Volume 6　母国で親しんだあの味


Typical Home-Cooked Meals

Ann Slater: Hello everyone and welcome to the September edition of Cultural Crossroads. This is Ann . . .

Michael Rhys: And this is Mike.

Ann: And we're very glad to be with you again. This month we are going to talk about a subject that is near and dear to everybody's heart, I think, which is food and specifically home- cooked food or what your mother cooked, and what are typical meals in your home country. And Mike, what about for you and what were some typical meals that you used to have growing up?

Michael: Oh, good question. I have to cast my mind back now. Britain, as you know, is not exactly famous for its culinary excellence.

Ann: Yeah, ha-ha.

Michael: Ha-ha. So what makes up a standard British meal when I was growing up? A lot of chips, peas.

Ann: Chips, what we, uh, call French fries.

Michael: What you call French fries, yeah. Um, "meat and two veg," we say, um . . .

Ann: What's that? 

Michael: Basically just some over-boiled vegetables, uh, maybe some mashed potato or chips, and meat. Whatever that would be: pork, chicken, pork.

Ann: Beef, pork, uh-huh.

Michael: Nothing very elaborate.

Ann: Uh-huh.

Michael: These days, there's, kind of, perhaps an over-reliance on more instant food.

Ann: Uh-huh.

Michael: Canned food or microwaved food, that's become a major part of the culture - much, much more than when I was growing up, which, kind of sad to see. So the whole idea of home-cooked food has been very much watered down in the United Kingdom, I would say now.

Ann: And there are so many things now. I mean, I remember when we were growing up in the States that one of the big innovations were TV dinners.

Michael: Hmm. 

Ann: And then, on holidays, for example, Thanksgiving, of course, there would be turkey - the usual, right? - turkey, pumpkin pie . . .

Michael: Right.

Ann: . . . mashed potatoes, cranberry and so on and so forth. Christmas might be, again, turkey.

Michael: But for me, Sundays was the big home food day, Sunday roast at lunchtime. Roast beef with, uh, Yorkshire pudding - uh, we call it pudding, which normally, in, in England means a dessert, but it's not actually a dessert; Yorkshire pudding is, I'm not even sure how, what it's made of, flour and things like that - with vegetables. That was the big family meal.