Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That's English!, the Spanish Ministry of Education's official distance learning English course. To find out more about That's English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. Hello! Today we would like to give you some advice on how not to go hungry the next time you visit London. When most people are asked about their trip on returning from the UK, there is a practically unanimous answer when asked the question: what was the food like? Terrible, awful, disgusting and on top of that - expensive! These are the usual answers. It is true that the majority of visitors survive on pasta, pizza, hamburgers or Chinese food. But surely there must be a way to enjoy wholesome, home-made English food? Usually the best place to try traditional and fairly-priced food is in the English pub. Contrary to what many visitors may think, pubs are not simply places to try out the myriad of beers, ales and whiskeys on offer but they also offer a daily menu of traditional English dishes. We should remember that the pub - or public house - has for centuries been a place for social gathering. It seems that the origin of these establishments dates back to Roman times. Tabernae were shops which were built along the Roman roads that sold wine to the legions of the Roman army. With the succession of other invasions - the Angles, the Saxons and the Vikings, these taverns also evolved. Both taverns, which sold wine, and alehouses which sold ale, and later beer, provided food and drink to travellers, while inns provided accommodation. Gradually all of these establishments collectively became known as pubs. Made from malted barley, water and yeast, ale has for centuries formed part of the staple diet in Britain as it was rich in protein and carbohydrates and was a much safer alternative to drinking water. Hops were added around 1400 to add flavour and help to preserve the ale, making a new drink called beer, which was much more bitter. Today you will hear many expressions describing different kinds of beer: lager, bitter, stout and ale, to mention just a few. So coming back to the pub as a good place to eat a tasty traditional meal, let's have a look at what you might expect to find on a pub's menu, often called "pub grub": Shepherd's Pie and Cottage Pie This is a classic winter dish made with minced lamb, onions, carrots with a topping of mashed potato, which is baked in the oven. Cottage Pie is very similar except that minced beef is used instead of lamb. According to the web Culinary Craftiness, there are older references to Cottage Pie, dating back to 1791, than to Shepherd's Pie, recorded in 1870. Now let's talk about the Sunday roast. This meal is traditionally eaten on Sundays, hence the name, Sunday roast, and is perhaps the most popular family meal for special occasions. Different meats can be used and the trimmings, or side dishes, will change accordingly. Perhaps the most classical version is roast beef, which will be accompanied by mashed potato, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, cabbage and the famous Yorkshire pudding. Made with flour, milk and eggs and baked in the oven in very hot lard (or sunflower oil), Yorkshire pudding is such an intrinsic part of British cooking, that there is even a National Yorkshire Pudding Day, which is celebrated on the first Sunday of February. However, according to an article by Bee Wilson in The Telegraph, "there's a sadness behind Yorkshire pudding. Compared with other local workers, such as weavers or farmers, the miners of Yorkshire were famous for squandering their wages on expensive meals. It was typical for miners to serve three joints of different sorts of meat on the table at one meal. Plus Yorkshire pudding! The reason these miners spent their money so freely was because their work was dangerous and their life expectancy short. By the time they were in their forties, if they were still alive, most of the Yorkshire miners had arthritis and rheumatism, plus silicosis from the dust, and were bent double like old men. In this context, Yorkshire pudding takes on an "eat, drink and be merry" quality. For tomorrow, we die." As it is very filling, Yorkshire pudding has always been a perfect dish when meat is scarce or too expensive and is even eaten as a dessert with jam. Finally, no roast beef would be complete without gravy, a sauce made from the juice of the roasted meat and thickened with flour. When you order this meal, you will find two sauces are placed on the table which are the classic companions of roast beef, English mustard and horseradish sauce. Be careful with both, though, as they can be quite hot. In the case of roast lamb, the trimmings will be similar although, strictly speaking, there should be no Yorkshire pudding. Instead of mustard and horseradish, the lamb will be served with mint sauce. The same applies to roast pork, but in this case, the pork will be served with apple sauce. Another dish is steak and kidney pudding. Like Shepherd's pie, steak and kidney pudding is a perfect meal for the cold weather and has been popular in Britain at least since the middle of the 19th century. The filling is made from steak and lamb kidneys in a suet pastry. Suet is the fat that surrounds the cow's or lamb's kidneys. It's very filling and has lots of calories, so it's not advisable if you are on a diet! Another traditional dish is sausages and mash. Sausages (or bangers as they are also called) and mash is a simple and quite satisfying typical pub meal. Obviously the key is in the quality of the pork sausages. Maybe the best known are Cumberland sausages, which are quite spicy, and Lincolnshire sausages, which are spiked with sage. This dish will usually be served with onion gravy. Considering that Great Britain is an island, there are surprisingly few traditional fish dishes. Apart from the famous fish and chips, made with cod or haddock fried in batter, one of the most popular is scampi and chips. Scampi are fried Norway lobster tails and will often be accompanied with peas and chips and tartar sauce. If you want to learn more about traditional pub food, don't miss the next podcast, where we will also tell you about some of the delicious puddings and desserts. We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now!