British Food Words That May Confuse Americans 

Brits call arugula "rocket" because the French term for arugula is roquette. When the Normans took over as the aristocracy of Britain they infused the English language with a lot of French words. This was especially the case when it came to food.

Pickle is referring to the process, of preserving food in vinegar. In the US, they just specifically referred to pickled cucumbers, which over this side of the Atlantic would be a gherkin. That's why you have things like pickled eggs or pickled onions.

Fizzy drinks were commonly referred to as "pop" when I was growing up in 1960s Britain. These days it seems more usual to describe them more specifically by their brand name. A popular fizzy drink all those years ago was 'dandelion and burdock', originally made from those ingredients. It's not so popular or well-known now, and it's acquaintance with dandelion or burdock plants is probably less than it used to be, though it is still sold.

The English word "pudding" actually comes from the french word "boudin" (that's a type of blood sausage!) It migrated to English and can still be found used with its original meaning in food items like "black pudding". Over time the meaning shifted a bit (as language likes to do) and it found itself meaning something like "thing with casing", that's where we get names like "Yorkshire pudding" from. In the 1700s there was an explosion of baked type puddings and from that the name ended up attached to a whole bunch of pastries, cakes, and completely unrelated food items, and later still, a general term for desserts!

We have cookies in the UK too, though it usually refers to the US style that are still somewhat soft vs. UK biscuits which will be much drier all the way through., It comes from the French for "twice cooked" since in the old days a 2nd stage of cooking would be done to preserve them, eg. for long voyages (the 'ships biscuit' that'd be referenced in literature) & is still used for certain types. Dunking them in tea is excellent, though it can take a bit of practice to not over do it & lose half.

Excellent video Dara!! Can’t wait for the next one! ❤️

Good information, Dara. What a great start!

Great Video Dara!! Loved watching! :)

This is jolly good, Dara!! Looking forward to your next one! :-)

This was so fun! I can't wait for the next video!!!

A very thorough description of the differences. I wasn't aware of oatmeal and some others. Very informative and authoritative.

I loved learning about these cultural differences! I do plan on traveling to England some day and this is so helpful! My favorite is your rant on tacos and salad at the end. That made me laugh!

After working alongside many Italian chefs over the years I can assure you madame magenta that we do indeed say it correctly, Italians use the hard A like we do, much love x

Treacle pudding is a steamed sponge cooked with Golden Syrup. When turned out it gets smothered in the hot golden syrup which has the most amazihg flavour. Its not made with treacle despite the name. You eat it with hot custard ❤ Jelly is also used for a clear jam with no pips, its got nothing to do with the Jelly desert. Totally different things 😊 Americans don't like Marmite because they spread it on toast without butter and far, far too thickly. Marmite is also used in cooking, mainly in stews to give a rich umami or beefy flavour. Its very versatile

You missed out some puddings - rice pudding is one. This is not a steamed pudding but has been popular over the years. Another related pudding is bread and butter pudding which is cooked in a similar way to rice pudding but uses bread, butter and dried fruits. Both delicious in colder weather.

I have an old [circa 1963] gardening encyclopedia of my dads. Back in 1963 you would have only seen Aubergines for sale in a high class retailers in London. So if you wanted to eat them most people needed to grow their own. In the entry for the vegetable in the encyclopedia it refers to it as the Egg plant also known as the Aubergine. So Egg plant used to be the preferred British term in the past.

I just found this channel and I find it really great and a lot of fun.

What a great fun channel, I travel to the states a lot and love confusing them with our terms for so many different things. You've got to tell them about "cream tea" and ask your husband if he puts jam on first or cream on first. Pick the bones out of that one!

Not mentioned on this video but I just wanted to clear up a misconception that we Brits prefer warm beer. I'm 59 & I've met one person in my life who liked their pint warm my Father-in-law from Wales. All the rest of us drink cold beer. It's just that traditional ales are kept at a cellar temperature that could be described as cool rather than cold, extreme cold kills the flavour.

Really interesting and informative! It’s really helpful for me because I live in New Zealand and they use both...witch is very confusing for me that English is not my first language😂

Branston pickle is so sweet that diabetics (of which I'm one) are warned to eat it very sparingly, if at all.

Fairy cakes are actually a sponge cake and you cut out a bit from the top, then you fill the hole with icing, with the sponge you cut out, you cut it in half and place them in the icing like wings. These are also called butterfly cakes.

Good job on Worcestershire! Top marks!

Eccles cakes come from Lancashire but Lardy cake is very rarely seen in the jorth of England

Actually, we do have Lyons Treacle here.

