A full breakfast or fry-up is a substantial cooked breakfast meal often made in Great Britain and Ireland. Depending on the region where it is served a full breakfast, or one of its variants, may also be referred to as a full English, full Scottish, full Welsh, full Irish fry up, or Ulster fry. Other variants of the full breakfast are made elsewhere. The typical ingredients of a full breakfast are bacon, sausages, eggs, black pudding, tomatoes, mushrooms, and fried bread or toast. The meal is often served with tea. Baked beans, hash browns, and coffee (in place of tea) are common contemporary but non-traditional inclusions. Fried breakfasts became popular in Great Britain and Ireland during the Victorian era; while the term "full breakfast" does not appear, a breakfast of "fried ham and eggs" is in Isabella Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861).
History Many of the ingredients of a full breakfast have long histories, but "large cooked breakfasts do not figure in English life and letters until the 19th century during the Victorian era, when they appeared with dramatic suddenness". Across Britain and Ireland, early modern breakfasts were often breads served with jams or marmalades, or else forms of oatmeal, porridge or pottage. Eggs and bacon started to appear in breakfasts in the seventeenth century, but they were not the only meats consumed in breakfasts at that time. The rising popularity of breakfast was closely tied to the rise of tea as a popular morning drink. Of note were the lavish breakfasts of the aristocracy, which would centre on local meats and fish from their country estates. Cookbooks were important in the fixing of the ingredients of a full breakfast during this time, and the full breakfast appeared in the best-selling Isabella Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861). This new full breakfast was a pared-down version of the country breakfasts of the upper class, affordable to the emergent middle classes and able to be prepared and consumed in a shorter time before a day's work. The full breakfast reached its peak of popularity in Edwardian Britain, and despite a decline following the food shortages of World War II, new technologies of food storage and preparation allowed it to become a staple of the working class in the 1950s. Since then the full breakfast has declined in popularity as a daily meal, due to concerns about health and the longer preparation time needed compared to convenience-food breakfasts. However, the meal remains popular as an occasional, celebratory or traditional breakfast. It is so popular in Britain and Ireland that many cafés and pubs offer the meal at any time of day as an "all-day breakfast". It is also popular in many Commonwealth nations. It can also often readily be found served in restaurants and cafés in tourist destinations that commonly serve British tourists. The full breakfast is among the most internationally recognised British dishes along with bangers and mash, toad in the hole, shepherd's pie, fish and chips, roast beef, Sunday roast, cream tea and the Christmas dinner.
Variants
England
There is no fixed menu or set of ingredients for a full English breakfast. A common traditional English breakfast typically includes back bacon, sausages (usually pork), eggs (fried, poached or scrambled), fried or grilled tomatoes, fried mushrooms, black pudding, baked beans, and toast or fried bread. The other ingredients may be put on top of the toast. Bubble and squeak is a traditional accompaniment but is now more commonly replaced by hash browns. Black pudding is a type of blood sausage made from pork or occasionally beef blood, with fat or suet, and a cereal. Its high proportion of cereal, along with the use of certain herbs, distinguishes it from other blood sausages. Bubble and squeak is an English dish made from cooked potatoes and cabbage, mixed together and fried. Its name, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), alludes to the sounds made by the ingredients when being fried. A poll by YouGov in 2017 found the following to be on more than 50% of 'ideal' Full English breakfasts: bacon; sausage; beans; bread (either toast or fried); eggs (fried, scrambled or poached); hash browns; mushrooms (fried or grilled); and tomatoes (fried, grilled or tinned). Black pudding was the least popular of the traditional ingredients, chosen 35% of the time, and 26% of people included either chips or sautéed potatoes. Buttered toast, and jam or marmalade, are often served at the end of the meal, although toast is generally available throughout the meal. As nearly everything is fried in this variant of the meal, it is commonly known as a "fry-up". In the UK it is sometimes referred to as a "Full Monty". One theory for the origin of this term is that British Army general Bernard Montgomery, nicknamed 'Monty', was said to have started every day with a "Full English" breakfast while on campaign in North Africa during the Second World War. Vegetarian or vegan alternatives can be made or are available in cafes and restaurants. Meat alternative sausages and bacon may often be used, with either scrambled tofu or egg substitutes. The role of mushroom and tomatoes is generally larger in these versions. In 2012, the English Breakfast Society was established as a learned society. Headquartered in Hertfordshire, England, it is "... dedicated to the history, standards, and cultural tradition of the [full] English breakfast." According to its website, it was founded, and has a mission, to research and document that breakfast, and make authoritative reference material about it publicly available. Its activities also include the promotion of 2 December every year as "English Breakfast Day", and the organisation of an annual English Breakfast World Championship "open to anyone, anywhere", with entries to be submitted by email, or via a direct message on social media.
Scotland
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