The Garden Fence - help and support in tough times

milasavesmoney

Our chips are what I think you refer to as crisps. We are either referring to potato chips or tortilla chips. What you call chips we call cottage fries. Our French fries, I have read, actually originated in Belgium. :rotfl:

I did not know what a chippie was at all. I have tried malt vinegar on fried fish but after being brought up to eat it with either ketchup or tartar sauce I was not favorably impressed. But what I was served as malt vinegar might be nothing like what you are used to having for your fish. Maybe I need a trip to The UK to check this out.

Is clotted cream cream that is soured and lumpy? Surely not.

moneyistooshorttomention

By and large afternoon "tea" as a meal (ie rather than the drink of tea - made from tealeaves) is something one judges by the price it costs imo.

If it costs around £5 and/or is described as "cream tea" then it means that scone/s with cream and jam and a cup of tea or coffee with it.

If it costs around £10-£12 and is described as "afternoon tea" then it probably will include cakes and sandwiches.


....and then there's the "High Tea" which no restaurant/cafe ever serves (in my experience) and means "Dinner" (ie the evening meal) (ie a main meal of substantial first course and a pudding afterwards).

Told ya' it takes years to figure out what is meant by what:rotfl:. Tell ya....I've got to around 60 years old and I "think" I've got it figured out finally:rotfl:

moneyistooshorttomention

At this point - I think I should probably explain the concept of a "Ploughmans Lunch".

Right - now - from my own (ie West Country) viewpoint = I expect pubs to always have a "ploughmans lunch" on the menu at lunchtime. I expect it to be: a BIG chunk of cheese (probably cheddar cheese) and a bit of salad (eg lettuce/tomato/cucumber) and a bit of "pickle" and a couple of large pickled onions and a large bit of "farmhouse" type bread and the butter to spread on it. Possibly it might also include a bit of coleslaw (likely). Possibly it might include a bit of sliced apple (pretty likely). I will expect to pay somewhere between £5 to £10 for it in a pub (depending on just how "fancy" it is).

I took that for "gospel" and then I moved from the West Country to Wales and was surprised to find that "Ploughmans Lunch" is sometimes not on the menu at all. Other times - the ingredients vary to what I am used to.

It's gotta be easier to know what to expect in other countries hasnt it?:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

We have breakfast, lunch and supper without being in the tiniest bit posh!

Cream tea can be anything from an expensive but delicious afternoon treat at a hotel or restaurant involving tiny finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off (two bites each size) with ham, egg and cress, smoked salmon and cream cheese, cheddar cheese, pate etc savoury fillings only and small assorted cakes, scones jam and cream, pastries, shortbread biscuits and as much nice tea as you desire served with either milk or lemon right through to the farmhouse light fluffy scones served with homemade jam and clotted cream again with pots of tea and usually served on beautifully decorated china. It's always a real treat and feels very naughty indeed!

moneyistooshorttomention

The word "pudding" = oh boy as to what exactly is meant by that.

Now - something like "Spotted D*ick" (the asterisk is a stand-in for the letter "i") or a "fruit crumble" for instance is quite definitely a pudding in anyone's opinion (ie something fairly stodgy and with flour and/or suet as part of the ingredients). I dont think we would have any differences in that respect.

But if a sweet course after a main meal isnt of that description - then it might be called pudding (even if its quite "light") or "dessert" or "sweet".

At that point - it's time for an "oh my gawd - my head hurts" moment again.:rotfl:

Personally - I'll call it "pudding" - even if it's something quite light (eg icecream). Some would call that "dessert". Others would call that "sweet". Others would call that "afters".

If you're British - you just shrug shoulders and use whatever-word-you-use-personally and mentally translate whichever word someone uses into "something sweet following the main course" basically.

Tell ya - English is not an easy language to speak sometimes...:rotfl:

nursemaggie

Money you food "crawl" may be confined to your part of wales or different from North to South. The Welsh language is different between North and South, quite distinctly different.

I used to live on Anglesey a very Welsh speaking area, welsh speaking southerners could not understand the language on Anglesey. I have never heard of crawl.

You could get even more confused if you move to Canada. I used to be in business with a Newfie on the internet. He would call any snack meal no matter what time of day it was "lunch" They had company one weekend and they went out to visit someone else in their village the company knew while we were working. They came back about midnight and he said they are making "lunch" it was a meal of savouries like sausage rolls, crisps, valvaunts, biscuits, cheese and a plate of cheese. Rather what I would have called supper, though would only have that meal when we had either staying visitors or just before evening visitors go home.

Cream tea is definitely scones with cream and jam. Cornish, cream first and Devon jam first. how you pronounce scone depends on a mixture of your class and where you come from. It is not a North/South divide but varies a lot.

Mila what you called high tea is afternoon tea and only partaken on special occasions these days mainly at posh garden parties and in big posh hotels.

I have made the mistake of confusing some ones meaning of meals in this country. I had not heard grockles before either even though I have lived in three places that relied on tourists, York, a seaside village on Anglesey and a seaside town in West Sussex.

softstuff sorry I did not answer you last night on where winter was expected by DS. I went to Market late yesterday afternoon and bought 3lbs mince, 5kg chicken breasts, 3lbs sausages in different flavours so I had a lot of portioning up and freezing to do last night plus I of course bought lots of fruit & veg to see to as well.

