Culture of England 9 languages

Afternoon tea[edit]
Traditionally, High Tea would be had as a full evening meal, whereas Afternoon Tea was a lighter meal taken earlier in the afternoon only by the upper and middle classes of society, the idea being popularized by Anna Russell, Duchess of Bedford in the 1840s. A cream tea includes a pot of tea and scones (or buns called splits) served with jam and clotted cream from Devon or Cornwall,^[191] sometimes accompanied by dainty finger sandwiches, with fillings such as cucumber and smoked salmon.^[192]

Hot Cross Buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday.

Tea
English cakes include a variety of fruit cakes,^[193] such as Genoa cake, and sponge cakes, such as Victoria sponge,^[194] Madeira cake, Battenberg cake, chocolate sponge, coffee cake, lemon drizzle cake, fairy cakes and Queen cakes. Wartime rationing popularised carrot cake.^[195] Simnel cake is a special fruit cake associated with Mothering Sunday and Easter.^[196] The traditional wedding cake is made from a rich fruitcake. Parkin and toffee apples are eaten on Guy Fawkes Night. Particular types of gingerbread are associated with Grasmere, Market Drayton and Cornwall. Eccles cakes and Banbury cakes are small round cakes filled with currants. Other items served for afternoon tea^[197] include teacakes, crumpets and pikelets,^[198] English muffins,^[199] Cornish saffron cake and buns, tea loaf, malt loaf, seed cake, rock cakes, flapjacks, jam tarts, maids of honour tarts, doughnuts and lardy cakes.^[200] Lemon curd or honey^[201] Cheese scones are made using grated cheese with a strong flavour such as Cheddar or Red Leicester. They may be served at afternoon tea as an alternative to jam, cake, small pastries and fruit tarts.^[202] Teas are typically served in tearooms and hotels.
There are several types of fruited bun such as currant buns, Chelsea buns, Bath buns and hot cross buns (the latter marking Good Friday).^[203] English Pancakes are served on Shrove Tuesday.^[204]
Types of English loaves,^[205] generally leavened bread made using white and/or wholemeal bread flour milled from hard wheat, include farmhouse,^[206] cottage,^[207] bloomer^[208] cob,^[209] Coburg,^[210] crusty,^[211] plait,^[212] tin,^[213] and sandwich.^[214] Since the 1960s much commercially produced bread has used the Chorleywood bread process, but from the 1990s there has been growing interest in artisanal and home baking^[215] as well as sourdough bread.^[216] Bread rolls are most commonly round in shape and may be crusty or soft.^[217]
Cheese and other dairy products[edit]
See also: List of English cheeses
Consumption of dairy products in England has varied over time. Historically farms turned surplus milk into cheese and households made simple cream cheese and cottage cheese.^[218] The coming of the railways meant fresh milk could be transported quickly to the cities.^[219] Until the 1990s milk was generally delivered to customers in reusable glass milk bottles to the door by a milkman driving an electric milk float, but by 2018 supermarket sales of different kinds of milk in plastic cartons and of cream accounted for over 95% of the market.^[220] Yellow sweetcream (rather than lactic)^[221] butter is most common in England, in both salted and unsalted varieties.^[222] Commercial standardisation in the late 19th century^[223] led to a fairly large number of regional cheeses, including:
Stinking Bishop cheese

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  Cheddar cheese^[224]
  
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  Cheshire cheese
  
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  Stilton cheese^[225]
  
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  Wensleydale cheese
  
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  Lancashire cheese
  
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  Double Gloucester cheese^[226]
  
