# How often do Brits cook fry-up breakfasts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [December 29, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153 "2020-12-29T05:35:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![scareyfaerie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scareyfaerie/32/3135_2.png) [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/41 "2020-12-30T11:10:56Z")
When I was a kid, we had a “proper” breakfast on Sundays which was bacon, eggs and fried bread. As an adult, I’ve done a full English at home but it’s not very often as it takes too much time when I’m trying to get out of the house for the morning commute. Since working at home, I still don’t bother because it’s too much food, and calories that just don’t get burned during the day. I might run to a bacon and fried egg butty, just occasionally. The full English is a necessity at music festivals, usually as a hangover cure and something to bolster us for a day of singing, dancing and drinking! Oh, how I wish for those days again 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/43 "2020-12-30T12:07:24Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > What, no Spam?!? 😲 Spam has no place in a fry up. Personally pretty much every time I have done one a hangover has been involved. I don’t think ever in my life have I just had it as a standard breakfast, before work or school or something. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/44 "2020-12-30T13:00:59Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Also, looking at Wikipedia I see [this picture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_breakfast#/media/File:Lyme_Regis_harbour_02b.JPG). What’s the triangular food at the bottom right? I’ve had potato wedges at English breakfast buffets that look like this, but potatoes are not mentioned in the caption, only toast, which I _don’t_ see. Is this some sort of toast? That picture is, I’m sorry to say, a pitiful hotel attempt at a full English. Everything is dried out under the heat lamps (They’ve hidden the bacon for the sake of decency but I can still see it) and they’ve added that triangle of hash brown in a nod to internationalism but there no excuse for it. And look at the sausage! a bargain-basement mystery meat special. Shame on them. The best ones are often done in small B&B’s. They make them to order and often include local ingredients ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/45 "2020-12-30T14:54:34Z")
Last year we went to Malta and stayed at a hotel which offered a buffet which, along with fruit, omelettes made to order, and pastries, offered all the ingredients for a fry-up, but scrambled eggs instead of fried. Major yum. I would never try makine something like that myself, but I’m happy to partake when I can. The last few times we’ve been in B&B’s, we’ve been offered the chance to have a fry up. I might choose a few items, but never the entire thing. My husband typically goes for porridge with bacon or sausage, which is something we do at home as well. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/46 "2020-12-30T15:19:21Z")
I’ll eat your Spam. I love Spam! Bacon, eggs, baked beans, toast and Spam! Lovely Spam, wonderful Spam! ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/47 "2020-12-30T15:24:23Z")
It may be good, but it has no business in a fry up. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/48 "2020-12-30T15:25:59Z")
Sacrilege! ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/49 "2020-12-30T15:57:21Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > The best ones are often done in small B&B’s. They make them to order and often include local ingredients Yes! Two of my favorite memories: a little English inn, we’d planned an all-day walk, and had gotten up early to find the path (following a little mimeographed pamphlet from 1942 that I’d found in a library in Wisconsin). The proprietor met us at the door carrying two huge platters of… well, everything. We did less of a walk that day, more of a waddle. Similar experience at a little Irish pub in the midwest. They started opening up at 5am to show European soccer matches… and serve The Big Irish Breakfast. I was impressed by the rashers of Irish bacon, black pudding, field mushrooms, even had liver and dark soda bread (with Irish butter, mmmm…). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/50 "2020-12-30T16:41:11Z")
Oh, yeah, that Irish brown bread was amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/51 "2020-12-30T16:49:52Z")
