steepholm: (Default)
steepholm ([personal profile] steepholm) wrote2017-01-22 04:56 pm
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A Takeaway Memory Test

I've been trying to remember (without looking it up) at what point in my lifetime certain kinds of takeaway restaurant became commonplace in the UK. By "commonplace" I don't mean "available somewhere in the country" but "available in a typical mid-sized city" - say, a Derby, a Southampton or a Swansea.

This is my impression (but remember I lived my first 18 years in a small market town, so my knowledge is limited):

Common from before I was born: Fish and Chip shops, Chinese takeaways

1960s on: Indian takeaways and other curry houses

Around 1975-80: American-style hamburger and pizza places (Wimpys had been around longer than that, but seems a bit different in my mind, and not that commonly encountered)

1980s: Kebab houses

1990s on - everything else.


Is that reasonable? Have I left anything out, or got anything badly wrong? Remember, I'm not talking about London or the other really big cities - and of course cities with large immigrant populations from a particular country would probably have that country's food ready in takeaway form earlier.

Also, when did people start saying "to go" instead of "to take away" in this country? My impression is that this Americanism started in coffee shops like Starbucks and spread from there, which would put it the early years of this century. Do you agree?

And, on a different topic, have you noticed that "tsunami" has now almost entirely replaced "tidal wave" in common usage? It was not always so! On the other hand, I sense that "rickshaw" is being edged out by "tuk tuk", so the tide of Japanese-origin words is not entirely unchecked.
rushthatspeaks: (Default)

[personal profile] rushthatspeaks 2017-01-22 11:00 pm (UTC)(link)
This fascinates me, because it is of course totally different in the U.S. both chronologically and linguistically.

One thing I find interesting is that, at least during the last five-ten years, a restaurant asks if you want something to go if you've been eating there and are having an overlarge portion sent home with you, but if you're going to the restaurant with the express purpose of picking up food and eating at home, it is neither to go nor takeaway: you are getting takeout. If we're debating eating restaurant food at home, it will be 'does that place do delivery, or just takeout?'. Does that one exist in the UK?

And, having been born in middle-of-nowhere Ohio in the early 1980s, I can say with some certainty that the first Chinese restaurant within fifty miles of my birthplace arrived in 1988. They still don't have Indian, and someone is missing a bet by not yet having set up a fish-and-chip shop, because the major form of quick food there is small local-ish chains that deep-fry everything, as well as the national fast-food chains and a few things in the diner style. Greek gyro shops, interestingly, popped up all over Ohio in the nineties, as did a very U.S.-ified sort of Mexican place which smothers absolutely everything in cheese. I can't get the bad Mexican of my youth in Boston at all, and I miss it.
jadelennox: Amelia Pond devouring custard (doctor who: eating amelia)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2017-01-23 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
Even outside of Boston, I remember our first Indian restaurant arriving in the northern (urban, immigrant-packed) burbs until 1989-90.

We got Pret a few years ago and I adore it.