I don’t say that it is true of all English people, I’m sure it isn’t an absolute, nothing ever is.
My experience is that it is very very rare and likely to be more common where there is a communication being made to other nationalities or markets.
Any two random english people? very unlikely to need or use the “english” qualifier.
It seems we’re in a place now where no cite is valid.
Any video, including just of random Brits talking? Oh, that’s for an international audience.
One of England’s most famous chefs, on a webpage that doesn’t have Imperial measures, and only calls cilantro coriander? Well, he has an international audience too.
The UK’s biggest store? That’s…because they are trying to be trendy.
Are Hovis also trying to be trendy?
What would confirm that a significant proportion of Brits are familiar with, or use the term, ‘English muffin’?
familiar with? pretty much everyone. “use” very, very few unless they have a external need or wish to communicate with people who may use that term, like supermarkets, or people posting recipes online, or people on youtube.
If I were doing any of those things I’d use the term “english muffin”.
And I said nothing about “trendy” that is not a word that passed my fingers.
You seem to think that I am in some way bothered about using the term “english muffin” I’m not. I’m just giving you an honest assessment of its general use from my own experience.
ETA - I note that the “trendy” claim was not in reply to me, feel free to ignore the above paragraph.
All of those examples are likely to be communicating with as wide an audience as possible. Using the extra word “english” doesn’t necessarily cause widespread confusion amongst the English audience and so using it may help communication with other for no great cost. Meanwhile, the vast, vast majority of UK people get by using merely the word “muffin”.
Breakfast?
According to this, it’s because an English ex-pat devised them in the US, and named them “English Muffins” to distinguish them from the American style of muffins, which is more like a cupcake. Why he didn’t call it a crumpet, I don’t know.
The History of English Muffins | Origin of English Muffins (goldmedalbakery.com)
Because crumpets are not the same thing at all.
What Americans call Canadian bacon is cured and usually smoked pork loin. I do believe, as mentioned above, that “back bacon” would be the UK term. Bacon in the US, otherwise, is generally made from pork bellies.
Interesting! Thanks
So am I, and I am an English person, living in England.
But anyway, it seems your position now is virtually the same as I said in my initial post; most people are familiar with the term “english muffin”, and wouldn’t think anything odd of hearing it, even if they will just use “muffin” most commonly in everyday conversation.
sure, I don’t think we were ever really in disagreement
Canadian bacon and UK bacon are both back bacon, but they’re different. I can’t really explain how, but they’re not exactly the same thing. Maybe one is smoked and one isn’t?
Well, the American stuff typically is. The Wikipedia article says UK back bacon comes both in smoked and unsmoked forms.
Just looking at pictures, it appears typical UK back bacon is not cooked, like American “Canadian bacon” is, so it has a very different look (and taste) to it. We Americans can eat Canadian bacon like it’s lunch meat (which I usually do.)
So, you are correct – there is that important difference. Best to say that “Canadian bacon” is a form of back bacon that is cured, smoked, and cooked.
I think I first heard the term “streaky bacon” on the English cooking show Two Fat Ladies, which Food Network used to show here in the U.S. As a result, whenever I see the term, I always hear it, in my head, being said by a woman with an English accent (probably Jennifer Patterson’s voice).
I have purchased ready made crumpets at my local global market, and yes, they are not the same as English muffins. Quite delish, though, with good butter on them and a cup of British tea (I like Twinings English Breakfast).
Rashers of British bacon are sliced more thinly than Canadian back bacon and generally have more fat. So far as I can tell, they also always come in the shape of a pork chop, whereas slices of Canadian back bacon are round.
To me at least, the “Canadian bacon” used in Egg McMuffins is more like rounds of thinly sliced ham. There is also something called “pea meal bacon,” which is actually pork loin rolled in pea or corn meal. This is commonly found in Canadian supermarkets, but I don’t recall ever seeing it in the US.
Crumpets have a completely different texture than English muffins, but to me they taste virtually the same. I like to smother them in butter and orange marmalade.
It seemed to me that they used the term in natural speech. It doesn’t sound like they are making an attempt to deliberately use a term that isn’t natural to them. Indeed, I’ve watched a lot of their videos. When they use a term that is deliberate, they tend to make note of it, and call attention to the fact, something like (“we say X; you might call it Y”).
I’d bet a few lira that Turkish taffy isn’t a thing in Turkey.*
It does vaguely have Turkish roots though.
“The bars were packaged in wrappers that showed smiling men in fezzes pouring batter into a huge vat. Of course, in Turkey, the fez had been outlawed by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920’s, but back in the 50’s the design drew no complaints.”
*they stopped making it in the U.S. years ago.
This reminds me of something. My wife is of Chinese descent, born in Chicago. Every once in a while, she’ll point out: “When I was growing up, we didn’t call it ‘Chinese food’. We just called it ‘food’.”
For many decades, the Swiss dairy cartel restricted the vast majority of cheese makers in the country to producing something like seven cheeses, and the vast majority of that was Emmental and Gruyère. It’s only after the association’s power was broken about 20 years ago that other traditional Swiss cheeses started making a comeback.
So it wasn’t too much of a stretch to consider Emmental to be the iconic Swiss cheese for about 80 years.