The best British foods by our best loved chefs.

If you want to experience British life, why not start in the kitchen? Britain welcomes foreigners, and especially foreign food. A typical family eats pizza, curries, stir fries and burgers, and none of these foods is British (scroll down to find out where they're from!) However, we do still enjoy lots of delicious foods which are typically British, and in this blog I'm going to list my top five.

Each recipe will link you to a different UK website. British food has always had a bad reputation around the world, but TV chefs like Jamie Oliver (see picture) and Nigella Lawson are changing that. If you'd like to try making one of the dishes below, follow the link, and while you're there have a look around. These websites are full of delicious recipes, and if you cook something British it's going to help you feel more at home here.

1. Biscuits (NOT cookies!)

Biscuits are British, cookies are American. They may taste similar, but cooking them is a totally different story. I hate American recipes! I can't understand them. The equipment, the ingredients and the techniques often have different names. So, how can you make sure that a recipe is British? The first thing I check is the measurements. If everything is measured in spoons and cups, it's American because we Brits use weighing scales instead.

This recipe is by a pair of chefs called The Hairy Bikers, who are my favourites. This recipe comes from their book 'Mums Know Best', and it's full of recipes shown to them by British mums. I chose it because my nine year old daughter made them herself last week FROM MEMORY. Baking doesn't get any easier than that.

2. Roast beef and Yorkshire puddings.

In medieval times, there were no ovens, just a big fire in the centre of the home. In those days, only the rich could afford a big peice of meat, and it was cooked over the fire. These days we cook it in the oven, especially on a Sunday. Sunday is traditionally a day of rest, and when I was a child it was quite boring because all the shops were closed. The highlight of the day was eating a full roast dinner. It takes hours to cook, and the smell of it fills the whole house. Delicious.

Did you know? Yorkshire puddings are savoury, not sweet, and they were invented to save money. They are cheaper than beef, and they absorb the gravy. (Gravy is a sauce made from the meat juices.)

This recipe isn't by a famous chef, but it comes from a very popular website. It lists hundreds of recipes by all the cookery programmes on BBC TV, and the best thing is that you can search for recipes by ingredient. If my fridge contains 3 leeks and a chicken, but I have no idea what to make with them, I use this website for inspiration.

3. Beef stew and dumplings.

Back in the days when families didn't have ovens, they had a big pot. Poor people ate 'pottage' every day, which was a thick soup made with any food they could find. If they were lucky they could afford to add some meat. Nobody cooks pottage any more, but beef stew is a similar dish still popular today.

This recipe is by Delia Smith. In my opinion, she's a little bit boring to watch, in comparison with the younger TV chefs. But if you want to understand why she is so VERY popular, try one of her recipes. They never fail.

4. Meat pie.

Brits have been making pies since Roman times, but the problem was they couldn't cook them at home. Instead they took their uncooked pie to the bakers, and collected it after it had been cooked. This was still happening in Victorian times, because poor families still didn't have ovens until the early 20th century. Alternatively, hungry Victorians could buy a hot pie from a shop, and pies continue to be one of Britain's favourite snacks. Greggs the Bakers sell them, obviously. But try making one yourself, it will taste SO much better.

Pies can be hard to make, but not this chicken pie by Jamie Oliver. He's all about making nice food seem easy, so in this recipe he cheats and uses ready made pastry. People love Jamie for his enthusiasm, which you can see for yourself in this recipe because it's a video. (Good luck understanding him! he's a Londoner and he speaks really fast.)

5.Victoria Sponge Cake.

It became possible to make a nice light sponge cake when Alfred Bird, a British chemist, invented baking powder in 1843. Before this time, cakes were very heavy. Queen Victoria was our monarch at that time, and she was known to enjoy a slice of sponge cake with her afternoon tea. The Victoria sponge was therefore named after her. In recent years, baking has become very popular in the UK thanks to a programme called The Great British Bake Off.

This recipe comes to you from Nigella Lawson, the most glamourous of our TV chefs. Her focus is on the pleasure we get from food, so she was the obvious chef to teach you how to make a cake.

There you have it! My top five.Is your top five different? I would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment.

If you'd like to read more about the history of British cooking, read these articles.

http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health8.html

http://www.historyextra.com/feature/brief-history-baking

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/history_of_home.shtml#five

Are you still wondering which foods come from which countries? Here are the answers-

pizza - Italy

curry - India

stir fries - China

burgers - America

#LifeintheUK #experiencerealBritain #Britishculture