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  Red Leicester cheese
  
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  Shropshire Blue cheese
  
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  Dorset Blue Vinney cheese
  
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  Swaledale cheese
  
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  Sage Derby cheese
  

English cheesemaking was restricted by wartime rationing and the number of dairy farms has diminished considerably since the abolition of the Milk Marketing Board in 1994,^[227] but many of the remaining producers sell added-value products such as artisanal cheese and farmhouse ice cream^[228] and there are now over 750 different cheeses.^[229] Recent decades have seen English replicas of French cheeses, such as Brie,^[230] Camembert^[231] and chèvre.^[232] A number of British cheeses were accepted as having EU protected geographical status. Homegrown artisanal cheeses are made by both long-established and new producers. These include hard cheeses such as Lincolnshire Poacher, and semi-soft or soft cheeses, such as Stinking Bishop, Cornish Yarg and Oxford Blue.
Drinks[edit]
Tea and beer are typical and rather iconic drinks in England. Beer is used metaphorically to refer to pleasure, as in cakes and ale and beer and skittles. Most tea drunk in England is black tea.^[233] The types of single origin tea most commonly sold are Assam and Darjeeling from India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Lapsang Souchong from China.^[234] English breakfast tea is a strong blend that goes well with milk and sugar. Earl Grey tea is flavoured with bergamot. A cup of tea is often accompanied with a biscuit or piece of cake.
Whilst tea drinking and tearooms have diminished since the rise of instant coffee consumption in the 1970s^[235] and global chains of coffee shops in the 1990s,^[236] there has been a rapid growth in the number of breweries since the early 1970s.^[237] This was driven initially by a renewed interest in cask ale, stimulated by the Campaign for Real Ale and its Good Beer Guide, and more recently by the global influence of, particularly American, craft brewing.^[238]
A pint of real ale
Traditional English beer,^[239] unlike lager, is made with warm/top-fermenting yeasts and encompasses bitter and pale ale, other (less hoppy) types of ale, porter^[240] and stout.^[241] Pale ale, when served draught, gained the name of bitter amongst drinkers in the first half of the 19th century because it was more hopped than other ales of the time such as mild, but is generally much less hopped than modern American pale ale.^[242] India pale ale was exported to India but also consumed in England.^[243] Pale ale has long been sold in bottled form and Burton Pale Ale enjoyed particular popularity.^[244] Light ale is a low-alcohol bitter, often bottled.^[245] More recently the terms golden ale^[246] and amber ale^[247] have been used to differentiate between pale ales of different shades. Other types of ale include strong Burton Ale,^[248] old ale,^[249] barley wine,^[250] mild ale,^[251] and brown ale.^[252] Bitter became the predominant English beer style in the 1950s, largely supplanting mild ale and Burton ale,^[253] and has accordingly been described as "the national drink of England".^[254] Research in 2014 found that although "beer fans divide equally between ale and lager drinkers … classic bitter is still the favourite for ale drinkers".^[255] Cobra Beer is an Indian-style lager that was created in 1989 to be drunk with food, which is now brewed in Burton upon Trent and sold in almost all Indian restaurants. Cider and perry is produced in the West Country.^[256] Scrumpy refers to rough dry farmhouse cider. Shandy is beer mixed with a non-alcoholic drink, such as lemonade.^[257] Ginger beer is a usually sold as a non-alcoholic, carbonated drink flavoured with ginger, but is sometimes brewed (fermented).^[258]
Magna Carta stated there should be a single measure for ale.^[259] In pubs beer and cider are served draught by the pint or half-pint, either in a straight glass or a dimpled glass tankard (known as a jug),^[260] and may be drunk with snack food (e.g. crisps, dry roasted or salted peanuts, and pork scratchings) or a meal^[261] However, the number of pubs fell by around a third between the early 1970s and 2017^[262] and since 2014 more beer has been sold in bottles by supermarkets and off licences (off-trade) than in pubs (on-trade).^[263] Marston's Brewery and Greene King are the two largest brewers of premium cask and bottled beers, having grown by acquisition. Shepherd Neame Brewery is the largest family-owned brewery.
Gin has been popular in England since the late 17th century and is mixed with tonic water, ice and a slice of lemon.^[264] Pimm's No. 1 Cup, a gin-based drink containing a mixture of herbs and liquors, is used to make punch for summer social events.^[265] The rise of micro-distilleries in England at the start of the 21st century led to an upsurge in interest in both gin and vodka. The south of England has seen the reintroduction of vineyards making English wine.^[266] Lemon barley water, invented by Matthias Archibald Robinson in 1823,^[267] is made by pouring pearl barley water over the rind and/or pulp of a lemon and adding sugar to taste. The Wimbledon tennis championships are associated with this drink.
Folklore[edit]