When talking with a fellow American-in-Britain and lexicographer recently (hello, Katherine!), the topic of meal deals came up. I thought: great topic for a blog post. Then I discovered this is something that this US-UK lunch-consumption difference has been discussed a lot on the web already. But that's never stopped me from (BrE) having a more linguistic go at a topic...
To quote Wikipedia (but with links to my relevant blog posts):
In the United Kingdom, a meal deal is a sales promotion which consists of three items: a main* (often a sandwich or salad box), a drink, and a snack (commonly crisps, fruit or confectionery). Meal deals are primarily eaten at lunchtime, and more than a third of Britons buy one at least once per week. Over 7 million are sold every weekday.
*main is another Britishism for another day
You can get a meal deal at a (orig. AmE) supermarket or (orig. AmE) convenience store, or (BrE) petrol/(AmE) gas station, but also at Boots the (BrE) Chemist—what Americans would call a drug store. (The BrE semi-equivalent of convenience store is corner shop—but corner shops might be smaller affairs. It tends to be the [orig. AmE] chain stores that offer meal deals.) The centrality of meal deals to UK culture can be found in the sheer number of meal deal inflation trackers, reviews, and hacks available on the internet.
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| comparison of meal deal prices on mealdealer.uk |
As hot fast food has become more and more popular in the UK, outlets like McDonald's have also taken to calling their offers meal deals.
But one doesn't hear the expression meal deal as much in AmE:
The concept of getting a sandwich (in the American sense of the word), (orig. AmE) side and drink for a bargain price is very familiar. It's just that in the US: (a) the food tends to be freshly prepared and (often) hot from fast food places, and (b) in that context, it can be called a value meal but with enough context, it's just a meal. This has come up before at the à la carte post, where I note that if you order a Big Mac, you might be asked "the sandwich or the meal?"—"the sandwich" being the Big Mac (because it's the broader American sense of sandwich) and "the meal" being the Big Mac plus (orig. AmE) fries and a drink. It is a deal, but we don't tend to call it a meal deal.
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| Wikipedia's illustration for Combination Meal, from the In-N-Out burger chain |
That use of meal is very particular to fast-food chains. More general in AmE is combination (meal) or combo—which predates the use of meal in the 'bargain' sense. While a take-away/take-out place might offer combos, so could an eat-in restaurant. For instance, Mexican restaurants often offer combo dinners, like these ones from an Indiana restaurant menu:
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| La Cabana Restaurants |
Personally, I get a British meal deal about once a year—and then only if there are nicer things than boxed sandwiches on offer. That's a fairly American reaction to the phenomenon. One of my bonding exercises with other Americans in Britain is to have conversations like "What's up with those sandwiches? Why would you want to eat refrigerated bread? Why does everything have mayonnaise? And all those triangular plastic boxes!" (Though the boxes have got[ten] much less plasticky as environmental awareness has grown.) I'm amused that one of the most popular sandwiches has an American origin story: the chicken club (sandwich).
I probably get an American fast-food meal as or less often. When the fast-food places have the calories listed on the menu, the meal looks less like a bargain and more like an investment in future cardiac bypass surgery. But Mexican restaurant combos seem to less often have calories listed—ooh yeah.
And finally, if you want to see people scooping (BrE) egg mayonnaise (AmE: egg salad) with their hands, here's a five-minute video about a British sandwich factory:
So are you a meal or a meal deal person? Any refrigerated sandwiches you want to recommend?
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ReplyDeleteI note that in my US life my favorite seated restaurants that are Mexican-like always have combos as a meal option. It is usually more than I want so I order the standard plate. The Combo options are the same on your illustrated Mexican restaurant menu. Other seated restaurants are less likely to have combos. "meal deal" is rare to unknown in these here parts.
ReplyDeleteMeal deals!! :-D When I walked into a British supermarket I was amazed at how many triangle sandwiches they had. And what crazy fun flavors. Tikka masala and "Mexican" sandwiches (both were great!), roasted turkey and prawn cocktail chips (both were great!).
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of British meal deals till last year when I hiked across Scotland on a pilgrimage. Every morning, I woke up, looked for some kind of convenience store, and bought a lunch. I already carried water, so on the first day I just grabbed a sandwich and chips. The cashier said, "It'll be cheaper if you get a drink too." I thought, "What is this magic?" So that started a great pattern everyday.