Chips are chips fries are fries. It’s soft drinks or pop or fizzy drinks in Britain. Bacon in Britain comes in packs of medallions or rashers unsmoked or smoked. It’s bun, roll or bap depending on where you buy it as well as what is on the label, they come in four or six pack or loose. A bacon bitty can be in bread or a bun. It’s porridge oats on the bag or box in supermarkets, i spent over sixteen years working in supermarkets in Britain Kwik Save (closed in 2004), Asda (returned to British ownership this year), Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. There are lots of various teas. There are lots of desserts in Britain. Saying pudding can cause a little problem due to black pudding and yorkshire pudding which are not dessert/pudding. Biscuits are biscuits cookies are cookies. Jelly is not jam. Salad is not just lettuce and tomato it includes cucumber, radish etc depending on what you include in your salad. Mincemeat is in mince pies but not the meat version but fruit. It’s all about using correct grammar, I remember being corrected in school.

Mincemeat is what goes into a mince pie but while it sounds similar, it shouldn't be confused with mince or minced meat which is meat which has been minced. I have no idea why it would be called ground beef as there is no grinding in its manufacture.

Hi, Something I think you missed. Sweet or sweets in UK generally mean candy as you said, but can also mean Dessert or Pudding. Re Chip Butty, what you showed was a chip butty, but so would chips between 2 slices of bread be a chip butty. There are also many different names for various bread rolls, like bap, barm, (or barm cakes) cob, bun, lardy cakes, oggies and batch to name but a few. With pronunciation, I think Brits will (might try to pronounce foreign word correctly if they are trying to use that language, but not if speaking English, if we steal or import a word we use our own pronunciation. I think most Brits know how to say Paris (in French) but tend to use the Anglicized version specially if talking about peoples names. We have Cafes (said Caffs) here from the French café, but we generally don't have (use) the accents in our written language. With your point about Pasta, we might pronounce past in either way, similar to how we say pasta or how you say it, (depends on location). But you are right we should make more effort with place names like Berlin, München, México Enjoyed this BTW.

If you have dinner midday you will have tea in the evening, if you have lunch at midday you will have dinner in the evening.

Branston pickle is more of a chutney ie chopped vegetables cooked with sugar, vinegar and spices

By the way I was born and live in England , we speak English . I live in Hampshire and the boat mayflower sailed to discover the new world . Found u.s.a and now you speak English . Happy days love both countries

BAP IS ONLY USED IN THE SOUTH GOO NORTH OF WATFORD AND ITS CALLED A COB

pudding could also refer to a steak & kidney pudding (popular in the north).

In the midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa) people make a lot of “bars” as dessert - chocolate chip bars, seven layer bars, etc, etc. It looks like traybake might be equivalent.

Good video! I would suggest that "salad" means "raw vegetables" (rather than specifically lettuce and tomato) and more generally "sandwich" is used (for "sandwich" - a "butty" is more colloquial and less common than "sandwich"). Also "cob" is a local term, and there are dozens of words for "a round piece of bread" (maybe the most common being a "bread roll")

As for 'bap' it's called by different names in different UK locations. Barmcake in the north west and stottie in the north east, plus others.

Great great video! I so want an English bacon buddy! 🤣!

Jam, jelly, and preserves are not the same in the US. Jelly is made with only the fruit juice. Jam has small fruit solids in it, being made from crushed fruit. Preserves are made from whole or chopped and has the largest fruit pieces. Marmelade is just preserves with citrus in it. Jelly has the smoothest consistency but least fruitiness. Preserves has the highest fruitiness but the roughest consistency.

I blame tv ads for most of what we say and do.. Something comes along thats new and tv ads show you a product and you hear the pronunciation then you repeat it and hey It sticks as the name... italians in italy say PAsta not posta ..so we say it PAsta.. jelly it says jelly on the packet so we say it... Baked beans by Heinz a us company pushed Baked beans on us in the 60s and ever since as a breakfast food....but usa dont do breakfast beans lol

The term 'Butty' is more of a word used in the north of England.

Great video, Dara ! I think in the UK we are much less consistent in our pronunciation of words than you are in the USA. We have so many ‘exceptions to the rule’. The thing about pasta ... this is just my theory (and I know that it will sound like a feeble excuse).... but you will have come across a difference (usually regional) in whether the vowel ‘a’ is sounded long or short, e.g. the city of Bath (short) or ‘Barth’ (long). The latter is considered a bit posh. Being a northern lad from pretty much a working class background (whatever that means nowadays !) you wouldn’t catch me using a long ‘a’ if I could avoid it. I would pass the shop, not ‘parse’ the shop 😃. So my pronunciation of ‘pasta’ simply reinforces my preference for the short sounding ‘a’. It doesn’t explain why I don’t adopt the Italian pronunciation, but ‘parsta’ would sound so out of place 😃. At least I’m consistent with my pronunciation of ‘master’, ‘plaster’ and ‘pass the pasta’ ! But posh people have no such excuse, so they should do it the Italian way ! lol By the way, after our main course we have pudding, sweet, dessert, or ‘afters’, any one of which could simply describe ..... ‘afters’ 😃 Keep them coming ! 👍

Great video.

