My gf and a coworker went to the UK a few years ago to visit Pubs & Graveyards. She told me about English breakfasts. I found Heinz Beans in the International aisle. Delicious for breakfast.
I ended up with a Fortnum & Mason spice called “Tandoori Masala” described as “A fruity, sweet and warming bouquet of spices”. Made chicken tacos with it and it’s good stuff.
I just watched the episode of Mad Men where the team are presenting a proposal for Heinz baked beans (a “bean ballet”, no less), which suggests they weren’t that exotic to the US - indeed, that was why the bean ballet idea was rejected.
And in my experience home fries (I’ve also seen them called “country potatoes”, but they appear to be the same thing) are the ones you’re more likely to find on an American hotel breakfast buffet. Because apparently home fries can better withstand sitting in a warming tray for extended periods. I imagine hash browns would get soggy sitting on a buffet. But if you go out to a fast food place, or a proper greasy spoon diner, they will have hash browns (or the greasy spoon may offer both).
So I left more recently (20 years ago) and had the same reaction. I blame Macdonalds, when I was still in the UK in the 90s, the abomination that was MacDonalds breakfast had hash browns. Personally that was enough to convince me hash browns had no place in a breakfast meant for human consumption, but I guess not everyone agreed with me?
The fruit thing I’ve always associated with mainland Europe rather than the states.
Hey! Don’t be dissin’ McDonald’s hash browns! Or we’ll pull out of NATO!
It’s true that a full English breakfast by the modern definition is a highly indulgent thing and likely not all that traditional really.
There’s no way that a traditional breakfast a century or more would have all of the components such as sausages, bacon, black pudding and eggs all on one plate - one of those things perhaps, plus lots of bread, would be more likely, but the bread is the most likely part of all.
I’ve been reading Lark Rise to Candleford, which, whilst it is a work of fiction, is widely believed to be more or less autobiographical of the author, Flora Thompson, who was born in 1877 and grew up in rural Oxfordshire.
Breakfast was bread and butter or lard. There might have been sausages or pig fry if it was the few days after the time the family pig had been slaughtered. Bacon was reserved for dinners through the winter and was used in small amounts to add flavour and substance to large, hearty stews of vegetables, barley and potatoes, or suet puddings stuffed with the same.
Potatoes, when they made it to the breakfast table, probably first took the form of potato scones or some other quick bread made with potatoes and flour.
Yes - meat was expensive and this is one of the ways in which we are so much better off than our ancestors it isn’t even funny.
If you were rich though, you could have a high protein breakfast, but it wouldn’t look too much like a modern full English either. E.g for Victorians, eggs and bacon, yes, but also liver and fish. Kedgeree (also includes rice!) and kippers have pretty much died out as a breakfast staple - I remember from family holidays seeing kippers on hotel breakfast menus in the late 80s/early 90s but you don’t get the offer now. Kidneys, ham, even cheese were also pretty common options. I believe porridge would have been quite common too, but potatoes not - possibly seen as a bit too peasanty.
I’d guess you might in Craster or elsewhere along the coasts: but the substantial loss of herring stocks over decades must have had as much effect as changing tastes.
My mother occasionally served kippers for breakfast when I was a lad. But that was decades ago.
Wife & I tried some a few months ago… bit too salty for my taste now, and they gave her indigestion.
True, but I think the idea of trying to put one or two of everything on the breakfast plate is probably fairly modern. The Full English is very ‘full’
Yes, I was at a hotel for work and sat down with a plate containing
- One rasher of bacon
- One sausage
- One big spoonful scrambled egg
- Half a tomato
Colleague: That’s not very much.
No! It’s a lot of food, honestly. Throw in the slice of toast I had after and that’s double what I have for a normal breakfast. Just because I left the beans, the mushrooms, the black pudding and yes, the hash browns doesn’t mean I’m not gorging myself here.
Just had some for lunch (Waitrose vacuum-packed fillets).
I wouldn’t mind them once in a while. But since they don’t agree with my wife, we’ll skip them.
On the subject of a sort of Bertie Wooster country house breakfast, I don’t think I’ve ever had devilled kidneys? Cook used to serve them before a good day of huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’, I think?
Yeah I’m skeptical it was ever a routine daily breakfast for anyone (with the exception of someone doing tons of manual work and require 1000s of calories a day). I have a quite an appetite and love a full English, but if I’m staying at a hotel in the UK or somewhere that has a full English as an option every day, I’m done by the second or third day.
Did people stop calling this breakfast a Full Monty because of the movie? Because I almost never hear that phrase in connection with a Full English Breakfast anymore.
From what I read it used to be a breakfast item (19th-20th century) but in modern days it’s more often served during supper. British celebrity chefs have featured it that way recently.
ETA: Here’s an example.
I think full monty as a term for the breakfast only arose in the 1970s. It might have just fizzled out on its own.
Looking at Google Ngrams, it appears the phrase ‘Full Monty’ only really took off after the movie - of course that’s only representative of whether it appeared in print.
Super glad y’all made mention of these titles I chased down new reads on my Hoopla app, right up my alley! I love an audio performance