Regional specialities

§ Black Pudding - a sausage made of congealed pig's blood or, in the Western Isles of Scotland, sheep's blood, rusks and sage or spices, cooked in an intestine. Available all over the UK but a speciality of the North of England, in particular from Bury, the Black Country, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In actual fact, it tastes much better than it sounds.

§ Cheese - Although the British are not as famous for, or as proud of, their cheeses as their neighbours in France, a multitude of cheeses is produced, and are generally named after a particular region. Well-known examples include Stilton (named after Stilton but produced elsewhere) - a blue cheese to rival Roquefort or Gorgonzola, Cheddar (named after the village of Cheddar in Somerset), Lancashire (which may be "creamy" or "crumbly"), Wensleydale(a valley in North Yorkshire), Caerphilly and Cheshire. The quality varies tremendously, depending on where they are bought; the best place is probably a local market – e.g. buy your Lancashire cheese in Lancashire. Supermarkets will offer a wide range of cheeses but are often of inferior quality.

§ Cornish Pasty - beef and vegetables baked in a folded pastry case. Originally a speciality of Cornwall, but now available throughout the UK. Usually very good in Devon and Cornwall, but can be of variable quality elsewhere. The variety sold in a plastic wrapper in places like petrol (gas) stations and motorway service stations are well worth avoiding. As of 2011, Cornish Pasties can only be labelled as Cornish if they are made in Cornwall.

§ Deep Fried Mars Bar - Originally from Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, but now available in other parts of Scotlandand sometimes by request in fish & chip shops elsewhere in the UK. Not usually available in south-east England, where it is sometimes believed to be an urban myth.

§ Eccles Cake - a popular flaky-pastry type cake with raisins, from the small namesake town in Lancashire.

§ Haggis - a mixture of sheep innards, minced meat and oatmeal boiled in a sheep's stomach. Available widely, but a speciality of Scotland. Also available in many supermarkets, where it appears that many sheep have plastic stomachs - although the contents are often quite reasonable - sometimes mildly spicey.

§ Lancashire Hotpot - a hearty vegetable and meat stew. A speciality of Lancashire, but available throughout the UK. In Lancashire, it is often accompanied by pickled red cabbage or pickled beetroot.

§ Laverbread - a puree made from seaweed, rolled in oatmeal, lightly fried and generally served with bacon rashers, though can be prepared as a vegetarian dish. Available in Swansea and West Wales.

§ Oatcakes - this speciality of Stoke-on-Trent, North Staffordshire and Derbyshire is a large, floppy, oat-based pancake, eaten hot, in place of bread at breakfast time, or with a savoury filling. Not to be confused with the Scottish oatcake, a sort of biscuit.

§ Pastie - recipes vary, but generally a pasty is minced pork with onions, potato and spices, shaped into a thick disc, covered with batter and deep fried. Pasties are unique to Northern Ireland and well worth trying from a Fish & Chip shop.

§ Pork pie - a pie made of pork, with an outer of a particularly crispy sort of pastry. Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire is their spiritual home but they are available across the country. They are served cold or room temperature as part of a cold meal.

§ Potato Bread - a mixture of potatoes, salt, butter and flour. A speciality of Northern Ireland which, alongside Sodabread forms one of the main ingredients of an 'Ulster Fry'. Similar to, but not quite the same as potato bread, are Potato Cakes as sold in England and Tattie Scones in Scotland.

§ Sausages - Europeans will be surprised to discover that the filling contains breadcrumbs, rusk or other fillers as well as meat (Britons think of frankfurters and similar solid-meat sausages as German or French). Generic sausages are nothing special and very much a 'mystery meat' experience, that being said not all sausages are pork, with many now seeing a mix with beef, venison, turkey or even soya. Regional speciality recipes such as Lincolnshire and the Cumberland-ring are well worth trying in a pub. Some marketplaces and butchers still serve archaic family recipes, such as Oxford where the sausage is without skin and more like a beef patty. Remeber you get what you pay for. S 2p or 3p 'bargain' bangers like Walls, will taste of very little.

§ Sunday dinner/Roast dinner - this meal is common throughout the UK. Traditionally eaten on a Sunday, the meal consists of a roasted joint of meat (eg: Whole roast chicken, leg of lamb, shoulder of pork etc), and roast potatoes and steamed/boiled vegetables. All served with gravy (a thick or thin sauce, depending on the meat, made with the meat juices and stock. Yorkshire Pudding (a pancake style batter baked in a very hot oven) is traditionally served with roast beef, although some people have it with any roast dinner.

§ Smoked fish - protected as a regional dish from the Great Grimsby area. Usually haddock is the most popular type smoked in this special style. In Scotland, it is traditional to have smoked kippers if not porrdige for breakfast.

