Eschewing the effete bread-based efforts of our continental cousins the cooked English breakfast really came to the fore in the nineteenth century and certainly helped fuel the industrial revolution and assist Britain's rise to the greatest Imperial power the world has ever seen. Try and run the world by starting the day on a few flaky croissants or some slices of cheese and ham and see how far you get!
The proper constituents of a Full English breakfast are as controversial as what goes into a Bolognese sauce, Poulet Marengo or a Salad Niçoise. So let's have a look at the candidates. I will illustrate them with pictures from my own breakfast experiences!
Eggs
Hotel Inter-Continental, Lusaka, December 2010
These can be fried, scrambled or poached. The Legatus much prefers fried eggs but will cope with scrambled, although it is very difficult to get good scrambled eggs in a restaurant, unless prepared to order and
impossible in a hotel buffet where they usually take on the same consistency as that marbled foam rubber used in cheap furniture.
Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, October 2009
Poached eggs used to be more popular when I was young (my mother used to attempt them; usually with disastrous results) but now they are the breakfast equivalent of wearing a bow tie every day; slightly pretentiously eccentric. You do sometimes get them in places that serve Eggs Benedict as part of a cooked breakfast. I've never been convinced by Eggs Benedict: Hollandaise sauce is too rich for breakfast and the muffin is too thick a platform for the egg. I did have a good one on the Orient Express twenty years ago but that was an exception.
A goose egg under way at home June 2013
I prefer two fried eggs but have been known to take one large egg (such as a goose or turkey egg) once in a while. Currently, I prefer duck eggs to hen's eggs. If I am having scrambled eggs I prefer three or even four, if they are small. I tend to eat scrambled egg as a separate meal without all the constituents of a Full English, except, perhaps, some chopped ham.
Omni Hotel, San Franciso, October 2009
Of course, I did not eat eggs for many years as the government and scientists had decided they were bad for you; something they have now done a complete 180 degree turn on. I have also had a three fried egg presentation once but that was small eggs cooked as one, giving a thicker white.
Bacon
Bongusto Restaurant, Victoria, London, March 2009
People in most countries can produce a good fried egg but when it comes to bacon Britain really does reign supreme. What passes for bacon in most countries are dark brown, greasy strips of fat cooked until they are brittle; like baked shoe leather and about as tasty. Proper bacon for a Full English should be back bacon. Each rasher is made up of one part (the larger part) of pork loin and one part of pork belly. The American brittle bacon is exclusively the fattier pork belly variety. In fact, quite often I jettison the pork belly piece and just have the pork loin medallions. Properly cooked bacon should be soft not brittle. Some foreign hotels and restaurants serve ham instead of proper bacon but this is a poor substitute.
Sausages
Grand Cafe Royal Exchange, London, November 2011
You can't have a Full English without sausages (plural, please) otherwise it is just bacon and egg or a cooked breakfast. These is nothing wrong with bacon and egg but it makes a lightweight start to the day without some serious meat to back it up. Sadly, most Full English breakfasts in restaurants or cafes are let down by the sausage, which is often of poor quality compared with the bacon.
Chipolatas from Maurice Jones at home, March 2014
This is an area where the home cooked version of a Full English triumphs (in the same way as a traditional Sunday lunch is best at home) as you have complete quality control. I get my sausages from prize-winning sausage maker Maurice Jones & Sons in Oatlands, Surrey. Vastly superior to anything from a supermarket. You need to get there early if you want them on Saturday, however!
Arsenale Hotel, Cartagena, November 2013
The variety of sausages you get around the world is startling; including turkey and beef ones in Muslim countries. In South America I have had spicy ones reminiscent of Spanish chorizo (which just means sausage of course, anyway - "chorizo sausage" is tautologous) which while interesting aren't really right first thing in the morning.
Ritz-Carlton, Philadelphia, October 2009
My worst sausage experience was the sausage meat I had in Philadelphia which was dripping in maple syrup. Disgusting!
Mushrooms
Côte London Bridge, London, May 2014
I admit that I don't always have mushrooms if I am cooking breakfast at home but there is a good argument that they are a compulsory ingredient for a proper Full English Breakfast. Americans can find the fact that we have mushrooms for breakfast in Britain, rather odd. In fact they are one of the newer ingredients as they have only been cultivated in Britain since, surprisingly, the mid-twentieth century. What you get in restaurants varies between whole or halved small button mushrooms, sliced larger cup mushrooms or a whole or sliced large flat mushrooms. I prefer the middle option. Never, never tinned mushrooms though!