I don’t have a full English or Irish breakfast often—as often as I might have full American-style brunch—but I’ve never regretted it. Visiting my folks in Ohio a couple of months ago I re-discovered goetta. Oh man it is so good with a big holiday breakfast. I did over-easy eggs, pan-fried green peas, and goetta. Soooo tasty. \*Goetta is the southeastern Ohio equivalent of scrapple or corned beef hash, but it’s much much more flavourful than both of them. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/52 "2020-12-30T17:20:55Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > That picture is, I’m sorry to say, a pitiful hotel attempt at a full English. Oi ! Some people like it like that. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/53 "2020-12-30T17:25:07Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > they’ve added that triangle of hash brown in a nod to internationalism but there no excuse for it. Which is weird because England is the only place I’ve found the triangular, thick, small hash browns, but that doesn’t make it impossible that it is a nod to internationalism because, for instance, Teppanyaki was started as a Japanized version of American food but became an Americanized version of Japanese food, or something in between. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/54 "2020-12-30T20:05:10Z")
They do them in Sweden, but prefer to pretend they are Rösti. But it is basically the same stuff. Frozen version at an online Swedish supermarket: > **[Handla mat online i din matbutik | Mathem](https://www.mathem.se/varor/rosti-potatis-fryst/rosti-klassisk-fryst-750g-felix)** > > Beställ idag och få leverans redan imorgon. På Mathem hittar du tusentals garanterat fräscha varor och ett stort ekologiskt utbud ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/55 "2020-12-30T20:31:54Z")
Yeah, I was thinking it looked mighty tasty! I love me a full English. One of the best I’ve had was in a tiny little town in Somerset. The restaurant was in a converted double-decker bus (they also had a train car). If it was for tourists it must have been local tourists because it wasn’t near anything touristy. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/56 "2020-12-30T22:42:45Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > 25 years ago, we spent two weeks in Ireland, staying exclusively in bed and breakfasts. Almost without fail, the lovely Irish B&Bs served an “Irish breakfast,” which is very similar to the English fry-up – eggs, sausages, bacon, either a black or white pudding, a fried half tomato, often with fried potatoes of some sort, and toast. A few years ago, I went to Scotland and almost every place had the “Scottish Breakfast” - which was the fry up with porridge and oatcakes. Do not indulge in the Scottish breakfast then hop on a ferry where the waves are so bad they are considering cancelling the trip. Trust me. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/57 "2020-12-30T22:49:17Z")
I think it’s more of a hotel thing than a tourist thing - though if you’re a tourist staying in a hotel it’s going to look touristy. It’s often available in what you would think of business hotels, ranging from the very cheap upwards, When I (not very frequently) traveled for work I might indulge, basically because someone else was paying. To address the OP - we’ve cooked one maybe half a dozen or a dozen times these last 40 years, each time for a specific reason (like there would be no chance to eat anything else substantial for a long time that day.) But I do remember when I was growing up - nearer 50 years back - my mother went through phases of setting us off for school with a cooked breakfast. I think that may have been a winter thing. (I also remember breakfasts of cereal, and an odd phase where we were fed grapefruit every morning.) j ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/58 "2020-12-30T23:29:56Z")
A little side question: I’ve never been to Britain, but I’ve been to some places (Ibiza, Fuerteventura, some Greek islands) in hotels that had a big contingent of British guests, and the breakfast buffets always had all the typical fried and cooked items you expect for a British breakfast, plus everything for a continental breakfast (I guess that’s the proper expression for a typical European breakfast, if there even is). Is this typical? Do British people like to indulge in a full breakfast in their holidays? Some of my carnivorous friends sure liked to eat fried bacon and sausages for breakfast and approved of that British custom. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2020, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/59 "2020-12-30T23:47:41Z")
What, no haggis? 😲 ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2020, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/60 "2020-12-31T00:36:32Z")
A heavy breakfast full of fats, carbs and proteins is generally considered to be part of a good hangover cure - so in those holiday destinations where the tourists from the UK are wont to over-indulge, availability of a good cooked breakfast is essential … ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2020, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153/61 "2020-12-31T00:47:59Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#): > > A heavy breakfast full of fats, carbs and proteins is generally considered to be part of a good hangover cure - so in those holiday destinations where the tourists from the UK are wont to over-indulge, availability of a good cooked breakfast is essential … Ah, I see, a good hangover cure and also a solid foundation for the oncoming day with its drinks. Clever strategy. We Germans have a simpler recipe: start the day with the last drink you had last night, so a beer for breakfast for you! 😆 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-brits-cook-fry-up-breakfasts/929153.md?page=4)