-style skinny chips, like the ones found in McDonalds or Burger King. They are deep-fried and served with lots of salt. Some of eat-in burger restaurants offer a choice betwen french fries or chunky chips with their burgers.
‘Crisps’ are thin slices of potato (or another root vegetable) that have been deep-fried, baked or air fried. They are always crunchy. You can buy them in small individual bags or in larger sharing portions in a huge variety of flavours. There are many different brands of crisps: Walkers, Tyrell’s and Kettle, with lots of supermarkets producing their own versions. Popular flavours include ready salted, salt and vinegar, cheese and onion and bacon. More unusual varieties include prawn cocktail, sweet chilli or Worcester Sauce. As you can tell, crisps are taken very seriously in the UK: there is even an online Museum of Crisps!
In the UK, crisps are always cold and chips should always be hot – but this is not the case in every English-speaking country. ‘Potato chips‘ are what Americans and Australian use to refer to crisps. You might hear ‘hot chips‘ when someone from the USA or Australia wants to order chip-shop syle chips.
Alcohol
You must be 18 years old or over to buy and drink alcohol in the UK.
We have special alcohol-focused shops called off-licenses (or ‘offies‘) – although these can be more expensive. The term ‘off-license’ literally means you are buying alcohol to be drunk away from the shop. They don’t have a license for you to drink in the shop. You can compare this to a licensed location, such as a pub or a restaurant.
‘Booze’ is a slang word for alcohol, and pubs are often referred to as ‘boozers’. Before you take the first sip your drink, it is important to look your friends in the eye and touch glasses while saying “Cheers!” as a celebration of friendship.
‘Bevvie‘ is short for ‘beveridge’, a high class way of saying the noun ‘drink’.
Some restaurants, generally smaller, individual ones, advertise themselves as ”BYOB‘. This stands for Bring Your Own Bottle, meaning that (for a small ‘corkage’ fee), you can bring and drink your own alcohol. A corkage fee is a small payment for bringing your own alcohol. Make sure you check before you go!
Make sure you take ID with you if you are going to a pub or buying alcohol in a supermarket. Always remember to drink responsibly!
Breakfast
One of the most common bits of UK food vocabulary you’ll hear people say in the morning is ‘brekkie’. This is just playful slang for breakfast.
A ‘Full English Breakfast’ is not very healthy, but it’s a traditional meal to enjoy in the morning (eggs, bacon, sausage, cooked tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, and baked beans). As well as a Full English, you could try ‘Eggs Benedict’ (poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and ham), or a ‘buttie‘, a bacon or sausage sandwich with a lot of butter.
‘Crumpets’ are flat savoury cakes with holes in the top. These are very tasty with melted butter.
In the UK, a ‘banger‘ is another name for a sausage. This term is believed to be from World War I when sausages contained a lot of water and would make a ‘bang‘ sound when cooked.
‘Builder’s Tea’ (strong, with a drop of milk) is the most popular way of drinking tea. You might hear this referred to as ‘a cuppa‘, short for ‘cup of tea’.
At the weekends, later rising and meeting friends and family might lead to a combination of breakfast and lunch: ‘brunch’.
Lunch, Dinner, or Tea?
What people call the meals in the middle and at the end of the day often depends on what part of the country they come from. It’s one of the most confusing parts of UK food vocabulary.
‘Lunch‘ suggests a shorter meal during the working day.
Confusingly, ‘tea‘ and ‘dinner‘ can both either be in the afternoon or evening, but ‘dinner’ suggests something longer, possibly with more than one course. For many, particularly in the south of the UK, dinner is always in the evening, but this is constantly being debated between the north and the south.
To add to the confusion, school children use both ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner’ to refer to the meal in the middle of the day.
‘Supper’ is also a shorter meal, but only in the evening. This means you might have lunch then dinner, or dinner in the middle of the day and a quick supper in the evening. Supper is also more informal than dinner. A sweet treat after your main meal is called ‘afters‘, ‘pudding‘ or a ‘dessert‘, depending on where you are in the country.
If you have an organised meal with friends or family with lots of different courses, we call this a dinner party. A ‘course’ is a food item or set of food items that are served together. There is usually a short pause between each course. In the UK, a three-course meal involves a starter, a main course and a dessert.
More UK Food Vocabulary
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