Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's English recipes for recipes, part of the Celtic world. This page gives a listing of all the Scottish recipes added to this site. These recipes, for the most part, originate in Scotland. Otherwise they are modern recipes incorporating traditional Scottish ingredients, with 474 recipes in total.

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers approximately 62%, and over 100 smaller adjacent islands. It has land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to the south-west, and the Irish Sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. At the 2021 census, the population was 56,490,048. London is both the largest city and the capital.

In terms of its cookery, England has a long culinary history in English. The first proper cookery book written in English dates back to the 1390s (this is the Forme of Cury, a roll of cookery attributed to the chief master cooks of King Richard II). It is the first book entirely containing recipes (and one of the first proper books) written in Middle English.

England

England is a nation that is a constituent part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west. The Irish Sea lies north west of England, whilst the Celtic Sea lies to the south west. The North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight.

The name 'England' is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means 'land of the Angles' who were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages. The first known use of 'England' to refer to the southern part of the island of Great Britain occurs in 897, and its modern spelling was first used in 1538. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe that was less significant than others, such as the Saxons, came to be used for the entire country and its people is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons. Indeed, in modern Welsh the term for the English is Saeson, based on a Brythonic form of Saxon. In Scottish Gaelic, the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England (Sasunn). An alternative name for England is Albion, a name which originally referred to the entire Island of Britain. Albion is now applied to England in a more poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend.

A Brief History of England

Roman military withdrawals left Britain open to invasion by pagan, seafaring warriors from north-western continental Europe, chiefly the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who had long raided the coasts of the Roman province and began to settle, initially in the eastern part of the country. During the settlement period the lands ruled by the incomers seem to have been fragmented into numerous tribal territories, but by the 7th century, when substantial evidence of the situation again becomes available, these had coalesced into roughly a dozen kingdoms including Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Kent and Sussex. In the early 9th century Mercia was displaced as the foremost kingdom by Wessex. Later in that century escalating attacks by the Danes culminated in the conquest of the north and east of England, overthrowing the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Wessex under Alfred the Great was left as the only surviving English kingdom, and under his successors it steadily expanded at the expense of the kingdoms of the Danelaw. This brought about the political unification of England, first accomplished under Æthelstan in 927 and definitively established after further conflicts by Eadred in 953. A fresh wave of Scandinavian attacks from the late 10th century ended with the conquest of this united English kingdom by Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013 and again by his son Cnut in 1016, turning it into the centre of a short-lived North Sea empire that also included Denmark and Norway. However the native royal dynasty was restored with the accession of Edward the Confessor in 1042.

A dispute over the succession to Edward the Confessor led to the Norman conquest of England in 1066, accomplished by an army led by Duke William of Normandy (the Normans themselves originated from Scandinavia and had settled in Normandy in the late 9th and early 10th centuries). This conquest led to the almost total dispossession of the English elite and its replacement by a new Norman French speaking aristocracy, whose speech had a profound and permanent effect on the English language. It can also be argued that Norman French cuisine lays the bedrock to English cookery — at least the cookery of the nobles and the English court.

Under Henry II, the House of Plantagenet from Anjou inherited the English throne and thus added England to the budding Angevin Empire of fiefdoms that the family had inherited in France (including Aquitaine). The dynasty reigned for three centuries, proving noted monarchs such as Richard I, Edward I, Edward III and Henry V. This period saw changes in trade and legislation, including the signing of the Magna Carta — an English legal charter used to limit the sovereign's powers by law and to protect the privileges of freemen.

From 1453 to 1487 civil war between two branches of the royal family (the Yorkists and Lancastrians) occurred—this being a period of conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. Eventually it led to the Yorkists losing the throne entirely to a Welsh noble family, the Tudors (Tuduriaid) — a branch of the Lancastrians headed by Henry Tudor who invaded with Welsh and Breton mercenaries, gaining victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field where the Yorkist king Richard III was killed.

The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Óengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Óengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in terms of numbers were victorious. Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the crux decussata upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Óengus honoured his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background is said to have been adopted as the design of the flag of Scotland on the basis of this legend.

During the Tudor period, the Renaissance reached England through Italian courtiers, who reintroduced artistic, educational and scholarly debate from classical antiquity. During this time England began to develop naval skills, and exploration to the West intensified. Henry VIII broke from communion with the Catholic Church, over issues relating to divorce, under the Acts of Supremacy in 1534 which proclaimed the monarch head of the Church of England. He also legally incorporated his ancestral land, Wales, into the Kingdom of England with the 1535–1542 acts of union. There were internal religious conflicts during the reigns of Henry's daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I. Mary brought the country back to Catholicism, whilst Elizabeth broke from it again, more forcefully asserting the supremacy of Anglicanism.

