English breakfast

[Mabelline]

I only can add to maggie's remark about the Who. Am I the only person who remembers Tommy with Ann Margaret wearing the white silk jumpsuit and swirling around in baked beans? Bet youall could handle baked beans with a side of Ann Margaret; to say nothing of Tina's Acid Queen!!

[jackal10]

Ahh, Bubble and Squeek! The home made proper one is far above the frozen patties seved up in hotels and fast food places.

Originally it was the left-overs from Sunday lunch. Nowdays made from fresh.

The potato should be old, floury, and mashed. The odd roast potato in there is good. The greens should be cooked cabbage, shredded small, preferably the spring cabbage, but I guess shredded cooked sprouts or kale or other brassica could be used. A little onion, ideally roasted first.

Mash all together, quite coarsly, and season well. Form into patties, or just one large one cut into wedges later.

Now the important part. Bubble and Squeek (the potato is the bubble, and the squeek is the cabbage) to be worthy of the name MUST be shallow (not deep) fried in BEEF DRIPPING regardless of the health police, until brown and crusty, flipped over and fried until the other is also crusty.

Yummm! Although I think it more lunch food. Breakfast potatoes are more like slices of cooked potato shallow fried...

[Hallie]

Breakfast potatoes are more like slices of cooked potato shallow fried...

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Ah, but you forget that much maligned favourite that frequently appears with a fry up - the potato waffle.

[Jon Tseng]

I'm a fan of the Full English Breakfast and dive in at least once a trip to the UK.  But there is just one think I don't get.  The beans.  Even at a place reputed for its breakfast, like Simpsons-in-the-Strand, the beans appear to be straight out of a No. 10 sized institutional can with no effort taken to make them interesting.

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Beans are important to add some moisture to the mix. Think - most of the other ingredients are panfried/dry/greasy. Beans and runny egg-yolk (preferably the latter running into the former) are essential to stop the rest of the dry stuff sticking in your craw.

NB also beans do not necessarily need to mean the toast goes soggy - well not if it has been deep-fried to a crisp as is traditional.

As to why have them from an institutional can - well that's what people are used to. The same argument could be made as to why have ketchup of your burger rather than artisanal home-product fresh tomato coulis - because thats the flavour people are used to. Similarly why put icky plastify processed cheese-food-slice on the burger rather than freshly crumbled wensleydale from the fromagerie... because that "just processed" taste is exactly what you're after...

cheers

J

[FaustianBargain]

good grief!! my arteries are clogging just *looking* at that. a picture is worth a thousand words. indeed.

now i understand why the FEB is not a home thang. how on earth can someone prepare all this for breakfast. esp with a hangover when it seems to be most favoured?

The Full English Breakfast - AKA the 10 Deadly Sins - as served at Simpsons-In-The-Strand.  Note the Heinz-like beans.  Also appearing in supporting roles:  Cumberland sausage, fried egg, streaky and back bacon, black pudding, lamb's kidneys, fried bread, grilled tomato, bubble and squeak, and grilled mushrooms.

I assume the single egg is to limit cholesterol.

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[slacker]

NO NO NO!

Beans HAVE to be wrong. Think about it! When did they appear on the scene? 1910?

Traditional? No way. I don't mind beans on my breakfast, but there's plenty of moisture from the tomatoes and egg.

Bacon sandwiches are sandwiches. Aren't we talking sit-down?

Edited October 11, 2004 by slacker (log)

[jackal10]

I agree. Bacon Sarnies are for second breakfast, standing around outside in the cold and wet early morning before some outdoor activity.

The breakfast in the photo must be for wimps or tourists. Seems a bit small to me - one sausage, one egg, one tomato, not enough potato, small piece or two of bacon??? Should be at least double. Ok not the egg becuase of the chlorestrol, but two of everything else.

It is quite tricky to cook to get everything ready at he same time. The secret is a warming oven or equivalent, so you can keep things ready while you prepare the rest. Cook the eggs last.

[Carlovski]

I agree. Bacon Sarnies are for second breakfast, standing around outside  in the cold and wet early morning before some outdoor activity.

The breakfast in the photo must be for wimps or tourists. Seems a bit small to me - one sausage, one egg, one tomato, not enough potato, small piece or two of bacon??? Should be at least double. Ok not the egg becuase of the chlorestrol, but two of everything else.

It is quite tricky to cook to get everything ready at he same time. The secret is a warming oven or equivalent, so you can keep things ready while you prepare the rest.  Cook the eggs last.

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Not impressed with that breakfast at all!

Don't quite get the gasps of horror of some people, not it's not health food, but if the sausage and bacon are decent, everything has been well cooked so it isn't swimming in grease then as an occasional thing it isn't at all bad. And if you have a physical job, nothing wrong with it at all. Maybe miss the fried bread though....

On saying that, I'm a bit untraditional I think. I prefer scrambled eggs with my breakfast. On the rare occasion I do have the full English I tend to favour Scrambled eggs, Sausages (The best I can find, although sometimes this equates to the best I can get from my corner shop on a sunday morning!), bacon, mushrooms (Have to have mushrooms), sometimes potatoes (Normally in little cubes), beans (No runny yolk with scrambled you see - If I have fried eggs, I miss out the beans) and lots of toast.

I can vouch for the fact that having this every morning, in a sedentary occupation quickly gets too much. Stopping in a hotel with a buffet style as much as you want breakfast for a weeks training course we started by having a huge plateful every morning (Very good sausages, so I had about 4 or 5!). By Thursday I was having coffee and dry toast....

