Full breakfast

For the television program, see The Big Breakfast.

"Irish breakfast" redirects here. For the type of tea, see Irish Breakfast tea.

"English breakfast" redirects here. For the type of tea, see English Breakfast tea.

A full English breakfast with scrambled eggs, sausage, black pudding, bacon, mushrooms, baked beans, hash browns, and half a tomato

A full breakfast is a meal that consists of several courses, traditionally a starter (fruit juice, prunes, grapefruit), cereal, a main course, tea with milk, toast and (in England) marmalade. Many variations are possible.

"Full breakfast" also refers to the main course, a traditional cooked dish, typically and originally eaten at breakfast, though now often served at other times during the day. Common alternative names for the dish include bacon and eggs, or the fry-up.

The full breakfast traditionally comprises several fried foods, usually including bacon and eggs, and is popular throughout the British Isles and other parts of the English-speaking world. The name "Bacon and eggs" was popularised by Edward Bernays in the 1920s. To promote sales of bacon, he conducted a survey of physicians and reported their recommendations that people eat hearty breakfasts. He sent the results of the survey to 5,000 physicians, along with publicity touting bacon and eggs as a hearty breakfast.

Various parts of the United Kingdom have their own variants of the full breakfast, including the full English breakfast, full Scottish breakfast, full Welsh breakfast and the Ulster fry.

Tradition

The term "full breakfast" for a substantial meal of several courses including a cooked main course is used to differentiate it from the simpler continental breakfast of tea, milk or coffee and fruit juices with croissants or pastries.

All-day breakfast

To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Many cafés and pubs serve the meal at all hours as an "all-day breakfast". It can be accompanied by orange juice and tea or coffee or, in a pub, an alcoholic drink.

Typical ingredients

The ingredients of a fry-up vary according to region and taste. They are often served with condiments such as brown sauce or ketchup.

Some of the additional ingredients that may be included in a full breakfast are:

• fried or grilled bacon, also referred to as "rashers" or "slices"
• baked beans
• fried bread
• black pudding
• bubble and squeak
• corned beef hash
• chips
• egg, fried, poached, scrambled or in a basket
• English muffins or scones
• French toast
• Fruit pudding in Scotland
• grits in the Southern United States
• hash browns
• kidneys, grilled or fried
• kippers
• fried mushrooms
• oatcakes
• pancakes (in the USA, Canada, and Ireland)
• sautéed potatoes, also known as home fries
• potato bread (also called "fadge" or tattie scone)
• sausages, sausage links or patties
• scrapple (in the Midatlantic US)
• sliced sausage (also known as Lorne sausage or square sausage, popular in Scotland)
• soda bread
• Laverbread (a type of seaweed popular in Wales and usually cooked alongside bacon and cockles)
• toast
• fried, grilled, or tinned tomatoes
• potato waffles
• white pudding
• potato cakes

Regional variants

Full English breakfast

Full English breakfast with bubble and squeak, sausage, bacon, grilled tomatoes and eggs

The normal ingredients of a traditional full English breakfast are bacon (traditionally back bacon, less commonly streaky bacon), poached or fried eggs, fried or grilled tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried bread or toast with butter and sausages, usually served with a mug of tea. Baked beans and hash browns are also commonly considered an important part of the breakfast. As nearly everything is fried in this meal, the term "fry-up" is quite accurate.

Black pudding is added in some regions, as is fried leftover mashed potatoes (called potato cakes). 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.

Full Irish breakfast

An Irish breakfast consisting of sausages, black and white pudding, bacon and fried eggs.

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, sliced tomato, and fried potato. Sauteed mushrooms are also sometimes included, as well as liver (although popularity has declined in recent years), and brown soda bread. A full Irish breakfast may be accompanied with a strong Irish Breakfast tea such as Barry's Tea, Lyons Tea, or Bewley's breakfast blend served with milk. Fried potato bread, farl, potato farl or toast is often served as an alternative to brown soda bread.

Ulster Fry

See also: Culture of Northern Ireland

A full Ulster Fry served in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

An Ulster Fry is a dish similar to the Irish breakfast and is popular throughout Ulster.

A traditional Ulster Fry consists of bacon, eggs, sausages (either pork or beef), vegetable roll, white pudding, black pudding, 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), potato bread and wheaten farl. Other common components include mushrooms, baked beans or pancake. 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 and dinner in households and cafés around the province. Emigrants have also popularised the serving of an Ulster Fry outside Ulster.

The usual accompaniment is strong tea, typically a blend with a high proportion of Assam leaves.

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.

Full Scottish breakfast

A similar Scottish alternative

In Scotland, the traditional breakfast is porridge, but the "Full Scottish Breakfast", along with the usual eggs, bacon and sausage, is usually differentiated by Scottish-style black pudding, haggis and tattie scones. It may also include fried tomato, baked beans, white pudding, fruit pudding (also fried), and oatcakes. In some instances, the regular "link" sausage is replaced or augmented by square sliced sausage also known as Lorne sausage.

More broadly, 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".

Full Welsh breakfast

The traditional Welsh breakfast includes laverbread, a seaweed purée which is then mixed with oatmeal, formed into patties and fried in bacon fat. Cockles are also often eaten.

North America

bacon and "over-easy" eggs

A full North American breakfast (Canada and the United States) consists of eggs, a "breakfast meat" such as bacon, ham, or sausage, scrapple, pork roll, spam or even steak or country fried steak; fried potatoes such as hash browns or home fries; toasted white, wheat, rye or some other bread, such as English muffins or bagels; fruit or fruit juice, and tea or, usually, coffee. It is often referred to as a "country breakfast" in many areas of the Midwestern United States. The terms "fry" and "full breakfast" are not generally used in North America, though hotels generally distinguish between a light "continental breakfast" and a hot, cooked breakfast.

In the Southern United States the meal is typically known as a "big breakfast" or "Sunday breakfast" and may add or replace elements of the above with: grits, toast or biscuits with white gravy, pancakes, cinnamon rolls or similar sweet pastries.

In Québec, Canada the meal may include regional variants like maple syrup, crêpes, buckwheat galettes, boudin, cretons and pommes persillade, baked beans.

Central America

Ingredients include ham, sausage or bacon, eggs, much like a full breakfast elsewhere. A distinguishing feature is that fry jacks are also eaten, these being fried pieces of dough, similar to beignets or sopapillas. It can also include items like toast, pancakes, or hashbrowns. Fresh orange juice is often added as a drink. Guatemala's version of the full breakfast includes fried plantains, tortillas, and refried black beans. In Belize breakfast often features eggs and/or fried meats such as bacon or ham, fry jacks or thick flour tortillas or Johnny Cakes (thick, fluffy homemade biscuits), and fresh local fruit such as mango or melon and tea. Fried beans, smoked, fried or fresh fish are common substitutes for the meat or eggs. Belizeans enjoy their foods highly spiced and will flavor every meal, including breakfast, with recado rojo (achiote paste), pickled habanero peppers or habanero pepper sauce.

In Costa Rica the traditional breackfast includes Gallo pinto, fried (sunny side-up) eggs, sour cream, fried sweet plantains, hand-made tortillas and coffee on the side.

See also

• Builder's tea
• Greasy spoon

External links

• Stress-free full English breakfast
• Ulster Fry and Eggs recipe
• in search of The Full English
• Why the great British breakfast is a killer
• In-Depth site covering Irish Breakfasts in Ireland and elsewhere
• Site listing local fry-ups around the United Kingdom