Four meals a day are served traditionally in Britain: breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner.
In many countries breakfast is a snack rather than a meal but the English breakfast eaten at
about eight o'clock in the morning, is a full meal, much bigger than on the Continent.35
Some people begin with a plateful of porridge but more often cornflakes with milk and sugar.
Then comes at least one substantial course, such as kippers or bacon and eggs. Afterwards comes
toast with butter and marmalade or jam. The meal is "washed down" with tea or coffee.
Most British people now have such a full breakfast only on Sunday mornings. On weekdays
it is usually a quick meal: just cornflakes, toast and tea.
English lunch, which is usually eaten at one o'clock, is based on plain, simply-cooked food. It
starts with soup or fruit juice. English people sometimes say that soup fills them up without leaving
sufficient room for the more important course which consists of meat, poultry or fish accompanied
by plenty of vegetables.
Apple-pie is a favourite sweet, and English puddings of which there are very many, are an
excellent ending to a meal, especially in winter. Finally a cup of coffee — black or white.
Tea, the third meal of the day, is taken between four and five o'clock especially when staying
in a hotel when a pot of tea with a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar are brought in. Biscuits are
handed round.
At the weekends afternoon tea is a very sociable time. Friends and visitors are often present.
Some people like to have the so-called "high tea" which is a mixture of tea and supper — for
example meat, cheese and fruit may be added to bread and butter, pastries and tea.
Dinner is the most substantial meal of the day. The usual time is about seven o'clock and all
the members of the family sit down together. The first course might be soup. Then comes the second
course: fish or meat, perhaps the traditional roast beef of old England. Then the dessert is served:
some kind of sweet. But whether a person in fact gets such a meal depends on his housekeeping
budget. Some people in the towns and nearly all country people have dinner in the middle of the day
instead of lunch. They have tea a little later, between five and six o'clock, when they might have a
light meal — an omelette, or sausages or fried fish and chips or whatever they can afford.
Then before going to bed, they may have a light snack or supper — е.g. a cup of hot milk
with a sandwich or biscuit.
The evening meal as we have said already goes under various names: tea, "high tea", dinner