UK: What's for breakfast?
 

Can someone kindly describe the difference between an English breakfast, Scottish breakfast, Irish breakfast and Ulster fry.

Thanks.

Check this out it answers your questions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_English_Breakfast

The Wikipedia article has to be a send-up. The chances of getting seaweed for breakfast in Wales are about as high as finding a native English speaker in the London hotel industry.

The differnce between a full English breakfast and etc is basically that there isn't one.

Describing the variations round bacon and eggs as a full British Breakfast sounds like something out of a British Tourist Association handout, so no-one wants to call it that. Since they call it an English breakfast in England, the other provinces naturally tweak the name.

The essence of a full British Breakfast is that the ingredients vary, partly by region.

In Scotland you're cettainly likely to find Lorne sausage and black pudding. Maybe white pudding, maybe fruit pudding. Sometimes in buffets, haggis is on offer (an offer which most eaters manage to refuse). But I've never found it put, unasked, on a plate.

In Northern Ireland, farls and usually potato cakes. Often white pudding.

In Wales, the only local variant - outside foodie country house hotels - will be some reference to ingredients coming from Wales. Oddly, the Australian habit of lamb chops for breakfast hasn't spread.

And when Wikipedia tells us that you might find devilled kidneys on the menu in England, it's making it clear the article was written by PG Wodehouse.

the basic is bacon eggs and toast but you may get any of tomatoes, mushrooms, potato,baked beans, fried bread. Tea or coffee.

As flanner has said you are not likley to get lava bread (seaweed) in Wales but it is not completely unknown, fruitjuice is common

Kippers you may get in a hotel but i don't think i've ever seen them on a cafe menu and kedgeree - er if you stay at my place and are lucky you may get kedgeree for breakfast but I doubt you'll find it anywhere else. Shae really it's a good breakfast.

you may also find cereal and fruit juice served as a first course, the fried section as a main course and toast and jam / marmalade to finish.

I agree with flanner that they are basically teh same. You might well find kippers and porridge on a Scottish menu, however.

Incidentally, should you be fortunate enough to find the exotica mentioned in the Wikipedia article, fill your plate up.

Lava bread is terrific and is about as Nutritionally Correct as it's possible to be. Haggis (the real stuff, though oddly this modish new veggie haggis tastes alright too) tastes even better, and has the added advantage of being about as Nutritionally Incorrect as it's possible to be - which guarantees scientists will discover tomorrow it prolongs your life by 20 years.

Kedgeree's the first known example of Anglo-Indian fusion food. If some poncey West End chef invented it today, his restaurant would be in all the glossies.

Bubble and squeak's the one exception: widely served in London greasy spoons, in about half of them it's just sloppily gunked up leftover vegetables from yesterday. In the other half, though, it's a great source of comforting fibre. Soaks up the tomato sauce from baked beans perfectly.

A friend from Edinburgh tells me a Scottish breakfast is "a cup of coffee, followed by a pint of beer and a cigarette." ;-)

I always opt for haggis for breakfast when I'm in Scotland.
It comes sliced.
I don't know why people are so silly about haggis. All it is is a large sausage with many fewer dodgy ingredients than you get in many sausages.
Nowadays, the sheep's stomach is most often made of plastic.

I don't think sausages normally contain heart, lungs and liver of a sheep.

Quite beside the point but I haven't seen lamb chops on a breakfast menu in Australia for many years - if at all (and I live here)

Nowadays, neither does haggis.

Am I wrong that you folks have left out the cold wiener, the cold toast and the warm (not hot) tea or coffee?

((I))

Sheila, our two favourite small Scottish hotels, the Old Mill Highland Lodge
http://www.theoldmillhighlandlodge.co.uk/
and the Castle Campbell Hotel in Dollar
http://www.castle-campbell.co.uk/
both serve excellent haggis at breakfast.
Nona, there's nothing wrong with heart and liver. They are delicious and good for you.
If you could see the ingredients for the average supermarket sausage, you'd find much worse than that.

So, NewYorkTraveler, have you been put off yet ? You can probably find whatever you like to try throughout the UK but if toast, marmalade and coffee is your usual, that's no problem. Bacon & eggs, also no problem. This applies to English and Scottish breakfast in my experience.

I have been in hotels in Wales which theoretically offered the bacon, cockles & laverbread experience - but never had the ingredients. I have however had it as a pub lunch & it was very nice; so if you see it, go for it !

As another poster mentioned, you may sometimes (in any part of the UK) have the option of kippers and/or smoked haddock with a poached egg. The kippers vary *a lot* in quality, though - from the finest kippers known to man (my best so far were in Whitby) to frozen, boil in the bag kipper fillets.

Very occasionally you may be offered grand old dishes like kedgeree (I've seen it in 2 places, I think) and Kidneys Turbigo (I also had this in Whitby).

Re your comment, Heimdall, I remember once reading an article which pondered the meaning of an 'Edinburgh breakfast' which the writer had seen advertised. Suggested variants included a Glasgow breakfast which involved a solicitor, and a Dundee breakfast comprising breakfast preserves, a newspaper and a length of rope :-)

I would also point out that none of us ever eats this stuff at home - at least not the full monty.

hey, speak for yourself! Sunday mornings, post Saturday night out, wouldn't be the same without a full English.

I eat English brekkies, but only in builders' caffs.

Yes, I too have a proper full English on a Sunday morning.
I have a source of Gloucester Old Spot bacon yum!

You can't beat the full Monty on a Saturday when it's international day (rugby). A late breakfast early lunch just sets you up for the day, the hubby goes to the home games or his rugby club, and I watch in the pub with friends. Now and again it is a nice treat. I do recall that when I have been in Southern Ireland every place we stayed wanted to fill you up with their full Irish. It was great to start off with and really set you up for the day but after a few days all we wanted was some fruit juice, ceral, tea and toast . You can imagine the looks from various landladies in their B&B. they kept saying to us are you sure that is all want do you not want a lovely full Irish to keep you going through the day.