28 minutes ago, Anna N said:Given that I left Britain in 1958 and have only returned on two occasions in the 80s, even the term Full English Breakfast had no meaning to me except from afar.
There are many reasons why my experience should never be considered usual.Weekday breakfast for the most part for me was porridge or bread and dripping or bread and jam.
Yet I have an enduring memory of a Sunday breakfast. I would like to think it’s a real memory but I I’m not sure. When I do the math there are certain things about it that could not be unless we want to rewrite the history of time. My father is cooking it. There are eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried bread. I do not recall a single Christmas dinner/lunch (I am sure there must’ve been such things) and yet I can smell the bacon and taste the fried bread from this breakfast.
Sunday breakfast seems to me to have been much more in use in my family than full anything.
I too, have no real recollection of weekday breakfasts in my schooldays - or even later. There must have been something, though. On annual holidays (vacations) my parents would treat us to a Kellog's selection pack of individually boxed servings - this was a major treat.
Sunday breakfast though was special for me, too. All sat around the table with bacon and egg, for sure. Black pudding definitely. Fruit pudding, too. I don't remember beans or tomatoes. I never ate a mushroom until I was in my 20s.
My mother's twin sister had a life-threatenting allergy to mushrooms. Once, in their 70s, my mother and her twin were flying from the UK to Australia after their elder sister died there and one of the meals served on board the flight contained mushrooms, despite the crew having been told of the allergy. My aunt took one bite, spat it out and went into anaphylactic shock. The plane had to make an emergency landing in Korea* to rush her to hospital. It was touch and go as to whether she would survive. She finally recovered and made it to Australia. The airline compensated her generously without argument.
This is why we were never served mushrooms at home. Despite the twins being identical, my mother was not allergic and actually quite liked mushrooms the few times she ate them, but she preferred to avoid them and certainly not feed them to us in case we had inherited any strange allergies. We haven't shown signs of any food allergies, although my sister is similarly allergic to bee stings! All my siblings and their kids are mushroom-OK.
* Fortunately, South Korea.
