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Laura Mason in ''Food Culture in Great Britain'' states that "in the 1980s, the nation's favorite meal out appeared to be prawn cocktail, steak and chips, followed by Black Forest gateau."<ref name="Mason2004">{{cite book|author=Mason, Laura.|title=Food Culture in Great Britain|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=9rFIyN1OWfQC&pg=PA153|date=2004|publisher=Westport: [[Greenwood Press]]|isbn=978-0-313-32798-8|pages=153}}</ref> |
Laura Mason in ''Food Culture in Great Britain'' states that "in the 1980s, the nation's favorite meal out appeared to be prawn cocktail, steak and chips, followed by Black Forest gateau."<ref name="Mason2004">{{cite book|author=Mason, Laura.|title=Food Culture in Great Britain|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=9rFIyN1OWfQC&pg=PA153|date=2004|publisher=Westport: [[Greenwood Press]]|isbn=978-0-313-32798-8|pages=153}}</ref> |
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The meal eventually became unfashionable as British dining tastes became more sophisticated from the 1980s onwards. [[Simon Hopkinson]] and [[Lindsey Bareham]] first coined the term "Great British Meal" in their 1997 book ''The Prawn Cocktail Years'', which includes a chapter titled, ''The Great British Meal Out''. They note that, "cooked as it should be, this much derided and often ridiculed dinner is still something very special indeed".<ref name=LB>{{cite web|title=The Prawn Cocktail Years|url=http://www.lindseybareham.com/prawn-cocktail-years-book/|website=lindseybareham.com|accessdate=11 June 2014}}</ref><ref name=Cindex>{{cite web|last1=Saumarez Smith|first1=Joe. (2007)|title=Review: The Prawn Cocktail Years|url=http://www.cookingindex.com/cookbooks/14/modern-british/the-prawn-cocktail-years.htm|website=Cooking Index|accessdate=12 June 2014}}</ref><ref name=Independent>{{cite news|last1=Hopkinson & Bareham|first1=Simon & Lindsey|title=English heritage|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/english-heritage-1237765.html|accessdate=13 June 2014|work=The Independent|date=6 September 1997}}</ref> |
The meal eventually became unfashionable as British dining tastes became more sophisticated from the 1980s onwards and the Gallup survey conducted by the trade magazine ''Caterer and Hotelkeeper'' in 1989 confirmed that Black Forest gateau had suddenly become less popular.<ref name=Wood/> [[Simon Hopkinson]] and [[Lindsey Bareham]] first coined the term "Great British Meal" in their 1997 book ''The Prawn Cocktail Years'', which includes a chapter titled, ''The Great British Meal Out''. They note that, "cooked as it should be, this much derided and often ridiculed dinner is still something very special indeed".<ref name=LB>{{cite web|title=The Prawn Cocktail Years|url=http://www.lindseybareham.com/prawn-cocktail-years-book/|website=lindseybareham.com|accessdate=11 June 2014}}</ref><ref name=Cindex>{{cite web|last1=Saumarez Smith|first1=Joe. (2007)|title=Review: The Prawn Cocktail Years|url=http://www.cookingindex.com/cookbooks/14/modern-british/the-prawn-cocktail-years.htm|website=Cooking Index|accessdate=12 June 2014}}</ref><ref name=Independent>{{cite news|last1=Hopkinson & Bareham|first1=Simon & Lindsey|title=English heritage|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/english-heritage-1237765.html|accessdate=13 June 2014|work=The Independent|date=6 September 1997}}</ref> |
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==Association with Berni Inns== |
==Association with Berni Inns== |
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Prawn cocktail, steak garni with chips, and Black Forest gâteau was the most popular dinner menu in British restaurants in the 1980s.[1] It was especially associated with the Berni Inn chain which popularised mass-market dining out after the end of food rationing in Britain, following the Second World War. The Prawn Cocktail Years, by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham, called this meal the Great British Meal Out.[2]
The Great British Meal out was a meal in a restaurant designed to appeal to those for whom eating out at all was unusual and for whom a prawn cocktail, steak garni or gateau were exotic foreign food. Nigel Slater wrote of his childhood in the 1970s: "As a family, we never went out for dinner unless we were on holiday, but there were occasional Saturday lunches at the local Berni Inn" adding "Steak garni always sounded so much more exotic than plain steak."[3] The standardised menu suited the restaurant, who could purchase and prepare food in bulk within tight cost controls,[4] and avoided the need for the customer to choose courses from a menu which might include foods with which they were unfamiliar or which might be in a foreign language, both of which had the potential to cause social embarrassment.
Laura Mason in Food Culture in Great Britain states that "in the 1980s, the nation's favorite meal out appeared to be prawn cocktail, steak and chips, followed by Black Forest gateau."[5]
The meal eventually became unfashionable as British dining tastes became more sophisticated from the 1980s onwards and the Gallup survey conducted by the trade magazine Caterer and Hotelkeeper in 1989 confirmed that Black Forest gateau had suddenly become less popular.[1] Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham first coined the term "Great British Meal" in their 1997 book The Prawn Cocktail Years, which includes a chapter titled, The Great British Meal Out. They note that, "cooked as it should be, this much derided and often ridiculed dinner is still something very special indeed".[6][7][8]
The meal became associated with the Berni Inn chain, established 1955 and which had 147 hotels and restaurants by 1970, making it the largest food chain outside the United States. The chain prospered by offering a menu with a limited number of options in "Olde Worlde" style restaurants that looked much the same in every branch. The most popular meal at a "Berni", even as late as the 1980s, remained prawn cocktail, steak and chips, and Black Forest gateau.[9]
In their 2000 obituary of Frank Berni, The Guardian notes "the Briton's favourite menu of prawn cocktail, steak and Black Forest gateau".[10] The Bristol Post noted that, by the 1980s, the Berni format was starting to look dated and "By then, Berni Inns were becoming popular shorthand for naff – prawn cocktail starter, steak & chips main, Black Forest gateau for dessert".[11] The Berni Inn chain was sold to Whitbread in 1990 and became the, not entirely dissimilar, Beefeater chain.
In 2013, The Times reported on the bankruptcy of the Scotch Steak Houses chain earlier that year, which it cast as latter day Berni Inns. The paper wrote that "for three decades [the owner] has run restaurants where time – and quality – appeared to stand still. While his rivals sought to keep pace with consumer tastes, Ali Salih's Aberdeen, Highland and Angus steakhouses continued to serve prawn cocktail, steak and Black Forest gateau to diners seated on velour banquettes as they quaffed Blue Nun."[12]
In his 1990 novel Titmuss Regained, John Mortimer has Sir Willoughby mention "prawn cocktail, followed by steak and 'all the trimmings', to be topped off with a liberal helping of Black Forest gateau".[13]
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