British food has been maligned for so long that, despite attempts by food writers to correct this impression, many travelers to England worry that they will have a hard time finding edible meals. Quite the contrary is true, as I discovered during a month’s sojourn there last summer. Keep in mind that you no more want to order pot roast and gravy in England than boiled dinners in New England. The things to enjoy are the wonderful ales (so smooth, they’re "like a chocolate shake," said a friend) and hard ciders; the amazing variety of cheeses; pastries whose names seem plucked from old nursery rhymes; the soothing teas, meals in themselves; and above all, the local delicacies.

Don’t expect to find widespread contemporary influences from French, Italian, or Spanish cuisines. If it’s ethnic you’re after, go for Indian, Chinese, or Southeast Asian. But if, like me, you want, when in Britain, to do as the Brits do, keep an eye out for items touted by the natives. Ask questions, try new things, follow the flavor trends and, above all, settle in for tea in the late afternoon.

My group was headquartered in Bath, in the county of Somerset, about 100 miles west of London, near enough to Cornwall to have Cornish pasty shops everywhere ("pasties" are those compact meat pies designed for Cornish tin miners to carry in their pockets); near enough to Devon to have "cream teas," with Devonshire clotted cream served with scones; near enough to orchard country to have local ciders at every bar; and smack in the middle of Bath buns — a slightly sweet bun with sugar syrup and raisins in the middle — and Sally Lunn buns, a brioche-like round bun, served with tea and jam or used for sandwiches.

It’s often been said that the starch in the British diet is a comfort for the drizzly, rainy weather. The other comfort is popping into a pub for a pint or half-pint of the local brew. In most pubs, the sense of community with your fellow imbibers and the colorful interchanges with barmaids or bartenders is as much a part of throwing back a few as the taste of the beer or ale. Judging by the few local dark ales that I tried on draught, the taste is often fresher and yet heftier than run-of-the-mill beers in the States. Gem, by Bath Ales, is brewed in the bottle and touts itself as "a rich aroma of hops and malt with a long, deep bittersweet finish." Um, yeah. Or, rather, yum.

In addition to pubs, bakeries and small cafes offered made some of my best discoveries, including Eccles cakes (like a small flat scone, oozing butter and spilling over with currants), and warm, fat cheese straws in Amesbury, near Stonehenge; Stilton and mushroom pasties (meatless meat pies, as it were) in Glastonbury, one of King Arthur’s hang-outs; bara brith, a cake-like bread dense with raisins and currants, in Conwy, North Wales; ginger cakes (a light, moist gingerbread) at the Bishop’s Palace in Wells; Victoria sponge cake with jam filling at Dyrham Park, a country estate where Remains of the Day was filmed and where an aggressive peacock begged from our outdoor tea table; and "homity pie," cauliflower, potatoes, and onions baked in what the English call a "flan," like a quiche custard, at a tea shop in Wells.

Many places sold Cornish pasties, including two chains that each had two branches within a few blocks of one another in Bath, as well as in most small towns. In addition to the traditional meat-and-potato varieties, there were always eight or nine vegetarian ones. These pasties had different kinds of vegetables — sweet peppers, mushrooms, onions, or spinach, for example — sometimes mixed together, sometimes with cheese or a cream sauce, or "vegetarian sausage," a soy-protein product. Brits have a long tradition of vocal vegetarians, including George Bernard Shaw, and in the last 10 years, the scare of animal diseases ("mad cow" and hoof-and-mouth) may have encouraged many carnivores to make the switch. The pasties we tried were absolutely delicious when piping hot and very filling — one easily made a meal.

And of course, so does a proper English tea, served with plenty of the eponymous ingredient, a pot-full with milk and sugar. Even if it’s not "high tea," which comes with cucumber or cream cheese sandwiches as well as little cakes, the scones and clotted cream are quite satisfying. "Fruit scones" come with raisins and currants in them, nothing as fancy as dried apricots or cherries. Clotted cream is a West Country staple that has crept all the way to London, but your proximity to the dairy farms determines its freshness. The best clotted cream tastes like a cross between unsalted butter and whipped cream — the heating of unpasteurized milk "clots" the cream into a semisolid state. Tradition has it served with scones and strawberry jam, though any berry jam will do, and I once had it served with fresh strawberries instead of jam.

The second part of this article will run in the January 2, 2004 issue.