Lifestyle
77: A German Ranks Traditional British Food
In this episode of the Easy English podcast, a German guest ranks traditional British foods, exploring their history and cultural significance. From the beloved Sunday roast to the controversial fish ...
77: A German Ranks Traditional British Food
Lifestyle •
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Interactive Transcript
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Excuse me? Sorry. Do you speak English?
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No, I don't, sorry.
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Hello.
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Hi.
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Welcome to the Easy English podcast.
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How long will we say this? Always.
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Always.
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It takes five good seconds, as well.
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That just took five good seconds saying that.
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So today, our main topic of the week will be ranking the best and worst British foods.
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It's very fitting because we just had one of the best ones last night.
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What did we have last night?
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A Sunday roast by Mitch's mum.
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It was really nice.
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And we're going to be ranking them by this chart, which you can see in the middle of us.
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And their ranking goes from God's tier to top tier, mid tier, low tier and crap tier.
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Wait, how many can we put into every tier?
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Okay, God.
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God, top, mid, low, crap.
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Okay.
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Crap is slang for poor.
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It's also worth knowing that if you're listening to this podcast via our audio podcast,
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you should know that this is available as a YouTube video.
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So you can watch and have a look at the foods we'll be reviewing.
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And for all of you watching, you can also in the comments play along below
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and make your own little ranking list.
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I want to see all the rankings.
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Yeah, and let us know of any of the foods you have or haven't tried and what you thought of them.
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The first thing we'll be doing is the one that we actually had last night that Easy mentioned.
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And it is the Sunday roast.
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So Sunday roast, the idea of it, as you can probably see, is it comes from the days
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where we were all kind of farmers and you were at the end of a week.
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You'd compile all of the leftovers that you hadn't sold and you'd invite all your family round.
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You'd probably go to church first and then you'd come back and you'd have had all of the vegetables
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from your land, the past and it's the potatoes, the broccoli, the carrots, and one meat,
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I guess, a poor lamb or a poor pig or poor cow that didn't come in.
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Or vegetarian or vegan option.
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Now it is.
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Nowadays they're vegetarian options and they're very delicious.
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Vegan as well.
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Vegan's are like nut roasts, mushroom, things and corn, things, soya things.
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But typically back in the day you'd have either a lamb, pig or cow.
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And you'd just put everything in the oven and then you top it all off with a nice gravy sauce.
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All of your veggies were drowning in gravy last night.
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Delicious.
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So where's it going?
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Where do you think we're going to put it?
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I think it's top tier.
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You think there are other things that fit in the gods?
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Yeah, that's the problem now.
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I can't really see it.
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My eyes are really bad.
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I don't know what's coming.
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Yeah, maybe there's nothing that I might find.
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I do top.
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We cannot start what's got like.
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No.
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Baga.
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Okay.
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Oh, we have to do the same ranking.
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Would you agree with that?
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I would make it higher.
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But let's set the bar for the first one.
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It's only roast with top tier.
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Okay.
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Okay, the next one.
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We're going for the classic that everyone knows.
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Fish and chips.
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Very difficult for you and for me.
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Well, in Brighton,
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where you get all the vegan and vegetarian options there is
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even vegan fish and chips.
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And I've had also vegetarian, halloumi fish and chips,
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like hand-battered halloumi.
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So fish and chips generally is better,
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be a better fish.
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It's not always beer.
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Not always, but that's the fancy thing they like to do now.
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With chips.
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It's a bit like going to a fast food.
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I mean, it is fast food.
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And you eat it.
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The first two bites are like, especially if you were like
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mega-hungry or just had a beer or so.
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So, mmm, yeah, good.
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And afterwards you always fish it.
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Yeah, that's very typical fish and chips.
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Yeah.
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And then I don't want to even eat it.
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Yeah.
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You typically would have it on Friday night.
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But then if you were to have it on Friday night,
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you're already sort of deciding you're not going out
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because to go out with a stomach full of fish and chips
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is a disaster when it's happened.
