Improve! – Eating Together

Eating together helps to create strong relationships and a growing trend in the UK proves that British people know that very well! Many new clubs, projects and charities are using food to bring people together, whether they are travellers or elderly people looking for company or newly-arrived refugees looking for ways to integrate in society.

DO IT YOURSELF

The new ‘Supper Clubs’ are small DIY restaurants that people create in their own homes. Also known as ‘secret dining’, it’s quite easy to do. All you need is a large enough room and a few tables. You decide on the menu – everyone eats the same thing to minimize costs – and then you invite your guests.
The whole idea is to stimulate interesting meetings and conversations between strangers. It’s best to do it for free the first couple of times while you practise your cooking and catering techniques, then, once you’re confident, you can start asking for a contribution. To avoid the legal problem of selling alcohol, just ask people to bring a bottle!

MAKING FRIENDS

It’s a great way to get to know people, especially in large cities. Many supper club hosts try to make their suppers special by experimenting with cuisines from around the world, inviting guest chefs, or including music, poetry readings or art exhibitions. Mother and daughter Anita and Monica Sawney started ‘The Spice Club’ in their flat in Manchester, serving delicious Indian food and offering cookery classes. They now host clubs all over the city. The food writer and chef Denise Baker-McClearn runs the Moel Faban Supper Club in north Wales for a maximum of eight guests. The recipes are international but the food is local.

PRACTISE YOUR ENGLISH

If you’d like to eat at a supper club the next time you’re in the UK, just search online for ‘supper club’ and the name of the town where you’re staying, to find a list of places. What better way to chat in English and meet some interesting people?
Some supper club hosts have turned their home catering into a business. Drinks companies selling organic wine or locally produced beer are often happy to provide sponsorship in return for the publicity they get via the club’s network. Other supper clubs have a more charitable orientation. This can simply mean making an extra portion for an elderly person living alone in the neighbourhood. Alternatively, it can involve real social benefits.

COMMUNITY SPIRIT

The E5 Roasthouse in Poplar, London is a coffee shop that employs refugee women who have been trained to bake bread in the nearby E5 Bakehouse. The project gives the women a new skill, English lessons and a means of giving something back to the community.

A GREAT IDEA

Fat Macy’s is another social enterprise that supports and trains vulnerable young Londoners, who live in temporary accommodation. Participants learn cooking and catering skills and the profits from the supper clubs they organise go into a housing deposit scheme, which helps the young people to afford their own homes.
If you choose to eat at a supper club in the UK, not only will you have an interesting evening with great food at reasonable prices, you could be making a real contribution to someone’s life. You could even take the idea home with you!

http://www.e5bakehouse.com
http://www.fatmacys.org

 

Here are some handy phrases to help you book a meal:

• Hello, is that the ‘……’ supper club?
•Do you have any space for this evening/next Friday evening?
•Is it OK if I bring a friend?
• Can you tell me what’s on the menu?
• Do you have a vegetarian option?
• Can I pay by card or do you only take cash?
• Do I need to bring a bottle?
• Do you charge for corkage?
•That’s great! See you tomorrow at 8.

Some simple phrases to break the ice with strangers:

• Have you been to a supper club before?
• Can I top up your glass?
• This is delicious!
• Can you recommend anything?
• Could you pass the salt/pepper?
• I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.
• Do you know many people here?

To listen to the “Everyday Dialogues – Booking a Table at a Restaurant”, click here.

Quiz:

https://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/travelenglish/tourism-english-bar1.html

Practice Exercises – http://www.hkhk.edu.ee/eope/catering/practice_exercises6.html

 

Listening

Ordering food in a café

Eating Out

 

Funny British Food

The UK is not famous for its food. British people eat a lot of frozen or ‘convenience food’. Sometimes they don’t eat at mealtimes but have a lot of snacks during the day, and families don’t always eat together.

ANYTHING BUT BRITISH

There are many different types of fast food restaurants and snack bars. Greggs is very popular, particularly with young students because it is cheap. It’s true that they sell salads and some healthy food, but most school kids buy a sausage roll and a cup of tea for lunch to save money. It’s not easy to find traditional British food. British people love food from other countries and there are many Indian, Chinese and Italian restaurants.

FAKE ITALIAN

Very often they invent British versions of foreign dishes. Spaghetti Bolognese (pronounced bolonays) is a favorite meal. It is a combination of spaghetti cooked for a long time with a lot of meat sauce. Some Brits don’t like cooking, so they defrost and cook frozen spaghetti bolognese in a microwave. You can even buy spaghetti bolognese in a tin! The name sounds Italian, but it’s probably impossible to find tinned spaghetti bolognese in Italy!

A TINNED DELICACY

Another favourite is ‘macaroni cheese’. This is pasta cooked in a cheesy béchamel sauce. If you don’t like cooking, you can also buy this delicacy in a tin. British people sometimes enjoy it on toast!
If food and cooking are important in your culture, you probably think this food sounds disgusting. However, on a cold winter’s day in Britain, it can be a delicious snack!

SCOTTISH INDIAN FOOD

Another famous foreign dish is chicken tikka masala. In fact it is one of the most popular dishes in the UK. The recipe– chicken in a creamy spicy sauce – sounds Indian, but many people think it originally came from a restaurant in Glasgow.

STRANGE COMBINATIONS

Sometimes you can find very strange combinations on British menus. A small restaurant near Oxford Street in London has these: tandoori chicken pizza – a pizza margherita with sweetcorn, mushrooms, and tandoori (Indian) chicken; and ‘chicken Milanese’ – thin pieces of chicken served with ‘spaghetti napolitana’ (probably spaghetti in tomato sauce).
Of course, you can eat delicious traditional British food in some restaurants. Unfortunately, the good restaurants are usually expensive. So if you are a young tourist in the UK and you want to save some money, take a risk and try some of our funny food inventions.

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