Food and meals

When we have guests we prepare lunch of three courses. The first course is soup. We usually have beef bouillon with vermicelli. Main dish is roasted sirloin beef and Czech dumplings and as a dessert pancakes with fruit and cream. We don´t have any special table manners and we don´t celebrate holidays. But birthdays we do. We usually go to the restaurant and order some delicious meal. We pay and add a tip for a good service.
My favourite meals are spaghetti with cheese and tuna or pizza.
Pizza is easy to prepare. In a shop I buy frozen pizza and at home I bake it in an oven or a microwave oven for 15 minutes. Then it is ready to eat.
It is easy to prepare spaghetti, too. First I must boil spaghetti. I fill a pot with water and add a few salt. Water must come to the boil. When water is on the boil I add to the pot spaghetti and two or three spoons of oil. I boil spaghetti for 8 minutes. Then I must strain it. I grate cheese, open a tin of tuna, cut up an onion and mix egg with milk. I prepare a dish. To the dish I put onion, spaghetti, tuna, spaghetti again, mix of egg and milk and then cheese. I put this dish into the warm oven. In the oven it should stay for 20 minutes. I start my day with breakfast at 6.30. I have a cup of tea with lemon for a drink and to eat I have porridge or milk rice.
At school at 9.30 it is time for my snack. I usually have an yoghurt and some drink.
At 1.30 I have lunch in a school canteen. It consists of soup, main dish, drink ( cup of tea ), and sometimes some fruit ( apple or banana ). I don´t like soup in the school canteen. The main dish is usually pork or beef meat and potatoes or rice. Once a week we have sweet meal at school.
Sometimes I have snack at 4.00, too. It consists of a glass of milk and some fruit ( banana, apple, orange, tangerine ).
At 6.30 it is time for dinner. I have a slice of bread and butter, cheese or salami and for a drink a cup of tea or a glass of milk.
When we want to go to and eat in a restaurant, it is useful to order a table. In the restaurant a waiter welcomes us and leads us to our booked table, which should be already prepared. At the place we are to sit down, we usually find a plate. On its right side there are knife and spoon. On the left side there is a fork. The silverware includes a teaspoon as well, which is placed above our plate. In the upper left corner should be a glass of water.

Of course, there should also be napkins.
Czech national meals are roasted pork with cabbage and Czech dumplings and roasted sirloin beef and Czech dumplings. Our Christmas national food is fried carp and potato salad. Everybody likes different food. All around we see fast food stands and sweetshops. We should visit these shops not very often. Hamburgers, hot dogs and other fatty and unhealthy food contains a lot of cholesterol. But fast food is a typical feature of British and American lifestyles. The Americans call fast food restaurants „cheapies“. For example they are McDonald´s, Burger King, Wendy´s and some other. It usually offer some solid food like roast chicken and chips, hamburgers, sandwiches, pizza, salads or desserts ( apple or cherry pie ). Another typical feature of British and American lifestyle is popcorn. You can buy it when you are walking the streets. In our country we start day with breakfast, which consists of something to drink ( tea, cocoa or black coffee ) and something to eat - one or two slices of bread and butter and cheese or eggs, ham, jam and so on. Instead of bread we can eat rolls or buns or we can have something sweet – gingerbread or doughnuts. Quite a lot of people eat cereal for their breakfast – either cornflakes or porridge. Breakfast usually takes a place between 6.00 and 7.00.
Around noon we have our lunch which is warm and consists of some soup, a main dish, something to drink and salad or dessert. Soups are either vegetable soups or meat teas. The main dish can be either sweet ( strawberry dumplings, pancakes with jam ) or we can have some meat or fish or poultry with some vegetables such as potatoes, chips or rice. Lots of people in our country eat rabbits. The main fish cooked in our country are carp and trout. After the main dish we may drink tea, lemonade, juice, Coca – Cola or mineral water, while adults like beer and black coffee. An evening meal may be either warm or cold. Cold and quick supper may consists of some paté on bread or rolls. We can cook a readymade dish from a tin or have soup or potato pancakes. In different parts of Britain people have different eating habits. They have five or six meals a day.
The British begin the day with a cup of coffee or tea in bed early morning. Then they have breakfast. English breakfast starts with a glass of juice and cereal, usually cornflakes with milk or cream and sugar, or porridge. This will be followed by fried or grilled bacon and eggs.

But for most Englishmen breakfast is a bowl of cereal followed by toast and marmelade, and coffee or tea, of course.
In the middle of the morning they have elevenses, which is usually not more than a cup of coffee and biscuits. Sometimes, often at weekends, when they get up later, they have brunch, a combination meal which is eaten for breakfast and lunch.
The midday meal is generally called lunch. Lunch often consists of hot dish ( soup ), a salad, ham and cheese sandwiches, pizza and a dessert.
Around 4.00 it is teatime. In Britain it is a special occasion. The traditional tea consists of thin slices of white or brown bread and butter with cheese, fish or ham, fruit pies, biscuits and tea or coffee. Nowadays many people don´t eat much at teatime, but they have at least one cup of coffee or tea.
The hot dinner which is served around 7.00 may have three or four courses. It consists of soup or some other starter, then the main course which is followed by a dessert. With the meal they may have beer, cider or wine. They finish their dinner with coffee rather than tea. On some special occasions such as Christmas, traditional food is served in Britain.
In the course of a day the human body should get approximately two litres of water. Not all at once, but in small quantities. The same applies to our meals. It isn´t good to overeat. It´s better to eat more frequently, but in small portions. It isn´t easy to determine how much a person should eat in one day. It is bad if somebody eats of boredom, to kill time or just because he likes a particular food.
Inappropriate food may cause a lot of disease. More frequent now are disordes of the digestive system, stomach, thyroid gland and small and large intestine. When we are shopping, we should watch carefully its nutritional values, content of fats, minerals and vitamins.