Gosford Park - the English, Servants, and Breakfast

Cafe Society
1

In Gosford Park, When Bob Balaban’s movie producer character asks the servant Jennings for some eggs and tomatos at breakfast, Jennings hesitates and suggests that Balaban help himself. Lord Stockbridge then helpfully remarks something along the lines of “no Englishman is waited on at breakfast.”

They seem to have been waited on at every other conceivable moment of their lives. Why did Englishmen suddenly become self-suffcient at breakfast?

2

I don’t know, but I’ve seen similar arrangements in a lot of other movies/TV shows set in English country houses.

Notice that there’s a great big buffet on the sideboard, which obviously took a few servants to set up. But, since people were free to come to breakfast whenever they pleased, it made more sense to have chafing dishes filled with food ready for them, I guess.