Fish 'n' Chips
- Play the video again while you read the transcript at the same time.
- Now find words in the text that mean the folowing:
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Our food tastes today are truly global. We munch pasta and pizza, we sip latte and green teas, we devour millions of kebabs and order Chinese and Indian takeaways. It seems the only really British thing left is good old-fashioned fish n’ chips.
Just how British is fish n’ chips anyway? Well, not much. The idea of frying chip potatoes came from French and Belgian immigrants, Sephardi Jews from Spain brought us deep fried fish and the rest of us - Irish, Welsh, Anglo-Saxon Normans - we all scoffed it down in the 19th century, and made it our national dish, with mushy peas as an option.
And what about that other British food staple, the sandwich? Named after John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, he invented it because he spent such long hours at his desk in the Admiralty, well, some say he spent them at the card table. But yet again, others claim to have been there first, so say the Dutch and there’s also a Jewish sandwich tradition. But you’ll be pleased to hear that there’s one thing that is indisputably British: the delectable Scotch egg. Though, needless to say, it is not Scottish, it was invented in a moment of madness at Fortnum & Mason’s in 1738.
Just how British is fish n’ chips anyway? Well, not much. The idea of frying chip potatoes came from French and Belgian immigrants, Sephardi Jews from Spain brought us deep fried fish and the rest of us - Irish, Welsh, Anglo-Saxon Normans - we all scoffed it down in the 19th century, and made it our national dish, with mushy peas as an option.
And what about that other British food staple, the sandwich? Named after John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, he invented it because he spent such long hours at his desk in the Admiralty, well, some say he spent them at the card table. But yet again, others claim to have been there first, so say the Dutch and there’s also a Jewish sandwich tradition. But you’ll be pleased to hear that there’s one thing that is indisputably British: the delectable Scotch egg. Though, needless to say, it is not Scottish, it was invented in a moment of madness at Fortnum & Mason’s in 1738.
From the History Channel podcast 'Things that make us British?'
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