(And the pigs under blankets sandwich (in the picture) is delicious!)
"Why does everything have mayonnaise?" is quite the surprising one. I was under the impression that "buttering" one's sandwich bread with mayonnaise was the standard in the US and the idea of using, um, butter (other spreads are available) for it was quite shocking to our American cousins.
ReplyDeletere: meal deals, I don't get them often, and even less often these days now that vegetarian options have lessened, but Asda does a good ploughman's. Unconventional, as it replaces the lettuce with spinach, but it works.
You can get sandwiches without mayonnaise, and they are always labelled as such. One place that doesn't, as far as I am aware, do meal deals, is Prets, but their sandwiches are far and away the best (as is their coffee!). Also, don't forget the evening meal deals many supermarkets offer - a main course and side, to be heated up at home, a dessert, usually, but not always, to be served cold, and a bottle of wine or similar for two people for about £12. I remember a row about them when they first came in as the health gurus sucked their teeth and said how dreadful that preople might be drinking a whole bottle of wine between two every day! I did wonder why they thought people would drink the whole bottle every day, even if they were to get a deal every evening!
ReplyDeleteMeal deals are pretty common around here (SoCal), but mostly in sit-down restaurants of the middling sort. I asked Google for meal deals near me and there were pages of them, some I will have to check out. Convenience stores here often have racks of sad-looking, almost forlorn, triangular sandwiches (love that phrase), and they often offer combos with a sandwich or hot item, plus store-brand chips and a fountain drink.
ReplyDeleteIf you want another regional variant, in Quebec, combos at fast food places are referred to as "trios", even by some of the anglos.
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha! Welcome to the sandwich differences rabbit hole! I love a meal deal and nearly always get the egg and cress with salt and vinegar crisps and a tea on a train or at an airport in the UK. The biggest difference with an American airport off-the-shelf sandwich is a) the price (I recently paid $20+ just for the sandwich at JFK) and b) the ratio of bread to filling. For some reason those prepackaged US sandwiches have enormous slices of dry bread (unbuttered), whereas the thinner bread of the UK sandwich is much easier to eat and the whole thing is suitably moist ("Tuna Crunch" is a nice option too). This is in contrast to a US sandwich bought in a deli, where the filling is so huge it's hard to get your mouth around it, and the whole arrangement has to be held together with a frilly toothpick. In a US airport I've resorted to those salads in a jar from a vending machine, which are surprisingly edible. Still, you will never pay a high street price in a US airport. Bless Boots the Chemist!
ReplyDeleteI normally make my own sandwiches if I know I'm going to need a packed lunch, and only buy ready-made ones if I'm away from home or need a quick lunch unexpectedly.
ReplyDeleteI think the essence of a British meal deal is the ditching of responsibility for feeding yourself well. A meal deal means I do not think of whether it will be nutritious or delicious: it is what it is. I remember my last one with great pleasure, though I could not tell you what was in the sandwich, nor what the drink was, nor the flavour of the crisps. It's the circumstances that count. (In that case, sitting under a street light beside the Tyne after an exceptional concert on my way back to my hotel, having just - a rare treat - been addressed as "bonny lad".) There's nothing in the purchasing or the consuming to distract one from more important things. I have no idea whether US meal deals share this invaluable quality of self-effacement.
ReplyDeleteThe Indiana Mexican menu illustrates an important difference between a "combo" and a "meal/value meal" -- the combo lists different food options, but no drinks. I asked ChatGPT to do a quick survey of the US restaurant menu universe. FWIW, it found that while "meals" and even "combo meals" typically followed the major fast-food chains' practice of including a beverage, "combo" very often didn't. Instead, as on the Mexican menu, combos typically sampled different entrees/mains, or added an appetizer or side. And this usage shows up in "platters" as well -- very typical of New York diners ("burger" versus "burger platter," which likely includes fries, maybe lettuce and tomato to go on the sandwich), or barbecue (a brisket or pulled-pork "sandwich" versus a "platter" often comprising, say, two meats and two sides (https://www.oldbluebbq.com/union-market).
ReplyDelete