GRUPO13

FOOD IN BRITAIN

British food has traditionally been based on beef, lamb, pork, chicken and fish and generally served with potatoes and one other vegetable. The most common and typical foods eaten in Britain include the sandwich, fish and chips, pies like the Cornish pasty, trifle and roasts dinners. Some of your main dishes have strange names like Bubble & Squeak and Toad-in-the-Hole.

The staple foods of Britain are meat, fish, potatoes, flour, butter and eggs.

AFTERNOON TEA (The traditional 4 o'clock tea)

This is a small meal, not a drink. Traditionally it consists of tea (or coffee) served with either of the following:

Freshly baked scones served with cream and jam.

Afternoon tea sandwiches. Thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

Afternoon Tea today

Afternoon tea is not common these days because most adults go out to work. However, you can still have Afternoon tea at the many tea rooms around England.

Afternoon tea became popular about one hundred and fifty years ago, when rich ladies invited their friends to their houses for an afternoon cup of tea. They started offering their visitors sandwiches and cakes too. Soon everyone was enjoying Afternoon tea.

HIGH TEA (The traditional 6 o'clock tea)

The British working population did not have Afternoon Tea. They had a meal about midday, and a meal after work, between five and seven o'clock. This meal was called 'high tea' or just 'tea'. Today, most people refer to the evening meal as dinner or supper.

Traditionally eaten early evening, High tea was a substantial meal that combined delicious sweet foods, such as scones, cakes, buns or tea breads, with tempting savouries, such as cheese on toast, toasted crumpets, cold meats and pickles or poached eggs on toast. This meal is now often replaced with a supper due to people eating their main meal in the evenings rather than at midday.

TRADITIONAL DRINKS IN BRITAIN

Tea

Britain is a tea-drinking nation. Every day they drink 165 million cups of the stuff and each year around 144 thousand tons of tea are imported.

Tea in Britain is traditionally brewed in a warmed china teapot, adding one spoonful of tea per person and one for the pot. Most Britons like their tea strong and dark, but with a lot of milk.

Coffee

Coffee is now as popular in Britain as tea is. People either drink it with milk or have it black and either have freshly- made coffee or instant coffee.

Bitter

Britain is also well known for its ale which tends to be dark in appearance and heavier than lager. It is known as "bitter"

Wine

Britain's wine industry is growing from strength to strength and they now have over 300 wine producers. A growing number of British vineyards are now producing sparkling white wine as well as full bodied red wine. There are over 100 vineyard in Kent.

CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS

Lent, Easter and Christmas are the main religious festivals of the Christian Year. Most people in Britain celebrate Christmas and Easter. School children have two weeks off school during Christmas and Easter.

The Christian Year

The Christian year is divided up with events which remind us of the life of Jesus. It begins with the season of Advent, at the very end of November, which is a period of preparation for the coming of Christ, and then moves through the story of his life to the important focus of Holy Week and Easter. After celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, the story focuses on the founding of the Church itself, with the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, before settling down for a period of teaching and consolidation of the faith during the weeks of Trinity.

Why are some of the Christian festivals not on the same date each year?

The reason is because the Christian Calendar grew out of two other Calendars, the Jewish and the Roman.

In their distant past, the Jews were a nomadic people. As they often travelled at night, the moon was of great importance to them, and they based their calendar on its phases. The first great Christian festivals sprang from Jewish ones.

The Christian Church grew and expanded under the Roman Empire which followed a calendar controlled by the sun. When the church began to introduce festivals of its very own, not based on the Jews, they fixed them on dates already in the Roman Calendar. The Christian Calendar is thus a dual one, with 'fixed' feats based on the Roman 'solar' calendar, and 'moveable' ones based on the Jewish 'lunar' calendar.

Easter

Easter is the season in which Christians remember the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is the most important festival in the Christian year. Jesus' resurrection is at the centre of the Christian faith. Jesus died for the sins of humanity and by coming back to life promises eternal life for all those who believe in him.

Easter is the story of Jesus' last days in Jerusalem before the death of Jesus.

The Easter story includes:

OTHER FESTIVALS and HOLIDAYS

Not all of British festivals are connected to religion.

In the summer there are many village fairs, street festivals and town carnivals all over the United Kingdom.

Rochester's Sweeps Festival May Bank Holiday Weekend First weekend in May

HISTORY

London, the capital of England and the UK, is the world's ninth-largest city. Its history spans nearly 2,000 years, beginning with the arrival of the Romans soon after their invasion of Britain in AD43. London is situated on the banks of the river Thames, in southeast England.