A Yorkshire man will let you know that water does not have the “r” in it to pronounce warter

pickles in the UK is a very generic term not really used by many people. we tend to be more specific, so we call Branston pickle usually just Branston, then you have picled onions, pickled beetroot, pickled gerkins, pickled eggs, picallili and others

On puddings, you forgot that a steamed pudding might contain meat and not sweet, usually beef of steak and kidney.

Why don't you have prawn cocktail flavour crisps in USA?

Pudding really is and always was a heavy steamed cake type dessert. Like treacle pudding or christmas pudding...however in recent times its became generalised as pudding ..

I heard that candy floss / cotton candy was invented by a dentist. He was treating so many kids for cavities from eating loads of sugar in sweets / candy. He developed candy floss because a big ball is made with a small spoonful of sugar. The kids still get their sweets but are only eating a small amount of sugar, reducing the number of cavities they got.

piccalili it's like the other side of pickle to Branson, larger pieces of different veg in a yellow sharp sauce, not to everyones taste traditionally served with cold meats picnic eggs, these are the buffet/finger food version of Scotch eggs they are 1 bite size and are filled with chopped up egg also available in supermarkets for buffets are mini pork pies, mini sausage rolls, mini pasties and of course cooked cocktail sauasages.

you can see many of the differences stemming from Italian influences in the US because of the large Italian population there and the French influence in UK since the Norman Conquest of 11th century England.

Just remember, when in the UK it's "Chips are hot and crisps are not!".

We also call them baked potato in the UK and jacket potatoes it depends on what the place your buying Them from might call them

'Rocket' is from the French 'roquette' and ultimately from the Italian 'rochetta'. 'Aubergine' is from French, but ultimately from Arabic 'al-badinjan'. The first ones imported to England in the 16th century were white and looked like eggs. Hence egg-plant. A very old word. 'pudding' (c. 1300) meant anything boiled in (say) an intestine or stomach. Thus, a sausage of haggis-like thing. By the 1500s it had come to mean anything boiled in a cloth - steak & kidney pudding, Christmas pudding. It wasn't till the late 1800s that 'pudding' came to mean anything else. Although British I live in the Philippines , where cilantro/coriander is wansoy (Chinese parsley).

This clears up my confusion on so much!

great videos keep it going

The difference between pronunciation, comes from the fact that America forgets that English isn't an American language, it's an English language! 🤣 I read a famous quote somewhere, that said "the USA & the UK are two great countries, separated by a common language"!! Sounds like something Oscar Wilde might have come up with!?!? 🤣

Pasta, Parsta 😱😂 we do this all the time in the UK with Italian names. I’m a car nut and always pronounce Lancia as it should be e.g. Lancha but never even considered parsta! Here’s a place name even some Brits get wrong, the Vale of Belvoir, pronounced beaver!!! Nuts innit??

The Bap is called a Barm cake in the north of England.very funny really if you google it, as it's nothing like a cake.

Pudding is served hot/worm Desert is served cold/chilled

I believe we use the french word quite a lot, given the fact we were taken over by Normady a very long time ago, our language mixed. Fun fact English is a germanic language but also has a mix of, old Norse, French, Latin, German and some Greek. And interesting fact that I copy and pasted XD English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain.

the term tea has different meaning in the counrty, i am originally from the north so it's breakfast, dinner & tea whereas in the south it's breaksast lunch & dinner, i hope that helps

Rice pudding, Eve's pudding Generally in the UK it's short 'a' in the north and long 'a' in the south

puddings can also be savoury. so a steak and kidney pudding is not the same as a steak and kidney pie. the filling might be the same but the outer shell is a shortcrust or flaky pastry for the pie and a suet pastry for the pudding. pies will be baked and puddings will be steamed.

The sweet mincemeat has evolved from a very old recipe hundreds of years ago that actually did have meat in it but over time the meat was dropped

A few things. The British term for what American refer to pickles are gherkins or sometimes a 'wally'. I am British but I pronounce taco the American way. I think it is the only thing you've covered that I would pronounce the US way. When you talk about baps and buttys and many other things you are absolutely correct. However, you are only referring to a name that small parts of the country use. A bap where I live is called a muffin. 50 miles away it may be referred to as a cob, or a roll or even a barm cake. There are so many regional versions for food words in the UK. Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland will all have their own versions too. I believe a bap in Scotland is called a Stotty but I may be wrong as it may just be a particular type of bap or roll/barm/cob. Whilst your description of UK puddings was accurate I should add that pudding is used in other types of desserts that are not traditionally steamed liked the versions you mentioned eg. Rice pudding. Isn't language a wonderful thing?