DS meant UK as we had summer in May, Autumn in June so winter in July. As the temperature dropped to 13 yesterday and 12 today I rather think he was right. At B & Q Autum will partly arrive in the middle of next months for sales of garden furniture etc. Christmas will start to arrive late September when he expects to spend a week on nights setting up the big displays on what they call the flat bed as opposed to gardens outside and the shelves in seasonal.

We now know why his contract is for only 10 hours. So they do not have to pay him for more than one day at a time holiday. He has supposedly been on holiday this week but has worked 5.15 to 9.15 every night this week. He has a long weekend off.

moneyistooshorttomention

....and then you can move to Wales and take Welsh lessons and ask the teacher to tell you what the exact translation is for:

toilet/lavatory/loo - depending on which one you use personally and the teacher (well - the one I had anyway) looks at you in distinct puzzlement and doesnt seem to know what you mean

then you get on to wondering if there are two different Welsh words for dinner (meaning the lunchtime meal) or dinner (meaning the evening meal) and the teacher looks at you in distinct puzzlement again and doesnt seem to know what you mean...

Ohgawd - my head hurts again....:rotfl:

nuatha

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

If you ever travel to Britain and someone invites you for any meal you will need to do a bit of careful questioning to see which meal they mean. If it's breakfast - you're safe = we all mean the first meal of the day. If it's lunch - it's at lunchtime (ie starting 12 noon-1pm). If we call it dinner we could mean either the lunchtime meal or the evening meal. If we call it tea - we might mean either "afternoon tea" (a meal about 4pm - with sandwiches/scones/etc) or "high tea" (a full meal starting sometime between 6pm and 8pm). If you're asked if you want supper - it might mean supper (ie hot milky drink and something like a few biscuits or, possibly, something a tad more filling - eg a sandwich). On the other hand it might be someone calling the evening meal supper.

So if I asked you for a meal it would be either lunch (easy enough) or dinner (I'd mean the evening meal).

Someone else might ask you for dinner or tea (meaning high tea).

One blessing is you'd never be invited to come round for supper (as that's what our "upper class" call the evening meal - and further confuse the issue by things like possibly calling it a "kitchen supper") and when the rest of us say supper we mean that hot milky drink/few biscuits and thats not something we would specifically invite anyone round for.

That varies a huge amount in different parts of the UK.
I'm certainly not upper class but my evening meal is referred to as Supper.
A sit down mid-day meal is generally dinner in these parts (lunch is regarded as either posh or as an affectation, depending on audience).
Tea has three possibilities - an after school or work snack (sandwiches generally) designed to appease hungry appetitites until dinner. Afternoon tea, generally a mix of bite sized goodies, small sandwiches, pastries and dainty (small but pretty) cakes. (This can become a Cream Tea with the addition of clotted cream for the scones - or in the hospitality trade it may just mean scones with jam and clotted cream served with a pot of tea - quite possibly at extortionate prices) or high tea which may resemble afternoon tea but will also include at least one course requiring cutlery, a cooked dish in less clement weather (possibly fish and chips) or cooked cold cuts (often ham) with salad on a warmer day. Either afternoon tea or high tea are generally evening meals (in the older sense of evening being 4-7pm rather than the more modern usage of 6pm till midnight).

Though it may be that you are just being offered tea (as in the beverage) and as happened to me recently after that offer, being asked how I take my coffee. Either of which may be accompanied by a plate of biscuits (cookies).

Just to add to the confusion are the less formal invites, drinks (which may include some form of snacks), nibbles, which tends to include a lot more alcohol than anything to soak it up. BBQ which may include anything from a couple of burnt sausages to something you'd consider a Bar-B-Que, and is likely to include copious amounts of beer. Elevenses which may be a beverage (tea or coffee) with biscuits or pastries (Danish type or crossiants) or cake. Or it might be sparkling wine with savoury nibbles.

As Monna suggests, clarifying what you are actually being invited for and what you might bring (often flowers or wine) is always worthwhile.

nursemaggie

I did learn Welsh when living in Wales, forgotten most of it since. That's partly how I know South and North Wales speak different languages. There is some similar, but I learned partly from a book and partly from being among dual language speaking. Old ladies (usually referred to as Auntie Mary Auntie Betty, or what ever) would often never say a word of English or a word of Welsh unless they came across a word that was not in the opposite language. I had to learn to follow conversations.

moneyistooshorttomention

A soup meal is called "cawl" here (ie South Wales). It may well be that in North Wales that doesnt apply.

Another problem for people. As a British person I moved here from England to Wales thinking I would learn Welsh - and then subsequently found that there are all sorts of different variations of Welsh over the 3 million people living in this part of Britain (out of our 65 million - officially:cool:) and that was part of why I gave up the whole idea as way too confusing - ie between South Welsh, North Welsh and then finding there are a lot of dialects too.:eek:

I've never heard of calling any meal other than lunch "lunch". I thought that was one thing that was fixed - ie if someone said "lunch" they meant a meal that would start at somewhere between 12 noon and 1pm. I thought any food eaten between meals was called a "snack".

Pronunciation is a whole different ballgame again. A tester word, for instance, being clematis. Now is it "clem-a-tis" or "clem-ay-tis"? I bet other nationalities don't have all this malarkey...:cool:

I think the way us British get round all this - different words and different pronunciation is that we use "our" word and "our" pronouciation and the other person "translates" if that's not how they do it personally. I think knowing how to speak English means = being able to speak about 2 or 3 different languages in one basically imo:rotfl: