Tangy pickle yes. Branston, piccalilli. Or pickled onions, relish, or somesuch.

The pickle is probably the new aspect. Farm workers have obviously been eating cheese, bread, pasties, cold meats etc. since forever.

Nah, just a pint of beer

Try a ploughmans meal - bread, cheese and pickle. Awesome as a lunch.

A lazy supermarket special - a roast chicken in a bag and a baguette roll picked up on the way to the checkout. We’ve all been there and I’m sure it makes a passable meal, but cooking is a skill everyone should endeavour to be proficient in.

Like I said, Britain didn’t function in a vacuum. Fish and chips is still a uniquely British thing however.

Yes all those other things are distinctly British. Britain didn’t function in a vacuum and I’m sure there are influences to everything. But if you eat a British pork pie you absolutely know what it is. Same for fish and chips. Same for all those things.

Since we’re comparing to Italy where do you think tomatoes came from? Do you think pasta wasn’t independently invented in many places? Do you think olive oil, or bread, ragus, salted pork etc weren’t also done elsewhere?

Definitely - foods like British / Scottish / Irish / Ulster fry, pork pies, bangers & mash, fish & chips, Sunday roast (carved meat, roast potatoes, yorkshire puds), shepherd’s pie, beef wellington to name a few. Plenty of deserts too. And ingredients like worcester sauce, English mustard, marmite etc.

A Sunday roast / carvery is basically what Americans get when they order prime rib. The cut of meat is slightly different due to different classifications but for all intents and purposes it’s a Sunday rib roast. For some bizarre reason in the US it’s regarded as fine dining with a price 4x as much as it would be for a better Sunday roast meal / carvery in a British pub. Over two decades ago I went to dine in a Lawry’s Prime Rib in Chicago - big mistake - massively overpriced for what it was.