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What does that mean?
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Do you get diarrhea?
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No, it's just so much grease.
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Because the batter from the fish that's been dipped in this deep fat fryer
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is just dripping in that oil.
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And it's super thick and heavy.
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It's a whole fish.
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And then to match that,
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a huge portion of these thick cut chips.
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You literally feel like your blood is getting thicker.
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Afterwards.
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So it can't be anything.
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But yeah, I'm not a big fan after say.
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I know it's the national,
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it's not the national dish, spoiler alert.
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But it's kind of like seeing as the national dish.
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Yeah.
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Everybody outside of the UK knows like that's fish and chips.
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But.
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Where are you putting it?
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I was about to actually do the crap tier.
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Crap tier.
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But I would do the low.
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Wow.
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Okay.
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Wow, low tier.
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Let us know.
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I was about, I'm sorry.
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Thanks for giving me.
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Let us know in the comments below what you think about easy putting fish and chips in the
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low tier.
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And what you feel about fish and chips.
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Because I feel like when people come to visit the UK,
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one of the things on their bucket list is eat traditional English fish and chips.
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Yeah, but then what do they think afterwards?
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And maybe the Sunday roast actually goes in the got like, now that we have.
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You see, you need to adapt it on the way.
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I'm happy to move it up if you need to.
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Adapt it.
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Adapt.
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Adapt it.
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Adapt it.
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Adapt it.
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Okay, next one.
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Next one we're going for the crumb pit.
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That's a crumb pit.
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How would you describe a crumb pit?
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It's like a sponge of good dough.
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I'm actually now going a bit against what I've just said.
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It's also greasy.
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It's also fat, but it's nice.
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That's true.
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I only put butter on it, right?
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You put it in the toaster and you whack a big load of salted butter on the top.
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And it sort of melts into these little.
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Opping up butter.
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Invisual airy holes.
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Yeah.
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You can also put like other toppings on.
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So it's basically like a round little.
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A disc, isn't it?
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Big cookie size.
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Yeah.
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It's that high and thick.
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And I don't know what the dough is made of.
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It's a bit pancake-ish.
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Yeah.
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You can put it in the toaster and it gets a bit cross and crusty, but inside really soft.
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And I think yeah, but a lot of people buttered.
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I also like peanut butter on it.
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Marmite on it, it's also nice.
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It's a breakfast food, right?
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You never have it for dinner.
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I do actually love a crumb pit.
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We nearly never have it at home because you literally when you have a package, you just eat them all.
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How much is it?
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It's not good for you.
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Calorie wise, quite heavy calorie wise, aren't they?
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Actually not sure.
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How many calories in two crumb pits?
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Two.
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This tells me 177.
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For two?
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For two.
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With butter.
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No, not with butter.
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Okay, so 85.
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85 calories.
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Wow, we'll spy them then.
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And where's it going on your list?
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Top as well.
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Top tier with this.
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The Sunday roast.
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They are two of my favourite things.
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Are we promoting the Sunday roast?
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Yeah, okay.
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Give it to God like.
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Wow.
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But I can stick it out of there.
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Okay, the next one is another very typical traditional.
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The one that everyone knows is the full English.
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Do you know what full English is?
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I've been the feeling I'm with every food now.
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I say it's very unhealthy.
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Literally, British food is kind of unhealthy.
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I mean, the selection is so beige.
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Yeah, that's really a completely different.
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A full English is a warm breakfast.
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We actually went an episode where I made one I think.
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Which you can watch up here.
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Typically has X.
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Usually fried eggs.
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Then hash browns.
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Which I like.
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Potato, little potato fried up mashed fried.
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Yeah, sounds like that.
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Sausages.
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It's like grated potato with X smushed into some sort of weird triangle shape.
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Yeah.
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Sausages.
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Yeah, sausage is important.
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Vegetarian vegan options.
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Fried tomatoes.
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Fried mushrooms.
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Usually bacon.
