12.Meals and table manners, at a restaurant
12. Meals and table manners, at a restaurant
Everybody has to eat. Different people have different tastes. Everybody loves food he is used to eat. I like meals cooked by my grandmother. When I eat the same meal cooked by someone else I don’t like it so much.
Daily meals in Czech Republic
Breakfast. In our country daily meals usually start with breakfast, which consist of something to drink (tea with lemon or milk, hot or cold milk,cocoa, hot chocolate or black coffee) and something to eat (one or two slices of bread and butter and cheese or eggs, salami, ham, jam, honey…). Instead of bread we can eat rolls, buns or something sweet (cakes, doughnuts, gingerbread or croissants). In some families are cooked breakfast - toasts, pancakes, scrabbled eggs or hot sausage. Breakfast gives us a lot energy for all day. When we want to have more energy, we must eat something like cornflakes or cereals with a yoghurt or milk. Every meal should include fruits. Breakfast usually takes place between 6 and 7 o’clock.
Traditional British breakfast consists of glass of fruit juice and cornflakes with sugar and milk. Sundays are reserved for big cooked breakfast (it is sometimes called „brunch“ - breakfast and lunch together). This big meal usually consists of boiled or scrabbled eggs, fried bacon with spicy beans in tomato and fried bread. Most people like a crisp piece of toast with butter and marmalade or honey. At approximately ten o’clock a.m. comes the time for a snack - usually a cup of tea or coffee and some biscuits are served. In America there are special restaurants which offer on special occasions (Eastern etc.)brunches.
Lunch. The midday meal is called lunch. In our country it is the main meal of the day. A lot of people take their lunch at school, office or factory canteen. If we haven’t got enough time we can buy some food in snack bar or in fast food restaurant. Czech lunch usually consist of three courses - soup, the main course and the dessert. Soups can be vegetable (potato soup, tomato, carrot, celery or mushrooms soup) or soup made of meat (beef, chicken or goulash soup). The main dish can be sweet (strawberry or plum dumplings, pancakes with jam and cream) or we can have some meat, fish or poultry (chicken, hen, duck, turkey, goose…) with potatoes, chips, Czech dumplings, some vegetables or rise. We distinguish this type of meat: beef (cow), pork (pig), veal (calf), mutton (sheep), lamb (baby sheep) and we can prepare it in various ways – roast, grill, boil, bake, or stew. While we are cooking we can add some spices (garlic, rosemary, pepper, ketchup, onion, mustard). Typical Czech food is roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut.
We can not forget to a drink. The doctors recommend us to drink more than two litres of water per day. After the main dish we may drink tea, lemonade, juice, Coca-Cola, cider, syrup with water or mineral water. The adults prefer beer and black coffee after the lunch. And many people also like drinking alcoholic drinks. But it has some rules. We drink Aperitif before meal to have a good appetite. It is for example campari, Ciznano, Cora, Martini, with food you drink something for good digestion like wine. After the meal people usually drink whisky, gin or something harder on a full stomach.
In England or the USA lunch is between 12 a.m. and 1 p.m. o’clock. The British lunch is usually fairly light. People may eat in the office or factory canteen or take a sandwich to work. Very popular fast food restaurants are fast food stains like McDonald’s, Burger King or Kentucky Fried Chicken. These restaurants are cheap, but the food isn’t very healthy. If you do not want to go to a restaurant, you can buy something on a street. British streets are full of stalls with popcorn or fish and chips. Many families now prefer to eat out at restaurants or to buy Chinese or Indian meals called “take – away food”. It is meal prepared and packed into the bags in restaurant and we can take it and eat it at home. It is cheaper then eating in restaurant.
Afternoon break. Around four or five o’clock it is a teatime. While in our country an afternoon snack is not common, in Britain it is a special occasion. Traditionally, at the tea-break people drink a cup of tea or coffee and eat something (thin slices of bread with ham or butter and jam). Nowadays many people do not eat much at teatime but they have at least one cup of tea or coffee.
Dinner. The Czech evening meal is not so nutritious if people have a hot meal at midday. It may be some salami, cheese, eggs, bread or rolls and some vegetable. Some people prefer hot meal too. They may have pancakes, potato pancakes, pizza or goulash. Some people may have a similar dish as at midday except soup, although the soup with bread may be a very delicious separate evening meal.