London is made up of two ancient cities which are now joined together.

They are:

· The City of London, know simply as 'the City' which is the business and financial heart of the United Kingdom. It is also known as the Square Mile (2.59 sq km/1 sq mi).

· The City of Westminster, where Parliament and most of the government offices are located. Also Buckingham Palace, the official London residence of the Queen and the Royal family are located there too.

Woodlands Junior School is in the south-east corner of England

England is the biggest country in the UK

England is a country in the UK and occupies most of the southern two thirds of Great Britain. The total area of England is 130,410 sq km (50, 352 sq mi).

England contains about 84% of the UK population.

The capital of the UK is in England

The capital, seat of government, and the largest city in the United Kingdom is London.

London is also is the capital of England.

All of Great Britain has been ruled by the UK government in London since 1707. (In 1999 the first elections to the newly created Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales took place leaving England as the only part of the Great Britain with no devolved assembly or parliament.)

The English language comes from England

As it names suggest, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language from England, where it remains the principal tongue today.

English is the official language of the UK and the first language of the vast majority of the population. Both Wales and Scotland land have their own languages but English is spoken in both countries more.
The British Royal family live in England

The Royal family live in London.

SUPERSTITIONS IN BRITAIN

GOOD LUCK:

· Lucky to meet a black cat. Black Cats are featured on many good luck greetings cards and birthday cards in England.

· Lucky to touch wood. We touch; knock on wood, to make something come true.

· Lucky to find a clover plant with four leaves.

· White heather is lucky.

· A horseshoe over the door brings good luck. But the horseshoe needs to be the right way up. The luck runs out of the horseshoe if it is upside down.

· On the first day of the month it is lucky to say "white rabbits, white rabbits white rabbits," before uttering your first word of the day.

· Cut your hair when the moon is waxing and you're have good luck.

· Putting money in the pocket of new clothes brings good luck.

Bad Luck

· Unlucky to walk underneath a ladder.

· Seven years bad luck to break a mirror. The superstition is supposed to have originated in ancient times, when mirrors were considered to be tools of the gods.

· Unlucky to spill salt. If you do, you must throw it over your shoulder to counteract the bad luck.

· Unlucky to open an umbrella in doors.

· The number thirteen is unlucky. Friday the thirteenth is a very unlucky day. Friday is considered to be an unlucky day because Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

· Unlucky to put new shoes on the table.

· Unlucky to pass someone on the stairs.

Food Superstitions

· When finished eating a boiled egg, push the spoon through the bottom of the empty shell to let the devil out

· In Yorkshire, housewives used to believe that bread would not rise if there was a corpse (dead body) in the vicinity, and to cut off both ends of the loaf would make the Devil fly over the house!

· If you drop a table knife expect a male visitor, if you drop a fork a female visitor.

Animal Superstitions

· One ancient British superstition holds that if a child rides on a bear's back it will be protected from whooping-cough.

· In some parts of the UK meeting two or three Ravens together is considered really bad. One very English superstition concerns the tame Ravens at the Tower of London. It is believed if they leave then the crown of England will be lost.

· It is said to be badluck if you see bats flying and hear their cries. In the middle ages it was believed that witches were closely associated with bats.

· If a Sparrow enters a house it is an omen of death to one who lives there. In some areas it is believed that to avoid ill luck any Sparrow caught must be immediately killed otherwise the person who caught it will die.

· In some areas black Rabbits are thought to host the souls of human beings. White Rabbits are said to be really witches and some believe that saying 'White Rabbit' on the first day of each month brings luck. A common lucky charm is a Rabbit's foot, but not for the Rabbit.

· It is thought very unlucky to have the feathers of a Peacock within the home or handle anything made with them. This is possibly because of the eye shape present upon these feathers i.e. the Evil-Eye associated with wickedness.

Wedding Superstitions

· Bride and groom must not meet on the day of the wedding except at the alter.

· The bride should never wear her complete wedding clothes before the day.

· For good luck the bride should wear “something borrowed, something blue, something old and something new”.

· The husband should carry his new wife over the threshold of their home.

Questions

1. Which British superstitions are similar to those in your country?

2. Which are different?

3. Do you know anything about the origins of some of the superstitions in your country?

4. Can you give the definition of "superstition"?

5. Do you believe that they can influence our lives and still live on in the age of science?