as the brits often say good morning today i'm doing a video all about british food and we
are going to start right now i'm taking you into the kitchen the first thing i'm having
is a builder's tea a strong sweet black tea with milk and often lots of sugar the concept
came to prominence in the 1970s at a time when the uk had a thriving manufacturing industry
tea was still the most popular beverage in britain and workers would often have a brew after a long
heavy work shift or during breaks to keep them going and thus the phrase builders tea was born
all right i think i'm going to finish my tea in here and get ready at the same time
multitasking because our next stop is a pretty classy establishment by the name of spoons
that was sarcasm by the way space isn't very classy i'm just trying to make this video
as british as possible for all of you um not that a british person would ever explain that
they were being sarcastic but alas spoons is very quintessentially british it's like i said not very
classy it's a chain of pubs that are all across the uk and ireland and i really like it it's very
affordable they are ubiquitous that's a fun word um they have all the british classics my go-to
is the full english breakfast also known as a full english or a fry up it typically includes bacon
fried poached or scrambled eggs baked beans grilled tomatoes fried mushrooms buttered toast
and sausages at weatherspoons you can get a full english for just three pounds 59
and that of course includes their condiment bars stocked with millions of mayo brown sauce ketchup
and vinegar sachets okay so this is weatherspoons and i am recording this after having breakfast
because it was quiet and i felt incredibly awkward there were people sat at the table
right behind me and the last thing i wanted to do was sit there by myself and film myself munching
on sausages now as for lunch we're going to grab it while we're here in town and we're going to
head to the one and only craigs greggs is a bit of a british institution it was founded by john gregg
in 1939 as a bakery and opened its first shop in newcastle in 1951. traditional as greggs may be
they've kept up with the times with vegan sausage rolls and steak bakes hello it's lunch science
experiment time here on the left we have our vegan sausage roll these have become really popular
in recent years and seem to be selling so well that greg's is introducing a whole new vegan
range which is really exciting whether you're vegan or not because i hear they're pretty good
and on the right here we have the regular sausage rolled tested by by the powers of time this one on
the left here you'll notice is a little paler because it doesn't have egg wash on top of it
a pretty damn knife it's very
herby like the sausage has a has a very distinctive taste now let's compare
okay i'm just gonna try and swallow this and then give you my thoughts
okay i've reached a verdict my verdict is that these two sausage rolls are both
very nice they're both delicious and the difference might not be what you'd
expect i would say the vegan one is almost more flavorful it's definitely got like a herbier taste
more spices perhaps and this one on the right has better crunch definitely has better crunch and
tastes more buttery that is the end of my career as a food critic i don't think i'm very good at it
but overall i would say just go to greg's they're a pound why would you not try this when you're in
the uk no reason work is really stressful today so i'm gonna treat myself to a snack let's go
okay so obviously i'm trying to keep things british today as per the title of the video
but in this globalized world guys sometimes snacks from other countries become incredibly popular in
others and this is one example miller is a german brand but it is one of the top dairy product
companies importers in the uk i'm confident in this choice being on theme being on brand for
this british food video so this corner is filled with like a fruit mixture or jam they've got all
and i've spilted they've got all sorts um and then you mix it through with the yogurt in the corner
normally this is how you're supposed to eat it i'm gonna use a spoon like a normal human being
i'm gonna eat this try and finish up some more work and then i need to get ready super quick
because i have some really really exciting evening plans but i want to be slightly better dressed and
hopefully it looks like the weather's going to clear up so fingers crossed this is really good
hi um so discerning viewers will notice that this is my second outfit change of the day
but there is a good reason for it i am spending tonight at a really lovely hotel in
teddington which is next to richmond park which you may recognise from one of my older videos
but the reason i'm going there tonight is that i am staying at a really nice local hotel called the
park and i figured i'd make myself look nice um that is it so that is where we're gonna
be having our british dinner i'm not gonna tell you what it will be just yet primarily
because i um don't know the answer myself hello we are in teddington and i am about to go check
in i can actually see the hotel from here and it looks beautiful i looked it up online and it's in
a great two listed building so super historic premises and the rooms look really really nice
so let's go check in check out the room then head outside for a little bit
see what teddington's all about and then go to dinner
oh this is really nice actually i'm really excited to be here
one of the best things about bushy park hands down are the free roaming dare and
i just spotted a hurt over there like a really big herd i'm gonna flip this
try not to scare them and show you we called bambi over there
i figured a little stroll through nature would do wonders for my appetite
and turns out i didn't really need it because my stomach's already rumbling so
i'm gonna just try and wrap this up and head to the restaurant
hello oh do you want to go for a walk is that what it is i have some good news and i have some
bad news the bad news is that i didn't manage to record at the restaurant the good news is that
i am recording this retrospectively meaning that you get to meet this young lady her name's ersie
and she is the dog that i grew up with she's about to turn 16 if you can believe it
and she's off um i'm recording this in prague at my parents place and i'm going to talk you through
this entire dinner now i am expecting a tiny bit of controversy because some of the dishes that i
chose weren't that british and let's get started with the starter which was um it that that was
actually that one was really british and then it kind of went downhill for a little bit and then
around dessert time i think i pulled it out the bag again so um here we go for starters
we've got the humble scotch egg according to the oxford english dictionary scotch eggs were
first mentioned in 1809 in a book called maria rondelles a new system of domestic cookery but
as is often the case with all things nice and historic somebody else is trying to lay claim
to this invention and that somebody is fortnum and mason the big department store now i don't
know who is telling the truth or where this car check originated but according to fortinet mason
they invented it back in 1738 uh but the archival materials that would prove this invention have
since been lost so am i a little suspicious maybe in my admittedly meaningless opinion
this dish might be based on something far more historic something called narcissus meatballs
which originated in present-day india and look white people i feel like i feel like we steal
a lot of stuff especially the brits the other starter i had was fish cakes and i'm not even
gonna try build a case here they are very very popular in britain but obviously not really where
they originated from and the same could probably be said of steak and fries and also the mussels
which i ordered i thought mistakenly that orchard thief cider which was in the cream sauce might
come from britain it doesn't it's irish so yeah a completely lost cause but i think i might have
a little more luck making a case for the desserts now pavlova obviously and contentiously originated
in australia and new zealand or new zealand i don't know but having said that pavlova as a
dessert is so incredibly popular here in the uk that i think maybe i might be able to get
away with it and then there's the wild berries engine you probably think of jyn as something
that is quintessentially british but that isn't necessarily the case in fact gin was invented by
monks and alchemists back in medieval europe and this was primarily done in france the netherlands
and belgium so again britain doesn't even figure but because of its huge popularity in the country
i think by now i might be able to get away with it in fact it got so popular in britain that
in the 18th century especially in london there was something called the gin craze where people
literally went absolutely nuts for the stuff and it caused a lot of social issues there is a really
famous painting called gin lane and bear street and it shows the contrast between gin drinkers
who are depicted as um just absolutely insane and then there's beer drinkers who are depicted
as very prosperous and just doing generally doing really well in life it is worth noting that the
gin that they were drinking at the time wasn't too similar to what we have in the shops now it was
produced without any sort of oversight and quite often led to blindness and death
by the people who consumed it the next morning i felt guilty about ordering insufficiently
british dishes for dinner and so i got another full english to show my dedication and you know
what good choice well that was me eating british and admittedly some belgian food for 24 hours
i would love to hear what your favorite dishes are and should i do a take two of this where i
try some of those let me know and otherwise see you next friday when i put out new videos goodbye