At home we eat quite a lot of what I suppose is 'traditional' Pakistani food. It's not curry and rice, which is what a lot of people expect. Actually, most English people think our food at home is like they'd get in an Indian restaurant, but it isn't really. Most of those restaurants are not Pakistani, so although some things are the same, others aren't. It's a bit like... well, I'm sure there are kind of traditional dishes from the north of England which people don't cook so much in the south...
We do eat rice, but more often we have a kind of bread with our food. Usually we have a thin bread called a chapatti, but there are thicker ones called nan.
We often just have one or two main dishes with these, and I suppose you might call these curries, though it's not the word we use. They've usually got meat in, like chicken, or lamb, or beef, but never pork or ham, 'cos our religion says we mustn't eat anything to do with the pig.
We might also have something made of lentils, called dall, which is a bit like a really thick soup. We like most of our food with spices in, but I expect you know that.
Usually we have special meat in our meals, called halal, which means it's okay, it's allowed (haram means 'forbidden', so pork is haram). Halal meat is when the animal is killed while a prayer is said thanking God, and also all the blood is drained out. We have to be a bit careful with some ice creams and some biscuits and cakes, 'cos they sometimes have pig fat in them.
Our religion also says wine and beer and any alcohol is haram, so we don't have any of that at home!
I wouldn't like you to get the idea that all I eat is Pakistani-type food. I like lots of other things as well - it's one of the things I like about being British, that you can try lots of different things.
