Meals

For many people food, eating and sometimes also cooking is one of the chief joys of life. There are some people who eat just once a day. They have one continous meal, others are figure conscions and try to fast, cut down some sugar and fet ar go on a slimming diet. For many others cooking and aeting is only a necessity and do not care much about meals. Food and drinks are inevitable parts of our lives, but always remember the saying: „Eat to live, do not live to eat.“

The Czechs love food. On the whole we eat more then the British or Americans and our food is known to be less healthy. Czechs, in general, like fathy meals with lard and flour. Our food should consist of more vegetables, fruit, lean meat and fish. It would supply our our bodies with more vitamins and minerals. Our typical dish is roast pork, sauerkraut and dumplings, goulash with dumplings or beef in cream sauce with dumpling. Also sweets and cakes are typical of Czech cuisine, such as doughnuts, apple pies, Christmas cakes or Easter cakes.

The Czech food manufacturing industry can boast excellent Carlsbad Waffles or Pardubice girgerbread. There are also many popular drinks. World famous is e. g. our beer, red wine, Becher Licquer or Slivovitz.

In our country daily meals usually start with breakfast. It consist of something to drink, such as tea with sugar and lemon, milk or a coffe. And something to eat. It can be several slices of bread or rolls with jam,cheese, eggs, ham, salami, many kinds of fruit etc. Quite a lot of people eat cereal or cornflakes with ingredients like yoghurt, chocolate, hazelnuts or fresh milk. We should always remember, taht breakfast is very important for our health. Many people haven’t breakfast, because they don’t have time for it. It is very faull, which can damage your health forever.

Around 10 a.m. it is time for a little snack. It is good to have something small, such as fruit, vegetable ar yoghurt. Some people, especially students, také their meals in canteen. Around noon it is lunchtime. Most people have lunch in school or compulsory cafeterias or in restaurants, other prefer to eat at home. Lunch consists of a starter, main course and something sweet. Starters may include soups, it may be either vegetable or meat broth. The main dish can be for example some meat (beef, pork, lamb etc.) with side dishes like potatoes, rice, dumplings, pasta or bread. It can be also something sweet such as fruit dumplings. The dessert can be a piece of cake, ice cream, pudding or fruit. Finally there is something to drink – mineral water, juice, coffee or glass of beer.

In the afternoon, around 4 p.m., it’s recommended to have one snack. People often have the same things as they had in the morning. Young children like piece of cake cup of tea.

At 6 or 7 p.m. is time for dinner. In most families, something warm  is eaten, e.g. dumplings with sauce, pancakes or  sausages. Another people prefer some cold dish- bread and rolls with butter and ham or cheese.

During the day it’s necessary to drink enough liquids, around 3 litres.

The british usually start work and school later in the morning than we do, so they have a lot of time to enjoy their morning meal. Typical English breakfast begins with a cup of tea in bed early in the morning. Then they have a leisurely breakfast. Traditional breakfast consists of porridge with a topping of maple syrup, a dish of fried bacon and eggs, fried sausages and tomatoes or ham, buttered toast and marmelade. They usually have acup of tea with milk, coffee or orange juice.

In the middle of morning they usually haven’t more than a cup of coffee and biscuits. English lunch is smaller than the Czech one. It’s usually just a quick sandwich. A typical Sunday lunch is much more similar to ours, it can be a steak or roast lamb with broccoli and other vegetables and gravy. As a dessert they have hot apple pie with ice cream or fruit salad.

At about 4 o’clock is a teatime. It’s a social occasion. They eat sandwiches and jam tarts and several cups of strong tea with milk.

Dinner is the main meal of the day, so it’s usually hot. It’s eaten at 6 or 7. Popular evening meals are minipizza, French fries, fish sticks, pasta or soups. The national English food is steak. Another popular dish is fish and chips wrapped in newspaper and eaten in the street.

In the USA is the most important breakfast and dinner. For breakfast they eat muffins, doughnuts, pancakes etc.

For their lunch they usually go to fast food restaurants. The most famous is McDonald, Burger King, KFC and Pizza Hut.

Americans very often have dinner in a restaurant, use a distribution of pizza or they have frozen oven-ready foods.

Ethnic minorities in the USA often keep the eating habits of their native countries and some of their foods have become popular even in whole States – e. g. Italian pizzas and spagherri and various Mexican and Chinesse food.

Typical American food is e.g. hamgurger, pizza, sandwiches, steaks, chinesse food etc.