Tomatoes
Gossips Cafe, Yarmouth Isle of Wight, August 2011
These are another compulsory ingredient (even more so than mushrooms). Fried or grilled they should be soft to the point of disintegration. They should not have, as some hotels offer, cheese on them. Even worse are the places that put pesto on them. They should also not be tinned. There is an increasing fashion in London for more upmarket places to serve plum tomatoes sliced in two vertically but, again, this is a bit prissy.
Toast
Sainsbury's Cobham, May 2014
This is usually served on the side but the Legatus likes it as an integral part of the full plate. When I was small I would be given egg, bacon and
fried bread for breakfast but fried bread is disappearing before the onslaught of the healthy eating brigade. Frying a slice of bread at least doubles the calories but as a typical Full English breakfast comes in at about 1000 calories plus that really isn't going to matter that much. I tend to have toast rather than fried bread as it is more absorbent for soaking up bean and tomato juice etc.
Baked Beans
Churchill Cafe, Whitehall, London, November 2011
Baked beans seem such a staple of a Full English that I was genuinely surprised by those who maintain that it shouldn't be included. I would venture that such people are in the minority now and that their insistence that beans should only be eaten after 6.00 pm is rather akin to those who insist on saying "an" when the following word begins with an "h". They are technically correct, perhaps, but the English Breakfast, like the English language, is constantly evolving. Britain makes and consumes more baked beans that any other nation on earth; to the extent that in February this year a government minister here was trying to encourage people to eat less of them to avoid the excess generation of gases that contribute to global warming. I am not joking! The UK version of baked beans is very different from those served in the US which have more than twice the sugar in them. In fact, Heinz Baked Beans, which were first imported from America and sold as a luxury item in Fortnum & Mason in the nineteenth century, are now
exported to the US, having been made here since 1928. They started to become part of a cooked breakfast during the Second World War when there were very few tomatoes in Britain as these had always been produced in the Channel Islands which were, of course, ocupied by the Germans. Today many places offer an option of baked beans or tomatoes but not always bothg.
Potatoes
Giraffe, South Bank, London, February 2011
These are another controversial ingredient. Probably, traditionally, bubble and squeak, a fried mixture of shredded potato and cabbage, was included in earlier versions of the Full English. This has now, largely, been supplanted by American hash browns, saute potatoes or chips (French fries for our American cousins). I have had shredded potato mixed with other things in foreign hotels.
Royal York Hotel, Toronto, August 2010
I would venture that chips are really only served when the Full English is served at lunch time lunch as an "all-day breakfast". This is certainly the practice in the breakfast Nirvana that is Eegon's of Cowes. For their larger breakfasts they serve saute potatoes. I have never been that fond of hash browns but they are more digestible in the morning than solid potato. Producing potato dishes as an accompaniment to a Full English at home really does add an extra level of complexity to the whole performance, however.
Black Pudding
Sheraton Hotel, Edinburgh, September 2013
Is black pudding (a blood sausage) a part of an authentic Full English or a regional variation in the manner of cockles (yes, really) in Wales, Soda Bread in Ireland or haggis in Scotland? The traditionalists maintain that it should be included and, certainly, it was certainly part of the cooked breakfasts served at my college, although that had a lot of people from the north of England as students. The Legatus, being from the south, thinks that this is a northern affectation but it certainly adds to the finished article.
Eegon's, Cowes, Isle of Wight, August 2013
So, according to some writers, these are the "magic nine" ingredients which transform a "cooked breakfast" or "fry up" into a "Full English breakfast". As we have seen, however, there is not universal agreement on this. I have also had, onion rings and steak included, especially in the terrifying
Steakfast from Eegons; the only cooked breakfast in the world I was unable to finish.
Braid Hills Hotel, Edinburgh, August 2016
Latterly, since I have been spending more time in Scotland I have added haggis to my home-cooked breakfasts; usually in small fried slices but occasionally using the leftovers from a complete haggis. When in Scotland, of course, I always have haggis in my breakfast.
Waldorf Astoria, Edinburgh, February 2013
Interestingly, in checking through my photographs I realise that I haven't actually had a breakfast with all the "magic nine" in it. The closest I have got was this superb example from Scotland which had haggis but no potato and fried bread instead of toast. Something to strive for still!
