The full English breakfast is famous worldwide and is served in many hotels and restaurants but do you know how it originated. Check out our list of fun full English breakfast facts that will probably leave you feeling hungry.
1. The ‘Full English’ originated in roughly 1840
However, the menu wasn’t fixed and it could include: “baked halibut steaks, fried whiting, stewed figs, pheasant legs, collared tongue, kidneys on toast, sausages with fried bread, pig’s cheek and Melton pork pie”.
2. Isabella Beeton lays out the following breakfast advice in The Book of Household Management (1861)
“The following list of hot dishes may perhaps assist our readers in knowing what to provide for the comfortable meal called breakfast. Broiled fish, such as mackerel, whiting, herrings, dried haddocks, &c.; mutton chops and rump-steaks, broiled sheep’s kidneys, kidneys à la maître d’hôtel, sausages, plain rashers of bacon, bacon and poached eggs, ham and poached eggs, omelets, plain boiled eggs, oeufs-au-plat, poached eggs on toast, muffins, toast, marmalade and butter.”
3. Cooked breakfast fell out of fashion during WW2, due to the scarcity of bacon and eggs
After the war, a cooked breakfast became popular again, but was mainly served on weekends.
4. In 1956, half of all adults and teenagers had a cooked breakfast in the morning- even if it was just a boiled egg
But by 1976, that number had dropped to only 20%.
5. Generally, a Full English breakfast includes: bacon, poached or fried eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread or toast with butter, sausages and baked beans
But it can also include: Bubble and squeak, black pudding, potato cakes and hash browns
6. A Cornish variant includes hog’s pudding and Cornish potato cakes or fried potatoes
7. The Welsh variant includes fried laverbread
8. A Scottish version includes tattie scones and Lorne sausage
9. A typical Full English has approximately 1190 calories
10. The English breakfast has inspired tattoos
11. Band names
12. Jewelry
13. And a society
In order to “restore the traditional English breakfast to its former glory and encourage the spread of establishments serving a high quality traditional English breakfast throughout the land”.
14. A full English breakfast is also known as a A Fry Up, A Full Monty and a Full English
15. But really, all that matters is getting stuck in
