British cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United Kingdom. According to food writer Colin Spencer, historically, British cuisine meant "unfussy dishes made with quality local ingredients, matched with simple sauces to accentuate flavour, rather than disguise it". International recognition of British cuisine was historically limited to the full breakfast and the Christmas dinner. However, Celtic agriculture and animal breeding produced a wide in variety of foodstuffs for indigenous Celts. Wine and words such as beef and mutton were brought to Britain by the Normans while Anglo-Saxon England developed meat and savoury herb stewing techniques before the practice became common in Europe. The Norman conquest introduced exotic spices into Great Britain in the Middle Ages.
The pub is an important aspect of British culture and cuisine, and is often the focal point of local communities. Referred to as their "local" by regulars, pubs are typically chosen for their proximity to home or work, the availability of a particular beer or ale or a good selection, good food, a social atmosphere, the presence of friends and acquaintances, and the availability of pub games such as darts or snooker. Pubs will often screen televised sports events. In recent years, some pubs have adapted to a culture in which fewer young people enjoy drinking alcohol or will not consume it in the same quantities as in the past.New foodstuffs have arrived over the millennia, from sausages in Roman times, and rice, sugar, oranges, and spices from Asia in the Middle Ages, to New World beans and potatoes in the Columbian exchange after 1492, and spicy curry sauces from India in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many vegetables seen today in British cuisine such as cabbage, peas, and cherries, were also brought as crops by the Romans.More recently, Indian cuisine has brought wide variety of food to Britain and was not only consumed in its native form, but was adapted to suit British tastes, dishes such as chicken tikka masala, balti dishes, kedgeree, mulligatawny soup and coronation chicken all took their inspiration from the food brought to Britain from India.
Traditional British dishes include full breakfast, roast dinner, fish and chips, toad in the hole and shepherd's pie. Traditional British desserts include trifle, scones, apple pie, sticky toffee pudding and Victoria sponge cake. Cheddar cheese also famously originated in the village of Cheddar in Somerset. British cuisine has distinctive national varieties in the form of English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish cuisines. Modern British cuisine has also been strongly influenced by other cuisines from around the world, and has in turn strongly influenced the cuisines of many other cultures around the world.
