The pub meal

What it is

The traditional pub menu is short and hearty. There is battered fish with chips and peas, a meat pie with gravy, sausages with mashed potato, gammon with egg, a burger, a curry, and a ploughman's lunch of bread, cheese, pickle and salad. Bar snacks include crisps, pork scratchings, pickled eggs and Scotch eggs. Since the 1990s the gastropub has raised standards, with proper kitchens and seasonal cooking in rooms that still look and work like pubs.

Where it comes from

Alehouses, taverns and coaching inns have fed travellers in Britain and Ireland for many centuries. The pub as it is known today, with its bar counter, hand pumps and separate rooms, took shape in the nineteenth century. For a long time food was an afterthought, limited to sandwiches and pies. Cooked lunches became common in the later twentieth century, as pubs looked for income beyond beer and as families began to be welcomed.

How it works

There is usually no table service for drinks. You find a table, note its number, go to the bar, order drinks and food together and pay there and then. Drinks are handed over at once and food is brought to the table. Among friends, drinks are bought in rounds, each person taking a turn to buy for the group. Kitchens keep set hours, commonly noon to about two thirty and six to nine, and stop serving promptly.

How to do it

1. Find a table and check for a number on it.
2. Order and pay at the bar. Give the table number for food.
3. Carry your own drinks back to the table.
4. Take your turn to buy a round if you are in a group.
5. Check kitchen hours. Food often stops well before the bar closes.

Good manners

• Wait your turn at the bar. Staff know who is next. Do not wave money.
• Do not skip your round.
• Tipping at the bar is not expected. For table service, ten percent is usual.

What is eaten

Fish and chipsBattered fried fish served hot with thick-cut chipsBangers and mashSausages and mashed potato, often served with onion gravy and peasPloughman's lunchA British cold meal of bread, cheese, onions and pickle, often served in pubsSteak and kidney pieA British meat pie with beef, kidney, onion and gravy under a pastry crustScotch eggEgg wrapped in sausage, coated in crumbs and fried or bakedShepherd's pieBaked dish of minced meat under a layer of mashed potato

Also part of it, and being written: Pork rind, Scampi, Gammon.

Sources and further reading

• Pub on Wikipedia
• Historic UK: The Great British Pub
• VisitBritain: Food and drink