Nothing beats a full English breakfast on a Saturday morning. It is by far the best way, in the words of Lurpak, to celebrate the death of the week. Even in the greasiest of greasy spoons, a fry-up is nearly always the perfect balance of salt and sweet able to cure any existential hangover crisis, however severe. But despite the universal love of the English breakfast, it seems to evade an Oxford English Dictionary type definition. This week I’ve been preoccupied with thinking about the true definition of the English breakfast, who makes the rules about what it includes and (more confusingly) what on earth the Scots are the Irish are going on about when they insist on the inclusion of “white pudding”.
To aid me in my quest for answers, I turned to Wikipedia. On the webpage, I was confronted by a list of 31 different elements that could be included within a full English breakfast, including some things I wouldn’t even give my dog to eat. Alongside bacon, sausages, eggs and toast were suggestions of fried kidneys, cockles and “scrapple” (which upon further investigation looks like a bit of old carpet apparently eaten in the
Midatlantic US). Feeling even more confused, I asked some friends what they considered to be the true answer to the English breakfast over Saturday brunch. A debate ensued about whether kippers or hash browns were legitimate contenders. One person was adamant that no vegetarian could dictate the elements of the full English. Another suggested that anything you can’t cook with all the other elements in a single frying pan bastardized the entire concept of a “fry-up”. I called my Dad who insisted that not to include Bara Lawr (or laverbread – basically minced seaweed) in my full English breakfast would be tantamount to disgracing my South Walian roots. Clearly the politics of devolution is found just as strongly in the concept of breakfast as in Holyrood or Westminster.
By way of reconciliation, it was decided that the staple of all English breakfasts had to include bacon and eggs, while anything over and above is purely a regional addition according to taste (or lack thereof), perhaps proving that the Cambridge intellectual system of perpetual uncertainty actually can be applied practically to the real world. But having mused on the idea of breakfast for a while, I came to the conclusion that perhaps it is not just the nutritional elements that make a full English in itself. I feel like its just as much about the idea of a leisurely weekend or something made for important occasions like birthdays or exam days. Or else, it is almost the crowning element of the morning after the night before, if you can keep it down that is. The full English may have won its place in the hearts of the British Isles (and globally) just as much because of its associations with occasion and comfort as for its taste, salt and fat content. While I am still loathe to accept offal as a staple of my fried breakfast, I’ve come to appreciate that the common denominator of the full English breakfast is the comfort just as much as the bacon and eggs.
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