[FaustianBargain]

Not impressed with that breakfast at all!

Don't quite get the gasps of horror of some people, not it's not health food, but if the sausage and bacon are decent, everything has been well cooked so it isn't swimming in grease then as an occasional thing it isn't at all bad. And if you have a physical job, nothing wrong with it at all. Maybe miss the fried bread though....

...

I can vouch for the fact that having this every morning, in a sedentary occupation quickly gets too much. Stopping in a hotel with a buffet style as much as you want breakfast for a weeks training course we started by having a huge plateful every morning (Very good sausages, so I had about 4 or 5!). By Thursday I was having coffee and dry toast....

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how many calories do you think that plate carries...

[Carlovski]

how many calories do you think that plate carries...

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I'm never too good at this sort of thing, but I'd guess around 800/900 ish?

[Carrot Top]

NO NO NO!

Beans HAVE to be wrong. Think about it! When did they appear on the scene? 1910?

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1910?...1911?...That First World War changed the world, didn't it. Including the horrific crime of totting out canned baked beans to start the day with...

Wrong, wrong...yes. Wrong, even close to a hundred years later....

Excuse me, please...I must get my smoking jacket on and adjust my antimaccasar....

Edited October 11, 2004 by Carrot Top (log)

[Stigand]

There's a threefold paradox at the heart of the English Breakfast that makes it tough to find a good one.

The trilemma is as follows.

1. A good fry-up is simple food, un-mucked about with. So it relies on decent ingredients. The cheap sausages and bacon you often get in a greasy spoon fry-up really show up.

2. A good fry-up is hearty, unpretentious food. Dinky, elegantly served portions look silly and miss the point of the dish. This means the otherwise tasty breakfast in a place like Bank (in Aldwych) or posh hotel breakfasts miss the mark too.

3. A good fry-up is indulgent, indolent food. Which means it's nicest when you don't have to make it yourself. Indeed, when I'm hungover and most want a FEB, I'm not in much of a state to make it myself.

It's very hard to get a fry-up that combines these three vital ingredients (unpretentious, quality ingredients, made by someone else). The best fry-ups I've had have generally been eaten in people's houses. But I'd like to think a good country pub could deliver too.

[Adam Balic]

In addition to haggis, the 'Full Scottish Breakfast' also can contain fried potato scone, white pudding and fruit pudding (like a slice of Christmas pudding, fried in bacon fat). By comparison the Full English is a meal for whimps on a diet.

If I could eat without consequence I would have a jugged kipper or smoked haddock with brown bread and butter (alternating with fried liver and eggs), Marmalade and toast to follow. Builders tea obviously.

But mostly I have a bannana and a coffee.

[jackal10]

Man, ye fergit tha porridge, cooked overnight on ya stove

Salt, gud milk or cream, mebbe a knob o butter. None of ye sassenach sugar, syrup or treacle. Ye forebears practically lived on the stuff

[Adam Balic]

I like my porridge to be made from rolled oats and cooked for at least 10 minutes to break up the starch and produce that excellent 'jellied effect'. I don't really like the scottish style oats, although I take it with salt, not sweet.

My immediate 'forebears'* had the good luck to live on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic. From memory they ate bread with proscuitto and red wine for breakfast.

*Is it not "three-bears" when porridge is being discussed?

[slacker]

If I could eat without consequence I would have a jugged kipper or smoked haddock with brown bread and butter (alternating with fried liver and eggs), Marmalade and toast to follow.

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Toast and marmalade with the kipper, surely.

Just as (do I hear yawning?) bacon sandwiches should always have marmalade in them.

[Adam Balic]

Nah. Not being British, I don't really like cold toast, so hot freshly made toast follows.

[Carrot Top]

Man, ye fergit tha porridge, cooked overnight on ya stove

Salt,  gud milk or cream, mebbe a knob o  butter. None of ye sassenach sugar, syrup or treacle. Ye forebears practically lived on the stuff

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I thought they started the day with a tot of whiskey before the oatmeal hit the table...and that contributed to their always jolly countenances.

Am I wrong?

[Adam Balic]

You are think of the Irish maybe, the Scots drink "whisky", not "whiskey" and are more surly then jolly.

[Duncan]

You are think of the Irish maybe, the Scots drink "whisky", not "whiskey" and are more surly then jolly.

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Are you implying a temporal relationship there? Surly early and jolly later.

I prefer my porridge made with proper oatmeal, none of those flabby rolled oats for me.

[Adam Balic]

Of all the characteristics of the Scotch that I have noted, "Jolly" has yet to occur.*

What grade of proper oatmeal, there seems to be a large number of different types of the nasty stuff.

* Least ye think that I am being unduely hard on the Scots, remember that I am of Croatian descent and by comparison, the Scots are indeed 'Jolly'.

[JudyB]

Of all the characteristics of the Scotch that I have noted...

As my grandmother would have told you very firmly, "Scotch" is the drink, the terms "Scots" or "Scottish" refer to the people...

[Adam Balic]

Scotch can refer to the people, but it is anachronistic and is rarely used by the inhabitants of Scotland. However, it is a brilliant way of teasing them .

[Carrot Top]

You are think of the Irish maybe, the Scots drink "whisky", not "whiskey" and are more surly then jolly.

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Darn. A good joke ruined by bad spelling.

I'll try to do better next time.

[Adam Balic]

That and the lack of a satirical Smilie.