The political structure of the island was changed in 1603, when the Stuart king James VI of Scotland, a kingdom which was a longtime rival of England, inherited the throne of England as James I—creating a personal union. He styled himself King of Great Britain, although this had no basis in English law. Under the auspices of King James VI and I the Authorized King James Version of the Bible was published in 1611.

Based on conflicting political, religious and social positions, the English Civil War was fought between the supporters of Parliament and those of the king, Charles I. This was a part of the wider multifaceted Wars of the Three Kingdoms, involving Scotland and Ireland. The Parliamentarians were victorious, Charles I was executed and the kingdom was replaced with the Commonwealth. Leader of the Parliament forces, Oliver Cromwell declared himself Lord Protector in 1653 and a period of personal rule followed. After Cromwell's death, and his son Richard's resignation as Lord Protector, Charles II was invited to return as monarch in 1660 with the Restoration. It was now constitutionally established that the King and Parliament should rule together, though Parliament would have the real power. This was established with the Bill of Rights in 1689. Among the statutes set down were that the law could only be made by Parliament and could not be suspended by the King, and the King could not impose taxes or raise an army without prior approval by Parliament.

With the agreements of both the parliaments of England and Scotland, the two countries joined in political union, to create the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. To accommodate the union, institutions such as the law and national church of each remained separate. Under the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain, output from the Royal Society and other English initiatives combined with the Scottish Enlightenment to create innovations in science and engineering. This paved the way for the establishment of the British Empire. Domestically it drove the Industrial Revolution, a period of profound change in the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of England, resulting in industrialised agriculture, manufacture, engineering and mining, as well as new and pioneering road, rail and water networks to facilitate their expansion and development.

Since the late 20th century the administration of the United Kingdom has moved towards devolved governance in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. England and Wales continues to exist as a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. Devolution has stimulated a greater emphasis on a more English-specific identity and patriotism. There is no devolved English government, but an attempt to create a similar system on a sub-regional basis was rejected by referendum.

England's Capital

England's capital was originally Winchester, but this was replaced by London in 1066. Today London remains England's and Britain's capital and largest city. During the 19th century (the Victorian era), London became the largest and most populous metropolitan area in the world. Even today, London is the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures.

The Symbols of England

Throughout this page you will see the traditional national symbols of England, these are the three lions (on the Royal emblem — originating from Richard the Lionheart's adoption of the symbol), the cross of St George (the English Flag) and the Tudor rose (an amalgam of the roses of York and Lancaster).

The patron saint of England is Saint George; his symbolic cross (red cross on a white ground) is included in the flag of England, as well as in the Union Flag as part of a combination. The St George's Cross has been the national flag of England since the 13th century. Originally the flag was used by the maritime Republic of Genoa. The English monarch paid a tribute to the Doge of Genoa from 1190 onwards, so that English ships could fly the flag as a means of protection when entering the Mediterranean. A red cross was a symbol for many Crusaders in the 12th and 13th centuries. It became associated with Saint George, along with countries and cities, which claimed him as their patron saint and used his cross as a banner. Since 1606 the St George's Cross has formed part of the design of the Union Flag, a pan-British flag designed by King James I.

There are numerous other symbols and symbolic artefacts, both official and unofficial, including the Tudor rose, the nation's floral emblem, and the Three Lions featured on the Royal Arms of England (image, left). The Tudor rose (image centre) was adopted as a national emblem of England around the time of the Wars of the Roses as a symbol of peace. It is a syncretic symbol in that it merged the white rose of the Yorkists and the red rose of the Lancastrians—cadet branches of the Plantagenets who went to war over control of the nation. It is also known as the Rose of England. The oak tree is a symbol of England, representing strength and endurance. The Royal Oak symbol and Oak Apple Day commemorate the escape of King Charles II from the grasp of the parliamentarians after his father's execution (image, right): he hid in an oak tree to avoid detection before safely reaching exile.

England's National Day is 23^rd April which is St George's Day.

Food and Cuisine:

English cuisine, unlike the cuisine of most of Britain's other nations falls into two distinct strands. There is the regional cuisine and dishes of England that evolved out of peasant cookery and is based heavily on the one grain, oats, that is guaranteed to grow in the damp and cold climate. There is also the court cookery which evolved from Norman French cookery and throughout the centuries has been heavily influenced by French chefs and French styles.

Since the Early Modern Period the food of England has historically been characterised by its simplicity of approach and a reliance on the high quality of natural produce. During the Middle Ages and through the Renaissance period, English cuisine enjoyed an excellent reputation, though a decline began during the Industrial Revolution with the move away from the land and increasing urbanisation of the populace. The cuisine of England has, however, recently undergone a revival.

The 18^th and 19^th centuries brought more baking, particularly in the large cities and that tradition is still evident.