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Full English.
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A full breakfast is a breakfast meal, usually consisting of bacon, sausages and eggs, often served with a variety of side dishes and a beverage such as coffee or tea. It is especially popular in the UK and Ireland and in British-influenced cultures including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. It is sometimes referred to as an English breakfast or a "full English breakfast". The phrase "full breakfast" differentiates it from the European Continental breakfast traditionally consisting of tea, milk or coffee and fruit juices with croissants or pastries.
A full breakfast is regarded as a staple of traditional British and Irish cuisine. Many British and Irish cafés and pubs serve the meal at any time as an "all-day breakfast". Other common names for the dish include bacon and eggs, or the fry-up. Variants include the full English, full Scottish, full Welsh and full Irish breakfasts and the Ulster fry.
Common foods and dishes[edit]
The ingredients of a full breakfast vary according to region and taste. They are often served with condiments such as brown sauce or ketchup.
Regional variants[edit]
Britain and Ireland[edit]
Cornwall[edit]
The traditional Cornish breakfast includes hog's pudding and Cornish potato cakes (made with mashed potatoes mixed with flour and butter and then fried),[1][2] or fried potatoes alongside the usual bacon, sausage, tomato, mushrooms, egg and toast.[2] In the past traditional Cornish breakfasts have included pilchards and herring,[3] or gurty pudding, a Cornish dish similar to haggis, not to be confused with gurty milk, another Cornish breakfast dish made with bread and milk.[4]
England[edit]
A traditional full English breakfast includes bacon (traditionally back bacon[5]), poached or fried eggs, fried or grilled tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried bread or toast with butter, sausages and baked beans, usually served with a mug of tea. As nearly everything is fried in this meal, it is commonly called a "fry-up".
Black pudding is often added, as are fried leftover mashed potatoes (called potato cakes) or hash browns (borrowed from the cuisine of the United States). Originally a way to use up leftover vegetables from the main meal of the day before, bubble and squeak, shallow-fried leftover vegetables with potato, has become a breakfast feature in its own right. Onions, either fried or in rings, occasionally appear. In the North Midlands, fried or grilled oatcakes sometimes replace fried bread. When an English breakfast is ordered to contain everything available it is often referred to as a Full English, or a Full Monty.
Ireland[edit]
In Ireland, as elsewhere, the exact constituents of a full breakfast vary, depending on geographical area, personal taste and cultural affiliation. Traditionally, the most common ingredients are bacon rashers, sausages, fried eggs, white pudding, black pudding, toast and fried tomato.[6] Sauteed mushrooms are also sometimes included,[7] as well as baked beans, liver (although popularity has declined in recent years), and brown soda bread.[8] A full Irish breakfast may be accompanied by a strong Irish breakfast tea (such as Barry's Tea, Lyons Tea or Bewley's breakfast blend) often served with milk. Fried potato farl, boxty or toast is often served as an alternative to brown soda bread.
The "breakfast roll",[9] consisting of elements of the full breakfast served in a French roll, has become more popular in recent times due to the fact it can be easily eaten on the way to school or work, similar to the breakfast burrito in the United States.[9] As a result, the breakfast roll is available from many petrol stations and convenience stores throughout Ireland[9] in the morning hours.
An Ulster fry is a dish similar to the Irish breakfast and is popular throughout Ulster. Traditionally, it comprises bacon rashers, eggs, sausages (either pork or beef), vegetable roll, the farl form of soda bread (the farl is split in half crossways to expose the inner bread and then fried with the exposed side down), boxty or potato bread[10] and wheaten farl.
Other common components that may be added include mushrooms, fried tomato, pancake and/or beans. All this is traditionally fried; however, in recent decades, people have taken to grilling the ingredients instead. The Ulster fry is often served for breakfast, lunch or dinner in households and cafés around the province. Emigrants have also popularised the serving of an Ulster fry outside Ulster.
Like most full breakfasts the usual accompaniment is tea.
Between 2001 and 2007, the television channel BBC Two Northern Ireland used a station ID during local opt-outs from national UK programming which featured the BBC Two logo eating an Ulster fry.
Scotland[edit]
In Scotland, the full breakfast, as with others, contains eggs, back bacon, link sausage, buttered toast, baked beans, and tea or coffee. Distinctively Scottish elements include Scottish style black pudding, sliced sausage, and tattie scones. It commonly also includes fried or grilled tomato and/or mushrooms and occasionally haggis, white pudding, fruit pudding[11] or oatcakes.[12][13] As with other breakfasts it has become more common, especially within the home, to grill the meats, puddings and tomatoes and to only fry the eggs and tattie scones. Another more historical Scottish breakfast is porridge and may occasionally be served as a starter.
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable refers to a Scotch breakfast as "a substantial breakfast of sundry sorts of good things to eat and drink".[14]
The traditional Welsh breakfast includes laverbread, a seaweed purée which is mixed with eggs, bacon, and cockles and fried into crisp patties.[15]
North America[edit]
The style of breakfast has carried over to the US and Canada, though continental breakfast foods are also popular. A full breakfast in these countries often consists of eggs, meat such as bacon, ham, sausage, scrapple (US only), pork roll (US only), Spam, steak or country fried steak (US only), and grits (US only) or fried potatoes such as hash browns or home fries. Accompanying the meal might be toasted white, wheat or rye bread, English muffins, bagels, waffles, pancakes, oatmeal, cinnamon rolls, biscuits, fruit or fruit juice and beverages such as coffee or tea.
It is often referred to as a "country breakfast", "Sunday breakfast", or a "big breakfast" in many areas of the Midwestern or Southern United States.
In Canada, the meal may be known as a lumberjack breakfast. In Quebec, the meal may include regional variants like crêpes, buckwheat galettes, boudin, baked beans and cretons.
Food list[edit]
Some of the foods that may be included in a full breakfast are:
- eggs, fried, poached, scrambled or in a basket
- fried or grilled bacon, also referred to as "rashers" or "slices"
- sausages or sausage patties
- white pudding
- black pudding
- kidneys, grilled or fried
- potato, either sautéed or served as chips, potato waffles, potato bread, potato cake, or hash browns
- bread, usually toasted or fried
- soda bread (Common in Ireland -- both white and brown varieties -- brown being commonly known as "wheaten bread")
- pancakes
- baked beans
- bubble and squeak
- fried mushrooms
- fried, grilled, or tinned tomatoes
- oatcakes (in Scotland)
- fruit pudding (in Scotland)
- potato (or "tattie") scones (in Scotland and Ireland)
- sliced sausage, also known as Lorne sausage (in Scotland)
- laverbread (in Wales)
- grilled smoked mackerel/kippers
- cockles (in Wales)
- hog's pudding (in Cornwall and Devon)
- corned beef hash (in the United States)
- grits (in the US)
- scrapple (in the US)
- English muffins or biscuits (in the US)
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
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