English Breakfast

The English Breakfast

The traditional full English breakfast is a centuries old British breakfast tradition, one that can trace its roots back to the early 1300's. In one form or another, the tradition of a uniquely English breakfast is one that has been proudly sustained over the centuries by different generations of British society.

Today the English breakfast is more popular than ever, and you can usually find an English breakfast in most towns and cities across the country and overseas wherever you find the British.

The tradition of the English breakfast first began with the gentry, before then being adopted by the Victorians who refined the tradition into an art form. Then came along the Edwardians who standardised the ingredients, giving us the English breakfast that we mostly eat today and in doing so, created a truly a national breakfast tradition and an icon of British culinary culture.

The Full English Breakfast (AKA The Fry Up)

Known colloquially as a fry up, the ingredients of the English breakfast are now standardised, but there is currently a revival of the more traditional English breakfast ingredients underway in higher end establishments, where the English breakfast is once again being revered and raised into an art form, typically via the inclusion of some of the older and harder to prepare Anglo-Saxon breakfast dishes.

The 'common' full English breakfast is a substantial meal consisting of back bacon, eggs, British sausages, baked beans, fried tomato, fried mushrooms, black pudding, fried and toasted bread.

These ingredients may vary depending on where in the Great Britain you happen to be and are a subject that is still open to (sometimes quite fierce) debate, we acknowledge this, so please stop writing to us saying that they are wrong, these are the right ingredients in our learned opinion.

The Southern English however would tell you that black pudding is something that was inherited from the Scottish, but the truth is that in the North of the country black pudding is widely consumed and viewed as an essential part of the traditional full English breakfast.

Hash browns however are a controversial ingredient that many believe do not belong in a traditional English breakfast.