In 'Lord of the Rings' Merry and Pippin like all good Hobbits are concerned about the meal schedule while they are travelling with Frodo, Samwise, and Strider. After their breakfast is interrupted and being told they will travel as fast as possible to Lothlorien they ask about 2nd breakfast and Elevensies. As humorous as this exchange is it is based (somewhat loosely) on actual traditional British meal times.
I experienced this for the first time while on a hospital ward at the Royal Victoria Infirmary. At roughly 0600 the lights were turned on and a trolley was brought in with the offer of coffee or tea. Not a bad way to wake up but somewhat unexpected (nothing like this happens in most U.S. hospitals). An hour or so later we were all moved from our beds to one of the chairs next to them and breakfast was offered, this consisted of the choices of bread and jam or an assortment of cereals with milk. Throughout the rest of the day trollies were brought around with snacks and meals (all with tea as the main drink option). With the last offer of tea and a snack at 2100 (an hour I am usually asleep). Upon coming home I started looking into why there were so many chances at eating throughout the day, it seemed excessive, and this is what I found. These are not hard and fast rules but it has a historical aspect that hasn't totally been converted to the typical 3 meals a day.
Breakfast - ≈ 0600-0900 (sometimes called Brekkie)
Light foods such as bread and jam, cereal, porridge (oatmeal) with syrup and/or brown sugar, fruit
A Traditional English Breakfast (a Fry-up) is what a lot of people think of when they hear breakfast here and includes foods such as sausages, beans, toast, bacon, fried eggs (that are usually still runny so you can dip your toast in the yolk, yuck!), fried mushrooms, fried tomato, hash browns, and sometimes kippers (haven't seen these offered yet) or blood sausage (sausages filled with blood that has been mixed with a filler to solidify the mixture when cooked). Most eating establishments offer a vegetarian version with veggie sausages replacing the meat.
Brunch- ≈ Late morning meal between breakfast and lunch to replace both meals that day
Anything goes for brunch, most places still serve breakfast or the lunch menu can kick in on the early side. Nothing too different from brunch in the U.S.
Elevenses - ≈ 1100
Snack foods such as biscuits and coffee
Lunch - ≈ 1200-1300
A variety of foods such as sandwiches (one of my favourites is egg mayonnaise and cress), sometimes bread and cheese, crackers, soup and bread, pork pie (served cold), salads. Sometimes eaten at pubs or easily transported to work.
Sunday Lunch (or Sunday Supper) would include foods such as roasted meats, potatoes, gravy, and Yorkshire puddings, and is a somewhat formal meal.
Tea - ≈ 1600-1700 sometimes referred to as Afternoon Tea or even High Tea (later in day closer to 1800)
Light meal of foods such as sandwiches, cakes, biscuits and tea, scones, jam and cream.
Supper- ≈ 1800-1900
A light meal in the evening
Dinner x- ≈ 1900-2100 sometimes served as a midday meal
Main meal of the day with foods such as roasted meat, veggies (frequently 2 vegetables are offered), potatoes, Yorkshire puddings.
While looking for some of this information I came across a couple of great websites that you may want to check out. The one has a basic introduction to everything British for incoming students:
http://www.ukstudentlife.com/Britain/Food/Meals.htm
The other site is aimed at students and teachers:
https://www.englishclub.com/ref/esl/Power_of_7/7_Meals_of_the_Day_2946.php
There are days where eating so frequently is appealing but I'm too much engrained in the 3 meals a day scheme to do it very often. There are so many great foods to eat that I'm becoming spoilt and very rarely do I miss the foods that used to be staples in America.
My husband and I are not typical foodies, he is a strict vegetarian and I am kind of wishy washy about meat, we are very happy to have the simplest of meals (soup and bread, scrounge through left overs, or pasta are all favourites). We do have some meals that we fall back on frequently and usually keep the ingredients in stock to make a quick decision on the nights he returns from Uni. kind of late or I'm too tired to put a lot of effort into putting a meal on the table.
+ Cheese toasties and soup (we have found the most amazing cream of tomato soup in a tin here).
+ Pasta with sauce (there is one brand of sauce we love and are working our way through the varieties of flavours) sometimes we add in vegetarian meat crumbles if we want extra protein.
+ Bread, fruit and cheese (the freshness of all of these is amazing here and unlike in the U.S. it doesn't cost us an arm and a leg to have our Roman meal).
+ Sandwiches with soup if it's a dinner or with fruit or another side if for lunch (favourite sandwiches include Egg mayonnaise and Cress, lunch meat with cheese and tomato, peanut butter and jam, and just cheese and tomato sometimes). We have a favourite bread that is perfect for making toasties but is also great for other sandwiches.
+ Bangers and mash with lots of gravy (we tend to use vegetarian sausages to make it easier to cook for us both).
+ Indian sauces with rice and vegetarian chicken pieces (there are so many choices in sauces from flavourful but mild to melt your tastebuds off, there are also at least 3 brands of ready made sauces to choose from).
+ Anything combined with chips! Boca burgers, fishless fish fingers, chicken nuggets (veggie style of course). The requisite condiment for chips is curry sauce, something we used to have shipped to Colorado and now can buy it no sweat in our local market. For me chips nuked with cheese, meat and salsa is a favourite breakfast when I'm totally uninspired.
These are the offerings we keep in almost constant rotation, and since there are so many different varieties we have yet to get bored with the foods we eat (or maybe those are the nights we plan on a takeaway instead of cooking something). I won't lie there have been foods I didn't like when I tried them here, but I keep trying new things and have expanded my food repertoire quite a bit since being here.
If there are any foods you want to try but are afraid of drop me a line and I can try to give you a personal review that may just be enough to help you give it a go.
Cheers!
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