What they used to eat

British food did not always suffer from an inferiority complex. If you go back to the time of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), people really knew how to eat and dink. Country houses had special herb gardens full of rosemary, thyme, parsley, garlic, fennel and basil. (These herbs were very important as they were used in medicine as well as in cooking.) Chefs used to travel around Europe to get new ideas and ingredients.

The reign of Elizabeth I was also die time when British explorers sailed all over the world. They brought back all sorts of exotic foods: rice and tea from China, spices such as cumin and cardamom from India, toffee and dates from Arabia.

In the Americas they found tomatoes, maize, peanuts, pineapples, sugar cane, hot chillies and vanilla.

Perhaps the most important American vegetable is the potato, but there is a mystery about when it came to Europe, and who brought it there. The British claim it was the Elizabethan explorer, Sir walter Raleigh, around 1585. In the town of Offenburg in Baden, Germany, there is a monument to another English sea captain, Sir Francis Drake, with the inscription: "... introducer of the potato into Europe in the year of our Lord 1580". In fact, it originates in Peru, and it was probably introduced by the Spanish. Whoever it was deserves a big thank-you. What would the British do without mashed, boiled and roast potato, chips and crisps?

So what happened?

In the past, without cookbooks and TV programmes, women learnt from their mothers and grandmothers; and spent hours every day in the kitchen. But then, around the end of the 18th century, life in Britain changed dramatically. The industrial revolution took families from farms in the country, and put them into small houses in crowded, new cities like Manchester and Birmingham. Men and women (and often children, too) worked long hours in factories.

So they no longer had the time or the energy to cook properly at home.

There was already an interest in fast food. In 1762, the Earl of Sandwich had invented a snack consisting of two pieces of bread and something in the middle. He was a keen card-player and did not like wasting time on meals. Sandwiches became popular with busy working people. So did fried fish and bread, and in 1870 a French invention caught on in Britain - pommes de terre a la mode. Under the new term chips, they "were very popular indeed, and fish 'n' chips became Britain's first great fast-food classic.

It is still a big favourite, but now has a lot of competition from those thoroughly international fast foods - pizzas and hamburgers. As in the rest of the world, American giants like McDonald's and Pizza Hut have spread to every corner of the British Isles. If you are in this country, why not take a break from burgers at least once and try fish 'n' chips? It is very simple food, but quite healthy (the fish comes straight from the Atlantic Ocean), and very filling.