§ Welsh Cakes - scone-like cakes studded with raisins and dusted with sugar. Available in bakeries throughoutWales and served hot off the griddle at Swansea Market.

§ Yorkshire Pudding - a savoury side dish made from unsweetened batter. Traditionally a plate-sized pudding would be served with gravy before the main course, to encourage more economical consumption of expensive meat. Squat and round in shape - often served with a roast dinner (consisting of roast potatoes, roast beef and Yorkshire puddings). Originally a speciality of the former industrial cities of Yorkshire, but now an integral part of a beef dinner throughout the UK.

Drink.

The legal age to buy and consume alcohol is 18, but many teenagers younger than 18 have seemingly little problem in purchasing alcohol in smaller pubs and from off licences. Nevertheless, if you're over 18 but lucky enough to look younger, expect to be asked to prove your age when buying alcohol (also, in certain places if you look under 21 or 25, you have to prove you're over 18, known as "Challenge 21(25)"), especially in popular city spots. Some premises will require proof of age for all drinks after a certain time of night due to restrictions on the age of people who can be on the premises. The most trustworthy form of ID is a passport or driving licence which shows both your photograph and date of birth. ID cards are likely to be accepted (providing there is a photograph) and proof of age cards are available which must be applied for by post and take several weeks to issue. Any other form of ID willl not be accepted. In private residences the minimum age to drink alcohol is 5 years old, although it is likely that if a 5 or 6 year old etc. were getting drunk, the matter would be brought before the courts as child neglect.

Getting drunk is acceptable and often it is the objective of a party, though the police often take a dim view on those causing alcohol-related trouble. This applies to all levels of the British society - it may be worth remembering that the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, had to collect his son Euan from a police station after he had been found drunk celebrating the completion of his GCSE exams taken at the age of 16. Nevertheless, Britons have a great sense of humour and everything is forgotten after a hangover, at least until the next time. Drinking is an important part of the British culture and, even though it is frequently complained about, it is as popular as ever.

Urinating in public is illegal (unless pregnant), and classified as indecent exposure, technically a sexual offence and quite difficult to explain when applying for a visa. You should try and use the facilities where you are drinking.

Pub.

The pub or public house is the most popular place to get a drink in the UK. Even small villages will often have a pub, serving spirits, wines, beers, cider, and 'alcopops', accompanied by crisps, nuts and pork scratchings. Many serve snacks or meals. The greater volume of drinks served are various kinds of beer, mainly lagers, bitters, and porter / stout (ie Guinness). People not looking to drink real ale are free to choose a pub just on the basis of location, and character, because most national "smooth" bitters or TV-advertised lagers are available in any non-real-ale pub; however, even non-real-ale drinkers often find that they prefer the types of pubs with a range of real ales, because they tend to be more "traditional", with a more individual character and less oriented to juke boxes, games machines, fruit machines and large crowds.

Across the whole of the United Kingdom there is now a blanket ban on smoking inside pubs and restaurants, though many pubs have areas outside, often known as "beer gardens", where smoking is (usually, but not always) permissible. However if you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be able to stay after the formal closing hours this is called a "lock-in" and smoking may be ok if the pub landlord allows it. This will often occur only in the later hours after 11PM and these lock-ins can last any amount of time. As they are classed as a private party, they happen in only a few pubs, and often only pubs with more regular customers, although this is not always the case. Once at a lock-in, you cannot leave and come back in again.

British real ales, championed by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), are amongst the best in the world - though people used to colder, blander, fizzier beers may find that the taste needs to be acquired. People looking for real ale will need to select the right pubs, because although a wide range of pubs serve one or two real ales, only a "real ale pub" will have a wide selection.

British ale has a limited shelf life compared to most foreign beers, and as some pubs have only a "token" cask with low turnover, it's often well past its prime and has a strange vinegary taste: often, unfortunately, people's first and understandably only experience with "real ale". If you do receive an 'off' pint, ask for a replacement at the bar, which will usually be forthcoming.

The phrase "free house" was usually the main indicator for people looking for a good choice of beer, because this indicated that the pub was not owned by a particular brewery and served whatever beer its landlord thought would appeal to their customers. However, this is no longer a significant factor, because most national pub chains are now owned by large conglomerates who deal centrally with brewers and serve the same mass-market brands in all their pubs: these conglomerates (not being breweries) can still call their pubs "free houses".

If you want to be certain of the quality of the real ale in a pub, look out for a "Cask Marque" plaque outside the pub. This is a stringent quality standard, and you can be sure that any pub displaying this plaque will serve good quality ale. Pubs serving a wide variety of real ales will usually be willing to pour small quantities for you to try before you decide to buy, so feel free to ask if you can taste the beer first.

