When I was a young man, way back in the 1960s (apologies to the Incredible String Band), I remember a standard English breakfast consisted of fried eggs, sausage, bacon, fried bread and perhaps some baked beans. Maybe black pudding in certain areas. And perhaps if you were posh, kippers or devilled kidneys?
Spent a few decades working in the US, and now I come back I see that potatoes (hash browns?) and fruit seems to have reverse-colonised the breakfast menu. It’s not necessarily a bad thing I suppose, just wondered when it happened…?
Heh. I just read the book The Enchanted April and your post reminds me of this statement by an older English lady, when offered an orange at the breakfast table:
“No, I don’t eat fruit at breakfast. It is an American fashion which I am too old now to adopt. . . ."
The book was written in 1922, for what that’s worth.
Well, you know what E. B. White said about Yankees… skipping to the end, in Vermont, a Yankee is someone who eats fruit pie for breakfast and doesn’t speak French.
Fruit? Where have you seen fruit on a fry up? Unless you’re counting the grilled tomato!
My mothers has been serving potatoes (sautéd) with her fry ups all her life, and she’s 96. She also adds some grilled cheese on the side of the plate. Apparently it’s a Lancashire thing - her Dad was from Manchester.
I wonder if the OP is talking about a garnish, the way it mentions reverse-colonised. There’s a certain type of US restaurant that includes a slice of orange and/or a single strawberry on breakfast plates - but I’ve never seen it in diners. In fact, I usually see it in hotel restaurants. Of course, home breakfasts are not the same as restaurants, but going by how hard it was for me to find this photo , I’m going to guess “fruit with eggs” is not all that common in the US.
Yes, perhaps more of a hotel thing. The fruit isn’t fried, ha ha! But may appear nowadays as a separate plate on the side. Though biologically a tomato is a fruit, of course…
As for potatoes. all I can remember is that my mother never served them at breakfast: they were a dinner item. May well be regional variations, I suppose…
One of my favorite movies! I guess I need to read the book, too. If you liked that story, you might like an old one The Feast by Margaret Kennedy. Pub 1950-ish. May have a hard time finding it-- a new edition is coming out this year. It’s a bit slow getting started, but lovely when you get into it. I’ve read it several times and just listened to the wonderfully-performed audiobook.
As a child in the 1940s/50s, we would sometimes have grapefruit for breakfast. I still have a grapefruit knife somewhere. (a short, saw-toothed knife with a curved blade) It was used to separate the edible parts from the pith and skin. In posh hotels, it would be served with a maraschino cherry on top.
When we were in Africa, we also had pawpaw (it may have been papaya) when it was in season.
In more recent decades, my wife and I often add fruit to our cereal (no grapefruit - it clashes with medication). Blueberries and raspberries are favourites.
For that matter, baked beans appear to have been a relatively recent addition to the English breakfast – certainly during the 20th century, and possibly as late as the 1960s – and that, too, was due to the influence of Americans (specifically the H.J. Heinz Company).
They’re pretty common here in Canada when you go out for breakfast. Some people do it at home as well, but in my experience, that’s less common. There used to be a breakfast place near my work that did a nice lightly pan-fried potato/onion/peppers/spices mix that was fantastic. Most places just do deep fried potato cubes, which if done well are good, but are often not done well.
EBCB* has been a British breakfast staple for as long as I can remember, and that’s a mighty long time.
Fruit? That would be new. Although as the very first reply would indicate, the option has been around for a century at least. But I would think fruit is too healthy for a proper fry-up.
I’d think of that more as a brunch or all-day breakfast type of thing, the sort of
thing you might find in a cafe.
I don’t know anyone who would have chips at home, but if i’m out - yes please !
My grandmother always started the day with half a grapefruit, or an orange. But I suspect that it is because her oldest son was constantly sending fruit to her from Florida. My mother would be sent out early by her Norwegian/American grandmother in the early day to pick raspberries or blueberries to have for breakfast with just cream poured on them or, if not plentiful, to have with oatmeal. This is mainly because the fruit didn’t keep very long - wild raspberries only last 12 hours or so once picked and unrefrigerated. The heat of a summer day could ruin the ripe fruit.
Full English has always included potatoes in my experience - traditionally usually slices shallow-fried until golden brown, or sometimes in the form of bubble and squeak.
Hash Browns often take the place of these fried potatoes on many menus, but I don’t think it’s correct to say that potatoes were absent before hash browns muscled in.
I think you are correct. The potatoes were often leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. Sometimes they still are. I expect this goes back to at least Victorian times and probably to when potatoes first became a staple in England, going head-to-head with turnips and parsnips as a standard root vegetable.
Fascinating. I spent about six months in the Midlands and Scotland, and don’t remember ever getting any potato product with my full English (and I had probably about 20 of them there during my time.) Googling pictures of a full English, I do see potatoes in about a third of the images, though. Wikipedia’s article on the full breakfast doesn’t even mention potatoes, except noting that bubble & squeak can be found but “is rare.” I assume this is very subject to regionalisms. Certainly what I got in Scotland was slightly different than the Midlands (and wouldn’t be called a “full English,” anyway, but same general idea.)