Reading comprehension - Elementary level
Here are some of our favourite traditional meals in Britain today. Do you know what is in them?
The Full English Breakfast
At the weekend, we love to get up a little later and enjoy a cooked breakfast with family or friends. The 'Full English' traditionally contains bacon, sausages, fried eggs and toast or fried triangles of bread. It gives you lots of energy for a busy day. Other items can be mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans. In Scotland, the cooked breakfast sometimes has slices of a special sausage called black pudding as well. Usually we drink either English breakfast tea or coffee with this. Sometimes cold drinks like orange juice or grapefruit juice are an alternative.
Other days, when we are in a hurry, many British people simply have cereals and milk. Toast with butter and marmalade (jam made with oranges) is also popular.
The Cream Tea
This is one of our most traditional customs, especially when we have visitors or if we are on holiday. We often like to take this little meal in the middle of the afternoon. The Cream Tea is normally a pot of tea with scones (round cakes of bread with added sugar and dried fruit like sultanas). It comes with jam and clotted cream. Clotted cream is almost yellow in colour and very thick. Typically it comes from Devon and Cornwall in the South West of Britain. In Devon it is usual to put the cream on the scone first and then add jam on the top. However, in Cornwall they spread the jam on the scone first and then put the cream on afterwards. To decide if this makes a difference to the taste, you need to come and try for yourself!
Cornish Pasty
This is another tradition originally from Cornwall in the South West of Britain. It is a tasty snack which you can easily eat during a break from work, when travelling or at a picnic. The outside is made of pastry (flour, fat and water) and the inside is a mixture of cooked meat, vegetables and spice. They are best hot but you can also eat them cold. Many railway stations sell these pasties to hungry passengers. The smell of hot pasties is very good and they taste delicious too!
British food - Comprehension questions
1. What extra item do you often find in a cooked breakfast in Scotland?
2. In a Devon Cream Tea do you spread the cream onto the scone before the jam?
3. What are the main three ingredients inside a Cornish pasty?