Sue Harper enjoys celebrating the Fourth of July with her American friends. She goes to barbecues, watches fireworks and listens to orchestras playing the patriotic music of her adopted homeland. But there’s one thing she just can’t do.

“I never have been able to bring myself to eat a hot dog because I don’t know what’s in it,” Harper said. “Mechanically separated meat doesn’t do it for me.”

She’d rather have “proper sausages.”

Harper is originally from Reigate in Surrey, in the southeastern part of England. She and her husband moved to the United States in 1998 and now live in Cape Elizabeth. They are part of a large community of British ex-pats living in Maine who were considered the enemy 239 years ago but now crack open a beer with the rest of us to toast America’s estrangement from Mother England.

“It’s such an American holiday, and I didn’t really understand how big of a deal it was until we came here,” Harper said.

Every July 4, British ex-pats watch their American cousins celebrate the thorough drubbing the patriots gave the Redcoats and are forced to sit through the same lame jokes about being British on the Fourth from their not-British friends and relatives. “I think my wife likes to take me to parades to rub my nose in it, with all these flags waving around,” said Tom Porter, a native of Birmingham and a MPBN radio news producer who has lived in the United States for 12 years.

Daniel Bookham, a native of Norfolk who works for an insurance company in Camden, just celebrated his 20th anniversary in America. Last year, he heard his 8-year-old daughter (who was born in Rockport) describing the Revolutionary War to his mother-in-law. She pointed out that the British lost. “Then she paused and looked at me and said ‘Sorry, Dad.’ So I’m not even safe with my own kid.”

Nevertheless, these ex-pats have learned to embrace at least parts of the holiday, including the traditional Fourth of July picnic of grilled meats, potato salad and strawberry shortcake. Sometimes they put their own British twist on the spread.

Philip Jones of Yarmouth, who moved to New York City from London 21 years ago and has lived in Maine for seven years, says he was “puzzled” by the holiday when he first came to America.

“It’s the one war I was never taught about at school because you tend to not learn about the wars that you lose,” he said, chuckling.

Jones discovered grilling in middle age and enjoys the primal feeling that comes with cooking outdoors. On July 4 he’s likely to throw chicken on the grill, but he’ll have a jar of mango chutney on the table as well, and perhaps some English bread sauce – a milk-based sauce flavored with onions and cloves and thickened with bread crumbs.

“I’ll serve something like pickled onions, which are a very English thing,” he said. “They’re round onions pickled in vinegar.”

One thing you won’t find on Jones’ grill? Hot dogs. Jones said it would never occur to him to grill a hot dog. He loves them, but only when they come from a street vendor in New York.

“It’s full of cow lips and stuff, and I think it’s better not to know what’s inside it,” he said. “I wouldn’t eat them every day, but every once in a while I enjoy a hot dog.”

Like Harper, Jones prefers “proper sausages,” especially a thin pork sausage known as chipolata, which he buys from a British grocery store in Manhattan.

“I’m sure it’s full of nothing that’s very healthy for you,” he said. “A lot of people are rather rude about them, but I actually do love them, so I do often cook chipolatas as well. My wife sort of shudders when she sees them. She thinks it’s the most disgusting thing, but I think they’re delicious.”

The Harpers usually go to a friend’s house for a barbecue, but over the years they also have celebrated the holiday at their camp on a lake in Fryeburg. Their children and friends made s’mores around a bonfire and chowed down on burgers and dogs, and maybe a rhubarb pie. An English summer pudding – a bowl of sliced white bread filled with berries, left overnight so the the berry juice soaks into the bread and flipped out onto a plate to serve – is also a family favorite that’s appropriate for the Fourth.

And to drink? Pimms and lemonade is a traditional British summer drink. Mix it in a large jug and add cucumber, mint and orange slices.

Other Brits prefer to embrace American traditions wholeheartedly.

“I’m happy to go with the American way on most occasions, to be honest with you,” said Andrew Harris, artistic director of Deertrees Theatre in Harrison and production manager at Portland Stage Company, who has been coming to the United States since the mid-1970s and has worked in Maine for 13 years. Even when they lived in England, Harris and his American wife hosted Fourth of July parties with drinks and a barbecue for friends.

“We lived for a while in a small village,” Harris said. “I got my wife a tape of Sousa marches and proceeded to play that in this very quiet English country village, and a neighbor of ours decided to redress the balance and started to play a round of ‘Land of Hope and Glory.’ It was all good fun.”

Daniel Bookham views the Fourth through the eyes of his wife’s family, who hail from Bar Harbor. Bookham said he feels “really blessed” to spend the day with them.

“The fact that they can take some time in the summer to sit on the porch and visit to me as much as anything is a great celebration of what it’s all about,” he said.

The family’s day includes taking in a parade and fireworks, and lots and lots of lobster.

“The parades are terrific,” Bookham said. “It amazes me that Mainers who, 364 days of the year, will complain about traffic, will then line the streets to watch vehicles drive at 2 miles an hour.”

Lobster and “tons of great desserts,” including strawberry shortcake, are on the menu, but there aren’t any British foods. Bookham said he tries to “sneak stuff in” at Thanksgiving, but traditional British foods just don’t seem to fit in at a July 4 celebration.

“British food’s too heavy, I feel, for a warm day in Maine,” he said. “Everyone would sort of collapse in a coma and sleep if I tried to give them various meats wrapped in pastry. ”

No matter what’s on the table, there are always plenty of England versus America jokes to go around. Bookham gives as good as he gets.

When people ask Bookham if his family does anything for the Fourth of July back in England, he replies: “We call it Thanksgiving. We got rid of you lot.”

Sue Harper says her mum uses just raspberries in her pudding, but Harper likes to use a mix of fruit.

SUMMER PUDDING

Serves 4-6

Slices of white bread – enough to line a bowl about 4 inches deep and 7 inches across

2 pounds mixed berries – raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and blueberries (In England they would use black currants instead of blueberries.)

4-6 ounces white sugar to taste (It would be castor sugar in England, a very fine white sugar which dissolves more quickly.)

Heavy cream

To make the summer pudding, cut the crusts off the bread, butter the bowl and then line the bowl with the slices, overlapping so that there are no gaps. Remember to put a slice on the bottom of the bowl and reserve a couple slices for the top.

Put the fruit and sugar in a pan on the stove top and cook for about 5 minutes, just long enough for the sugar to dissolve and for the juices to start running. You want to keep the texture of the berries as much as possible.

Pour the fruit and juice into the bread-lined bowl, reserving about 2/3 cup of juice. Use the remaining bread slices to cover the pudding. Put a saucer or plate on top and weight it down with a large can of tomatoes or something similar.

Put the whole lot in the fridge and leave overnight.

To serve, turn the pudding out onto a serving dish and pour the reserved juice over, especially if there are any white bits of bread still showing.

Serve with a jug of thick (heavy) cream for pouring.