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Bacon with your sausage.
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Bacon baked beans.
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Which is why beans in a tomato sauce.
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And some breads.
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Usually some sourdough or toast.
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And black pudding.
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Which is, you don't really want to know what is in there.
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It's like a mix of probably pig, pig organ stuff with blood.
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Yeah, pig bits and pig blood.
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Like blood sausage.
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And congeal together.
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I think people sometimes think that I've seen that a lot.
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People are asking, but also now, this kind of sound like two people eat.
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That's like what British people eat every morning, right?
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I was like, no, you won't be able to work.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Small like a special occasion.
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I think some people maybe eat it every weekend, maybe.
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Yeah, every Sunday, probably in the morning before the end of the rest.
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For the big roast.
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No, but it's definitely more special occasion that you can't eat this every day.
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No, no, the calories are out.
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It's more, it's a brunch basically.
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Yeah, exactly.
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It's really good if you've had a bit of a big night out and the next morning you need a bit of salt in your system.
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But yeah, most of these dishes.
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Oh, British food was made for hangover.
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Yeah, and they're all quite debilitating to the rest of your day if you eat them.
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So where's the full English?
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Let's find something, I'll see them.
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For English is mid tier.
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Mid tier, okay.
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Is that sad?
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I think some people would go God for that.
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It's a solid, nice dish.
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A 5 out of 10 mid tier.
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Six out of 10.
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Or four.
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Four.
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It's getting worse.
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Okay, next one we're going to do.
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Actually, before we go into the next one, you mentioned about our Discord channel,
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which is a place where all of our easy English members can come and chit chat and update us about their life,
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We offer three at the moment.
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We offer our...
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See them here?
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You can see them up here if you go to this link or go to easyEnglish.video4s-membership.
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We offer a supporter tier.
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For any of you guys that are a regular view of easy English and maybe your teacher,
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Sorry.
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Come, Joedads.
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So this is a two-in-one for us, really.
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Do we get a healthy one now?
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Kind of.
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We're going to go for the Cottage Pie and the Shepherd's Pie next.
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Which is the same thing or not?
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You should know the difference to the Cottage Pie and Shepherd's Pie.
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We actually just literally talked about this in one of our pub calls.
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Yeah, in the pub calls.
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No, in the Discord.
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Oh, in our Discord server, yes.
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And you explain that?
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I read it, and I forgot.
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Oh dear.
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So as you can see, on the top, you can see a mashed potato top layer in a baking tray.
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I'm back there.
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Exactly.
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There is mints underneath this, which is mixed in with like peas and carrots and other sort of garden vegetables we call them.
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One is lamb mints, mints, lamb.
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And then the Cottage Pie, don't really get a clue for that, but what's usually in the field behind the Cottage in a traditional English painting?
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Tell me some fabulous animals.
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Not pity.
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Yeah, exactly.
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So that's why we're sort of putting Cottage Pie into one dish because when we make it, it doesn't matter.
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It doesn't really matter.
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It's the same, it's just a mints.
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Where would you rate this?
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Because this is kind of health-ish, you know?
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Ish.
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When I ate it the first time, I think that's long ago when you first made it for me.
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I was a bit like,
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Oh!
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Great.
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Probably big, then I was like, you're lovely.
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Yeah, what a liar you are.
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Yeah, I think that was always on this.
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Now it's just like, it's a nice, you know when you come home from school and it's like,
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it's a solid lunch.
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Great.
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For all of me, eh?
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That's one you'll get.
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Now we did it again a few times.
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Yeah, okay.
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And it's so much better and I don't know why.
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Maybe I, maybe the concept is clearer to me.
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I would say it's mid-tier.
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Mid-tier for Cottage and Chappers Pie.
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That's what on this list says, steak and kidney pie.
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But as we have veggies, we're going to go for a normal sort of typical kind of British pie set up.
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It's basically a warm dish in a bread house.
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And the dishes that are inside are kind of like German and English as well.