The British hot dinner is served around 7 o’clock. It has three or four courses. It consists of soup or some other starter, then the main course which is followed by a dessert and finally sometimes cheese and biscuits are served. As a dessert they may have fruit, fruit salad, pudding or ice cream. With the meal they have beer or wine and finish with coffee is more frequent than with tea. Eating habits in the North of England and Scotland are slightly different.
Some typical meals in our country
Typical Czech meals include: Tripe soup, potato soup, kulajda soup (mushrooms and potatoes boiled in a little bit of sour cram soup), roasted goose and sauerkraut and Czech dumplings, roasted sirloin beef in sour cream sauce and Czech dumplings, Moravian sparrows (roast fat pork offcuts) and dumplings, Spanish birds (rolled beef steaks filled with salami, pickle, egg, mustard), potato pancakes, fruit dumplings with cottage cheese (tvaroh), butter and sugar, semolina cake, potato or hairy dumplings, fried cheese (smažený sýr) etc.
Traditional meals
On some special occasions such as Christmas, traditional food is served both in Britain and in our country. Fish soup, fried carp and potato salad are generally made for Christmas Eve. When there is no traditional meal for Christmas Day, many families prepare roasted goose or duck with dumplings or with potatoes and red or white cabbage. The British Christmas Day meal is roast turkey with chestnut stuffing, potatoes and the famous Christmas pudding. In America there is served roasted turkey and pumpkin or apple pie (it is also served on Thanksgiving Day).
There is many national cuisines, which have their typical meals, like Italians have pizzas, French are famous with their delicious meals, English are well-known with their horrible meals, for Czech cuisine is typical pork, dumplings and cabbage.
At the restaurant
In the restaurants is very important to follow table manners. If you are a man, you must go in first. You should be quiet. You must eat your meal with a cutlery (příbor) except some foods e.g.: chicken, pizza. And you must avoid some terrible vocies like burping( říhat) and sipping (srkat). When you are in the high society you must care more about table manners. Very important is a fact that you must have a good clothes for evening in restaurant.
When you come in you should find a free table and wait for the waiter. It’s impolite to crack fingers. You can be fined for doing it. The waiter brings you a menu and asks whether you want anything to drink. (mineral water, cola, fanta… wine, beer, champagne, aperitifs…). You can have a soup first. Then you could have a main meal (meat with potatoes, chips, croquette, dumplings, pasta, rice…) As for desert you could have ice cream, pancakes, cake, fruit… Then you call the waiter, he brings you a bill and you pay for a dinner.
What is your idea of good breakfast for a sportsman?
When you want to be slim, you should eat a little different meals or when you are a sportman, you should eat energy meals. As a breakfast you could have some cereals with yoghurt and very important is fruit.You could drink juice or tea but you shoudn´t give there anu sugar. As a lunch you could have for example boiled or grilled chicken meat with rice and vegetables. For a snack you shold have some fruit. You should have a dinner before 7 or 6 o´clock.You can have some wholemeal bread or roll with chesse and vegetables. You should drink a lot of watter all day (the best is water, without any sugar).
Fast foods
Fast food is a typical feature of both English and American lifestyles. At food stalls you can buy various types of food to eat as you walk along the streets or take it away and eat at home. The Americans call fast food restaurants “cheapies”. These place – McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s usually offer beverages as Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, tea, coffee, milkshakes… and eat as roast chicken and chips, hamburgers, sandwiches, pizza, salads or desserts. The oldest type of fast food are sea food stalls or shops – usually fish and chips – the fish is cut to pieces, covered with batter (flour and water) and fried in oil. Another typical feature of British and American lifestyle is popcorn. You can buy it walking down the streets. It is said that fast food is very unhealthy. But it is very popular and most of children love it. In some countries it is also the cheapest food.
Foreign cuisines
Very popular cuisines are Chinese, Greek, Mexican, Czech, Arabic and American. The states around the sea have in theire food a lot of fish, but in the central Europe have we got meat. Chinese food is favourite in the world, because it is cheap and it taste good. It is set up with a rice or noodles, chicken meat and vegetable. Mexican food is set up with a meat too but have got more vegetable like maize(kukuřice) and red hot peppers. It is very hot and spicy.