From sausage rolls to full breakfasts, class has shaped the foods that define English identity

By Sara Read, Senior Lecturer in English, Loughborough University

English food is often perceived as ancient and reassuringly unchanging. Podcast host Lewis Bassett’s new book The Full English: The Ways We Eat and Why makes that view harder to sustain.

Bassett’s sociological approach shows how urbanisation, empire, industry and even Brexit have influenced the way the nation eats. Take the now ubiquitous sausage roll. Such a meat dish was once the preserve of the upper classes, but as Bassett states, modern mass manufacturing has allowed “people in Britain to regularly eat meals that were once the preserve of the wealthy”.

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