A Thesis on Traditional Cuisine

<< Come to Papa

A weekend-based factual double-header this, uh, weekend as I move from football to fry-ups. Please be assured, however, that I am in fact highly intellectual and sensitive, and not a builder. I'd much rather be reading Proust and making installation art than slurping down eggs in front of Middlesbrough v Cardiff, believe me. Anyway, I claimed whilst we were on holiday that the term 'full Scottish breakfast' was a derivation of full English breakfast, which is the actual name for any cooked meat-based breakfast. I think about food a lot. Anyway, I thought it was time to put my money where my mouth is. And, much like anyone who bet on Chelsea to win the FA Cup yesterday afternoon (sorry, too lowbrow - um, anyone who's ever bought installation art?) I've been left out of pocket.

Turns out that the correct term is a full breakfast, and the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish appendages are all equally valid (Welsh? It's bacon, eggs, cockles and seaweed. It's an abomination). They're also prevalent in America and other parts of the Anglosphere, which means the world's other English-speaking countries, rather than some kind of colonial amusement park. It seems that a full breakfast can be pretty much anything as long as it centres on bacon and eggs (kind of like my whole diet, really). Somerset Maugham (oh yeah, we're getting literary now) once claimed that to eat well in England, you should eat three breakfasts a day. I'd say that's subjective - for instance, today I had a vegetarian full English, which would be fine, but yesterday I had a stale Hob-Nob and a can of Red Bull to start the day. The question is, where did the English obsession with massive, delicious breakfasts come from?

Full breakfasts were first eaten by farmers and landowners in the 19th century.

They were seen as a luxury by the landowning classes due to the propensity of fresh meat in them, but had not spread to the aristocracy, who still preferred a nice buffet. As for the peasants, it was still pebbles and gruel for them until greasy spoon cafés brought egg-based satisfaction and coronary troubles to the masses. So there we have it. Not a very interesting fact, but a good excuse to talk about fry-ups. As for the rest of my evening, well, it's not called an All Day Breakfast for nothing...