Potatoes

Potatoes are by far the staple of the British diet. You normally get served potatoes (and green peas) with just about every meal you have, and I have been served several types of potatoes (boiled, roasted and mashed) on the same plate. The Brits certainly love their spuds.

What’s especially funny is that they call potatoes by different names than we do in America. For example, baked potatoes are called “jacket potatoes,” potato chips are called “crisps”, and fries are called “chips” (except for McDonald’s fries, which are still called fries).

The snack aisles in grocery stores are mostly full of a huge assortment of “crisps.” They have all sorts of flavors you don’t normally see in America, like prawn cocktail, cheese & onion, salt & vinegar, ready-salted, roasted chicken, tomato, barbecue, and spring onion. They do sell a few Kettle chips and other varieties of crisps, but for the most part British crisps are the thin-type potato chips.

Where I come from, baked potatoes are normally served with butter and sour cream and sometimes extras like chives, bacon bits or cheese. In England, jacket potatoes are served loaded with a strange assortment of fillings, from baked beans (another British staple that I’ll talk about later), to chili, tuna salad, prawn cocktail, just to name a few of the things. I have to special order a jacket potato with just butter and sour cream, and that’s assuming you can even find sour cream. It’s not commonly used here.