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In a bread house.
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I would say it's like normally it's like vegetable and meat in a sauce.
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A user pie was like vegetables inside and gravy and vegetables outside.
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It's not too bad.
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It's so cozy.
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All of these dishes are kind of like more for like colder winter days.
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It's like autumn, autumn and so food.
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I say those are three most popular ones.
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Chicken mushrooms, steak and now, steak and kidney, the pie, an English pie, and German bread house.
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I could actually put it up to here with our onions.
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That is something we should try to make ourselves a really perfect, a no top.
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I mean, got like, got it.
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Because we could really learn how to make a good pie at home.
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Yeah.
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With the best gravy and without onions and mushrooms.
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Typically nowadays, you know how good a pub is if they do the pie and it's a full, how it enclosed thing.
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Because some pubs are very cheeky and they put it in like a little oven dish and they just do a top.
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Yeah, that's cheeky.
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Don't do it.
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The last one we have is the scotch egg.
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Also something usually with meat.
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It's true.
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It is.
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It's a strange thing to see in this picture, isn't it?
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If you describe it.
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It could egg.
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Yeah.
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I boil to usually.
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Surrounded by meat.
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That means meat.
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Surrounded by dough and then deep fried.
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Yeah, bread crumbs on the outside.
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There is some vegetarian options by some brands which we won't name.
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Some people probably some pubs do it even vegetarian in a pub like from scratch.
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It's kind of okay.
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Yeah, it's a pub food.
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You typically get it with your beer and not the biggest one.
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In a pub, it would be like size of like a baseball.
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You can also buy them in the supermarket like little snackable things.
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You can dip.
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But they're a good level.
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I put them in low and the fish and chips go into crap.
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Fish and chips are getting demoted.
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Scott Cheg's going in.
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Fish and chips.
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Going down the crap up.
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Crab is hard.
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Sick crap.
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It's not crap.
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You said it is.
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That's where it's going.
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Okay.
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Well, that rounds up a German harshly criticising British food.
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Can we see the whole ranking again please?
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So we have in the crappity of fish and chips.
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Let us know in the comments what you think about.
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I'm not crying.
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My eyes are burning.
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Do you have liquid?
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That's guilt.
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So in the crappity of we have fish and chips.
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Let us not think about easy choice to demote fish and chips to crap food.
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They're not here if the Scotch egg.
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It's quite good isn't it?
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It's not as me as a mid tier.
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We've got the full English breakfast and the cottage or shepherd's pie.
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Should try those.
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They're really good to get.
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Have a go at.
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Not very well known British food.
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Top tier.
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We've got the crumb pit.
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Also give that a go.
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And in good tier we've got the Sunday roast or roast dinner and the pie.
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I think I'm quite happy with that.
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Also top and got tier are kind of like one for me.
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Any regrets?
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No.
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I'm missing sausage roll which is in Cornish place and maybe just got people with haters for putting that one.
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That's not the same.
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Then what else to amiss the National dish?
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True.
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We didn't actually mention the National dish because you have an onion problem.
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And Indian food is pretty onion heavy.
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So we left that out.
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Where would that go?
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Have you ever had it before?
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Have you ever had to take a bit of the bullet and just come through it?
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Which curry is it again?
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Tika masala.
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I think I did try it one but it's quite spicy.
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No no no.
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I always eat corn malt and corn malt is like super mild.
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That is actually, I mean a curry doesn't have to be healthy.
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But curry was good vegetables and rice.
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Do you think British people chose another country's dish to be their top dish to have something else?
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Yeah exactly.
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Have some vegetables in there somewhere.
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Yeah and rice as hell soon.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Well as I said, let us know in the comments below what you disagree or agree with.
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And also maybe even write down your little ranking system in the comments and see where fish and chips end up for you.
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And also as I said if you want to help support easy English or lemon others then check out our membership.
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And yeah as always, you'll see us next time.
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Bye bye.
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So are.
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Hello.
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I am England.