Difference between cake and gateau.

Fun! Now I’m hungry. Digestive biscuit anyone? Then let’s talk about how hard it is to get warm toast. But I love those little toast holder thingies. It’s a conundrum.

Butty is an abbreviation of "buttered bread".

In Liverpool we call it lollyice

Ah you forgot about cider which is always alcoholic in the UK. Seen a lot of confusind slightly drunk American friends claiming they only had cider lol.

American "Sprinkles" = British "Hundreds and Thousands" American "Weeeener" = British "Sausage" or "Banger" (slang) Oh, and the "Bap" is subject to inter-regional religious wars over what they are called. Where I'm from for instance, they'd be called "Cobs". More about that here - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-r76iQsWUBWg.html

If you like treacle you will love treacle toffee,usually sold around 5th November (bonfire night)

Re UK lemonade, a very nice drink I was given as a kid, and make occasionally is called ice cream float or cream soda. It is a couple of scoops of vanilla ice-cream put in a glass and then fill the glass up carefully with UK lemonade. It is wonderful. You need a straw (I use a metal one) in this to mix it up. Got some homemade mincemeat (that I made last year) and just need to get gluten free pastry to make mince pies. I love them. Even UK people pronounce Launceston wrong and other place names. Launceston should be pronounced Lanson.

Did you know you can get small chuck Branston for sandwiches 😋

Hi Dara, did you notice that on the tin of Tate and Lyle golden syrup is a picture of a dead lion with flys around it

tea as a meal term is also ridiculous - you wouldnt say ''we're going out for tea tonight at a nice restaurant'' - i dont know how that ever came about - it should be breakfast , lunch , dinner

The A sound in many English word are pronounced as a short sound. The US Pasta is a long A sound. British Data would be da-ta. The Australian Data would be dar-ta. Similar to the US.

Loving your posts! You should try a beano pie. It's a shepherds pie with a layer of baked beans, very British. I personally can't stand it, but it's popular. On the pronunciation thing. A lot of products went on sale here decades ago in one form or another, before the nations was really exposed to how they were pronounced natively. By the time we heard these words in say Spanish or Italian, we weren't going to change. Why do Americans refuse to say European brand names properly? It's the same reason.

The American pronunciations of pasta, parmesan, lasagna, basil and oregano aren’t the Italian pronunciations. Not sure how they came about, but via Italy they did not.

As someone that speaks Italian, neither the UK or American pronunciations of 'pasta' are particularly accurate. Though, I would probably say the British way sounds better. The American vowel sound is just a little too strong and I feel like less is more when it comes to pronunciation.

I feel dirty trying to say pasta the same way you do it feels so wrong.

"bap" is a more specific regional word for that kind of bread roll. They are called different things all over the UK. teacake, cob, barm, breadcake, muffin, roll, and TONS more

You left out steak and kidney pudding that is steamed

Right, in a British accent, if we said 'paahsta' and 'taahcos' it would sound like we were trying to be posh! 🤣🤣 Excellent point though!

You mentioned in another clip that aubergine was a vegetable but it is a fruit

OK, let's get this started . . . That's not a BAP it's a BARM! ;-)

Eccles cakes are irreverently known as "Flies' cemetaries"

Short a north of Aswood Bank Worcestershire long a south as in past

A fairy cake has wings on it with a cream filling in between, we also have cup cakes which are the same in the US 👍🏻

It hurts me when americans pronounce the word route as rout. When you pronounce place names in Britain you pronounce them correctly we pronounce them wrong as we have shortened them slowly over hundreds of years. What I have noticed is that if I do not like something I say it's not for me. If an American does not like it he says it's disgusting or it socks.

A bap is a regional term, cob, roll or bap are just three terms

Not just lettuce and tomato you could use cucumber,radishes or other salad items in your salad sandwiches.

Pickle stands for anything that is pickled which covers a lot of things.

Yup! Shepherds herd sheep! 😉

Mince Pies are commonly called Minky Pies..

We do use pudding to say Desert but we also say Desert as well, or at least in my county we do, so we'll know what you mean if you say desert instead of pudding :)

I would be interested to know what you would say if you past a Pastor eating pasta.

we used to call Eccles cakes ,fly s graveyard lol

Mincemeat is what we call the filling in the mince pie but there's no meat in it.

i used to like cottage pie but the wall paper kept getting stuck in my teeth also shepards pie with real shepards loving your vids