Episode 32 - British English Vocabulary for Food And Meal Times

In the UK we have a lot of words for meal times and it can get pretty confusing with different people using the same words but for different meals! Hopefully this can be your guide to figuring out what meals we're talking about. Breakfast is easy, it's the first meal of the day. In the UK it's usually cereal and toast. If you had a night out partying and you don't wake up until 10am the next morning then, uh oh! You missed breakfast! Don't panic! There's still time for...BRUNCH! This is usually between 10:30 and 11:30. It's too late for breakfast and too early for lunch so you're going to have a big meal so that you can survive until...let's just say, later in the day. Brunch often involves bacon, in America probably pancakes...or waffles (there is a major debate about which is better, I'm with the pancake team!) Alcohol is permitted. But maybe you were good and got up nice and early, had breakfast at 7am, went to the gym, did some work. Now it's 11 o'clock and you're famished! (that means super hungry) Now it's time for Elevenses, AKA Morning Coffee Time. Tea, cake maybe, scones probably. If neither are available chocolate or crisps will work. The great scone pronunciation debate continues across the UK. Check out this map where they have carefully drawn lines about who says what! I live in the North West of the UK, where we say scone correctly! 😉https://brilliantmaps.com/scone-map/ An equally contentious debate is whether scones should have butter, butter and jam or butter and clotted cream. In our house it's often just butter (my Mum is a hard core scone connoisseur), although I'll go for some jam if it's available. Cream is just...wrong. 😫 Regarding 'crisps'. In the UK 'crisps' are very thin cut potatoes that have been cooked and are ...crispy or crunchy when you eat them. We love them. We eat A LOT of them. (I prefer chocolate) In America the same things are called 'Potato chips' In Australia they are called 'chips' In the UK 'chips' are potatoes that are cut into rectangles and deep fried. Totally different! In America those are called 'fries'. In Australia those are also called 'chips'! 🤔 What can I say...they're Australian. In the middle of the day (if you're still hungry!) you might have lunch or dinner. Very often, especially for older people, they call it 'dinner' if it's hot. These days I think most people use 'lunch' to describe this meal. If you have visitors or you're missing lunch but meeting your friends in the afternoon you might go out for 'Afternoon Tea'. Traditionally this was at 4pm in the UK but these days it can be any time between 2:30pm and 4pm. This is really popular now and it can be quite expensive. You can drink tea and eat sandwiches (often cut into cute tiny triangles (watch out for the British special, cucumber sandwiches...no comment)), scones, cakes, and again, alcohol is allowed. If you thought lunch/dinner was bad, wait until you hear about the evening meal! (Now you'll know why I avoided this at the start) It might be called: dinner tea supper That's right, depending on your family there might be three different words for this meal, and in some houses, like mine, dinner and tea both meant the same thing! 😵 In the UK this meal is starting to get more exciting now but traditionally it was meat (usually roasted chicken or another meat) and vegetables (of course including potatoes). Or perhaps our most famous meal: Fish and Chips. Now those are proper chips! And finally! Supper. While 'supper' can be used to describe the evening meal it is most often used to describe a snack meal before bed. This could be anything but is often toast or cereal. Congratulations! You made it! We have reached the end of the list.