The Englishmen and Roast Beef

The 18th century is a century in which a lot of new influences and innovations appeared in society [1]. Roast beef cannot be called an innovation, but it became rather prominent as symbol of Britishness [2]. In the 18th century, Henry Fielding, celebrated it as a national dish and called it the main food of an Englishman. Every Sunday the landowner recompensed his workers after church with a good and strong Sunday lunch for past weeks work. The ballad “The Roast Beef of Old England” by Henry Fielding doesn’t only show how proud the English were about this dish, but it is also a proof for the love of meat. Even the French must have seen this passion of the Englishmen for roast beef; they even call the English “rosbifs” [3]. Rosbifs became a mark of the Englishmen as far as the French were concerned in the 18th century, simply because it was just a very popular way of cooking meat.

When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman's food,

It ennobled our brains and enriched our blood.

Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good

Oh! The Roast Beef of old England,

And old English Roast Beef! [4] (Henry Fielding 1731)

Today the roast beef is substantial part of a traditional Sunday lunch [5]. Against modern ideas William Kitchener claimed that one should eat 3 kg of meat each week as part of a healthy lifestyle. Originally the English were hanging the meat for hours on the fire until the meat was done. People with less money did not have the luxury of a large fireplace or the money for much meat, so the smaller weekly roast would be dropped off to Sundays and into ovens. Nowadays the meat is baked modern ovens. The tradition of the Sunday’s roast beef does still exist. Everywhere in England in all kind of restaurants one finds a large variety of roast beef lunch [6]. For many English, cooking and serving Sunday’s lunch at home is the very heart of British food and tradition [7].

Sources

"Why do the French call the British 'the roast beefs'?" BBC News, last Updated Thursday, 3 April, 2003, 11:54 GMT 12:54 UK, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2913151.stm.

"The history of the Great British Roast." This is Devon, Thursday, January 17, 2013, original link: http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/history-Great-British-Roast/story-17882948-detail/story.html#ixzz2njSHPYy2, archived article: https://web.archive.org/web/20130724024202/http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/history-Great-British-Roast/story-17882948-detail/story.html.

Allrecipe staff, "Roast Beef Cooking Times." AllRecipes, http://allrecipes.co.uk/how-to/153/roast-beef-cooking-times.aspx.

Fielding, Henry. "The Roast Beef Of Old England." All Poetry, http://allpoetry.com/poem/8564599-The-Roast-Beef-Of-Old-England-by-Henry-Fielding.

Guerrini, Anita. "The English Diet: Roast Beef and ... Salad?" History Today, vol. 61, no. 2, 2011, online http://www.historytoday.com/anita-guerrini/english-diet-roast-beef-and-salad.

Wareing, Marcus. "The Art of Sunday Lunch, Part One: Perfect Roast Beef." Telegraph, 18 Oct 2003, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/3308575/The-art-of-Sunday-lunch-part-one-perfect-roast-beef.html.