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Full breakfast

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"Full English" redirects here. For the television series, see Full English.
"English breakfast" redirects here. For the tea, see English Breakfast tea.
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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 bread, 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 a fry-up. Variants include the full English, full Scottish, full Welsh and full Irish breakfasts and the Ulster fry.

Common foods and dishes

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

Britain and Ireland

Cornwall

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

A full English breakfast with fried egg, sausage, white and black pudding, bacon, mushrooms, baked beans, hash browns, toast, and half a tomato

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

An Irish breakfast consisting of sausage, 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 and fried tomato.[6] Sauteed mushrooms are also sometimes included,[7] as well as baked beans, liver (although popularity has declined), 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 popular 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] The breakfast roll is available from many petrol stations and convenience stores throughout Ireland.[9]

Ulster
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. 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 or beans. All this is traditionally fried; although as a healthier version, some ingredients may be grilled.[citation needed] 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.[11]

Scotland

A similar Scottish alternative

In Scotland, the full breakfast, as with others, contains eggs, back bacon, square 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[12] or oatcakes.[13][14] 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".[15]

Wales

The traditional Welsh breakfast includes laverbread, a seaweed purée which is mixed with eggs, bacon, and cockles and fried into crisp patties.[16]

North America

Bacon and eggs with pancakes

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

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

See also

References

  1. ^ Mary Maddock. "Cornish Potato Cake Recipe – Cornish Recipes". Greenchronicle.com. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  2. ^ a b [1][dead link]
  3. ^ The Ladies' Companion, December 1854, The Mercy of the Winter's Waves, (A Christmas Tale), by Silverpen.
  4. ^ The Wordsworth Dictionary of Culinary & Menu Terms, Rodney Dale, 2000
  5. ^ "English Breakfast Society Guide to the tradtional English breakfast". Englishbreakfastsociety.com. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  6. ^ "Traditional Irish Breakfast recipe from". Food Ireland. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  7. ^ Traditional Irish Breakfast recipe from Barry's Tea
  8. ^ Gerald, Paul (12 July 2012). "The Full English". Memphis Flyer. Contemporary Media, Inc. Retrieved 30 July 2012. The Irish might have soda bread, a potato pancake called boxty, white pudding (what you're used to, but with oatmeal in it) or black pudding (the same, but with blood cooked in).
  9. ^ a b c McDonald, Brian (12 May 2008). "Top breakfast baguette rolls into Irish history". Irish Independent. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  10. ^ "BBC – h2g2 – Great International Breakfast Dishes". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  11. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IRJkufTjcQk#t=9 (image shown from 7 second until 10 second mark)
  12. ^ Gerald, Paul (12 July 2012). "The Full English". Memphis Flyer. Contemporary Media, Inc. Retrieved 30 July 2012. The Scots like to have tattie (potato) scones, fruit pudding (actually a sausage made with very little fruit), and, of course, their curse on the earth, haggis.
  13. ^ Elizabeth Foyster, Christopher A. Whatley (2009). A History of Everyday Life in Scotland, 1600 to 1800. Edinburgh University Press. p. 139.
  14. ^ Alan Davidson and Tom Jaine (2006). The Oxford companion to food. Oxford University Press. p. 185.
  15. ^ Brewer, E. Cobham. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 812.
  16. ^ Welsh Government. "Wales.com – Food". Government of Wales. Retrieved 30 July 2012. Laverbread, not actually bread at all but seaweed, is often fried into crisp patties with eggs, bacon and fresh cockles for a traditional Welsh breakfast.
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