Cider is available in most pubs, and is usually clear and sparkling. In the West Country, especially Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, a still, cloudy cider known as "scrumpy" is often available. Proper scrumpy will come from a wooden barrel, rather than the metal kegs used to serve the more common variation.

Scrumpy is often exceedingly strong, but is deceptively easy to drink. Thus it is easy to inadvertently consume large quantities of scrumpy, which can quickly rob the unwary of the power of speech and interfere with co-ordination, balance and fine motor skills. It should be approached with extreme caution.

Scrumpy can also be bought very cheaply direct from cider farms, so if you are travelling in the West Country, look out for signs advertising cider or scrumpy for sale. The person selling you the scrumpy may be difficult to understand, because of their regional accent and due to the effects of long-term scrumpy consumption. But don't worry - most British people can't understand them either.

British people usually follow a kind of unwritten code of conduct when in pubs, though types of venue can vary dramatically, ranging from a 'local' pub, usually a quiet place consisting of one or two rooms, to a chain pub such as J.D. Wetherspoons which are very large rooms capable of holding hundreds of people.

§ Don't tap money on the bar surface to attract the barman's attention.

§ Tipping is not a tradition in most pubs and you should take all of your change. Regular customers who have a relationship with the staff will offer to buy the landlord, or bar worker, a drink. They may say something like this: "A pint of Best, landlord, and one for yourself." The landlord will often keep the money rather than have too much to drink. However, you are not obliged to do this yourself.

§ Especially in a 'local' pub, keep your voice down and avoid drawing attention to yourself.

§ It might be best to avoid heated debates about controversial subjects in pubs and bars; if others get involved these can escalate.

§ If you require extra chairs, you may want to take one from another table. If someone is already seated (even if it is only one person seated at a six-person table) you must ask if you can take the chair.

§ Waiting patiently at a bar is imperative. Pushing in line will not be tolerated and could lead to confrontation. If someone cuts in line before you, feel free to complain - you should get support from other locals around you. Bear in mind that pubs are amongst the few places in Britain which don't actually have formal queues -- you just crowd around the bar, and when everyone who was there before you has been served you can order.

§ In the male toilets, especially in big pubs or clubs, don't try to strike up conversation or make prolonged eye contact. UK pub toilets are very much "get in and get out" places - some drunk people can take a casual remark the wrong way.

Pubs with a good choice of real ales may exhibit almost any pattern of ownership:

§ By a real-ale brewery (in which case the pub will serve all of the beers made by them, and perhaps only one "guest beer").

§ By a national or local pub chain who believe it is possible to serve a range of real ales at reasonable prices (their chain buying power can force down a brewer's margins) in a pub that non-real-ale-fans will be willing to patronise.

§ By an independent landlord committed to real ale (usually the ones with the most idiosyncratic beers, and the hard-core "real ale type" customers).

Many pubs are very old and have traditional names, such as the "Red Lion" or "King's Arms"; before widespread literacy, pubs would be identified by most customers solely by their signs. Recently there has been a trend, strongly resisted in some quarters, towards chain-pubs such as the Hogshead, Slug and Lettuce and those owned by the JD Wetherspoon company. Another recent trend is the gastro pub, a smartened-up traditional pub with a selection of high-quality food (nearly at restaurant prices).

Beer and cider in pubs is served in pint and half-pint measures, or in bottles. A pint is slightly more than half a litre (568ml to be precise). Simply ordering a beer on tap will be interpreted as a request for a pint, e.g. 'a lager, please'. Alternatively 'half a lager, please' will get you a half-pint. If you ask for a "half-pint of lager" in a noisy pub, you will almost certainly get a pint, because no-one asks for a "half-pint" and the bar person will have thought you said "I'll have a pint of lager, please". Prices vary widely based on the city, the pub and the beer, but generally pints will be in the range £3 to £4.

Spirits and shorts are normally 25 ml although some pubs use a standard 35ml measure, in all cases it will be clearly indicated on the optic, in England, Scotland and Wales. In Northern Ireland, the standard measure is a 35ml measure. A dram in Scotland was traditionally a quarter of a gill measure now 25ml.

Pubs often serve food during the day. Drinks are ordered and paid for at the bar.

When applying for a licence, pubs can specify any opening times they wish; this can be challenged by neighbours, etc. Closing times are typically the 'last order' time - the pub can sell drinks before this and customers have to drink up and leave within 20 minutes of the licensing hours.

Until the recent change in licensing laws, closing times were 11PM and 10:30PM on a Sunday, and this is still quite common. The most common closing times at the weekends in towns are between midnight and 1AM, and some larger pubs may apply for a licence until 2AM and clubs 3AM or 4AM. It is not unheard of that some bars have licences until the early hours (6AM) although this is rare as many who are out until this time are likely to go to nightclubs and then home. Theoretically, a pub can ask for a 24-hour licence, though few have done so.