I know the Vermont Country Store sells crumpets, and Wolferman’s sells crumpets and scones, if you want to try these.
Actually, I had that lemonade; 7-Up and Sprite are pale imitations. The best lemonade I had the entire month I spent on the island was “homemade”, but I bought it at a tea room or cafe of some sort in Oxford.
I’m thinking of another trip to the UK, and I’ve got designs on that lemonade recipe.
Muffins are not unknown in England, it’s the concoctions that Americans call “English Muffins” that are, I believe, unknown. A British dictionary that I have defines muffin as “light round spongy, flat, scone. – muffin-man.” (OK, it’s not a great dictionary, just a small pocket one, but at least it’s British and not American English.)
The American English Muffin is definitely not a scone. The consistency is lighter. They’re more bread-like, although they are about the size of a scone. And as mentioned by others, scones are generally sweeter in taste. (In reviewing the postings, this was actually in reference to crumpets. I can’t recall from my living in England the similarity or difference between scones and crumpet.) And although my culinary searches in Britain has been more towards fish & chips shops, pub grub and B&B breakfasts, I’ve never come across in England (or Scotland, Wales or Ireland either for that matter) anything that looks like an American style English Muffin. If in fact they were made in America by a transplanted Englishman, that would explain a lot. Of course, I still could be entirely wrong and I’ve just missed the areas in the UK where they serve up muffins that are the same as what we purchase in the US supermarkets.
3 times may be excesive, but you should eat a McDonalds (once) in every country you travel to.
Best Mickey-Ds: Jundai, Brazil. I suspect they don’t use that ‘vegetable shortening’ or whatever. I dunno. It was good: Crispy, hot, flavorful fries. Burgers actually fried, rather than steamed.
Worst: Rome, Italy. Makes sense, I suppose.
As to muffins, when in London I had some for breakfast one day. I ordered ‘muffins’. Tasted like (American) English muffins, looked like scones (sort of rougher, not smooth like American English muffins). Eh. It’s all good.
This page sums the difference up quite simply:
Thank you GorillaMan for the info. I do plan on trying out the recipes. And pardon me for sounding like a daft bugger for posting statements nicely made by others, but the problem is that I really am a daft bugger. I hadn’t noticed the second page of informative comments. :smack:
Just to confuse matters a little , crumpets ( i.e. the things with holes in them ) are called picklets in the West Midlands.
Even more confusion , I have found out they can also be spelled pyclets
To confuse things even further:
What the English call a crumpet, up here in Scotalnd we’d usually call that an “English Muffin”.
What we call a crumpet the English would call a pancake.
And what we call pancakes are in reality dropped scones.
(Although I think due to standardisation in supermarkets etc we’re beginning to fall in line with our English oppressors 
, and don’t get me started on the whole turnip/swede issue)
Just in case you were wondering, “French Fries” aren’t directly named after France. In cooking, “to french” something, means to cut it in thin strips before cooking it. So, these are “french fried potatoes”.
What do they call a Yorkshire Pudding in Yorkshire?
Yorkshire Puddings. No mystery, I’m afraid.
(Of course, what they were called in past times would be a different matter, and probably far more interesting…)