I'd forgotten until the I read a comment thread below that you in the UK have no idea what "arugula" means. You call it rocket. In America -- well, not actually in America, but in cable television's assumed idea of Sarah Palin's "real" America -- arugula denotes a kind of prissy yuppie-ness. Real Americans eat iceberg lettuce I guess. Obama eats arugula and long ago, this was supposed to be one of the reasons that regular Americans would never vote for him.
I must say I think arugula, just as a word standing for a leafy green, is superior to rocket. Where did you come up with that? A rocket goes into space. You don't eat it.
That said, most of your food words are better than ours. Banger is more fun than sausage. Butty and sarny are great words. Aubergine beats eggplant, a word that makes no sense at all. "Afters," if indeed people still say afters, is a really great word.
I also like "in" such-and-such a street, as in, "He has a shop in Great Portland St." or "She lives in Goodge St." I remember this from the Waugh novels and such like, but do people still say this? I once asked some dear friends who live in Clapham, and they just looked confused and said they say "on" this or that street. Yankee hegemony strikes again!
