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.

You would be served laverbread at breakfast at home by my father in Wales, for sure. He has always eaten it. I grew up on bubble and squeak, porridge with golden syrup, black pudding and the like. But all I ever really wanted was a bowl of Lucky Charms.

When I lived in the UK, it was difficult to find a place to go out to brekkie. I ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS go out to breakfast on Saturday and Sunday. It's an integral part of the weekend... to see & be seen. When I lived in Cardiff, the only place I could find for brekkie was a local builder's cafe or the Waitrose in the nearby town. And, on Sunday, the Tesco with the good croissants didn't even open until 9:30 or 10:00 a.m.

All said, I did love the bacon!

This has been to me a BIG plus point of the ban on smoking in indoors public spaces in Scotland. We celebrated the day it came in by going to the pub for Sunday breakfast ! With a nice Bloody Mary :-)

Fairfax, I'm guessing Cardiff may have changed quite a bit since you lived there ? Nowadays I'm sure there are lots of trendy cafe-bars offering eggs benedict etc (my favourite !). And Weatherspoons is sure to do the standard fry-up.

Wetherspoons breakfast: Pint of stella, 10 bensons, bacon butty and a lottery scratchcard all served with an air of regret and the smell of wet dog.

Caroline... I lived in Cardiff until December 2005! The good hotels had brekkie, but there were just not lots of places open Sundays for a good sit and read and drink coffee breakfasts.

Oddly, the Australian habit of lamb chops for breakfast hasn't spread.

Digressing slightly from the topic but... I've never had a lamb chop or seen it offered in Australia. Maybe a hundred years ago on an isolated farm when everything else had run out...

nona - if you think those things don't go into sausage - well i won't enlighten you as to what does.

I thought the traditional Aussie breakfast was steak and eggs?

Well I suppose it depends what sausages you buy...

Anywhere that smoking is not on the menu would be fine with me.

Nona, I thought the whole point of sausages was to use up the bits that wouldn't otherwise be eaten - 'everything but the squeal' in the case of pork sausages. I suppose you could make your own, though.

Decent sausages are made with proper meat not random bits and pieces! Cheap sausages are another matter though...

Maybe in another lifetime Aussies ate steak and eggs for breakfast but nowadays most people eat cereal or toast. The choice of breakfasts in cafes in Australia is wonderful compared to the (lack of) choices in the UK.
Kay

I thought steak for breakfast was a US thing ? That's the only place I've ever seen it. Though I haven't been to Oz.

Fairfax, I'd have thought all the trendy cafe-bars around Mill Lane and Mermaid Quay would do breakfast/brunch, at least at the weekend - no ?

Mermaid Quay, yes... but was more looking for a hang-out kind of place for breakfast. Not a trendy, touristy place.

I have a place in the states that is sort of a "diner" in the real sense. We kid and say it's where the elite meet to eat, because it's most certainly not.

It's the "Cheers" bar of breakfast places. You always know someone there, you can read the papers, stay for hours, drink gallons of coffee and at the end, the bill is about $5.00. Good cheap filling food.

I think that steak for breakfast is not too common... or else it's a Texas/Western states sort of thing. When I was in New Mexico, everyone at green chile with their eggs and biscuits.

Haggis is rarely served in a Scottish breakfast outside of hotels. The main difference between Scottish and English breakfast as served in most homes or cafes is the addition of potato scones, lorne(square)sausage and frequently black pudding. Most butchers and supermarkets in Scotland will also sell fruit pudding which is sliced and then fried. Basically a good Scottish breakfast means you shouldn't have to do lunch and will probably only want a light supper lol!

It also goes some way to explaining our shocking rates of heart disease.

Seome places will provide a Welsh Breakfast. The main difference being the welsh ingredients plus the addition of laverbread, which for your information Flanner is seaweed. I have it quite frequently, delicious with fried bacon. It is readily available from supermarkets and Cardiff Central Market too.

Places that serve breakfast such as cafe's probably won't serve laverbread as it is outside the price they can reasonably charge.
However I suspect hotels will serve it.

Anyway try it it is delicious.

Muck

Thanks for your responses.

This will be quite a challenge for me as I am used to a typical New York breakfast of bagels with cream cheese and lox (smoked salmon). If I get homesick, any chance this is available in Edinburgh or York?

I'll probably get roasted for this, but I guess being from Seattle, people will just have to deal.

When we were in London, we discovered a Starbucks not 3 blocks from our hotel. We bought lattes, a pastry of some kind, and walked up to Buckingham Palace to start our day, where we enjoyed our breakfast.

Oddly enough, I'd never do that in Paris, where I think it's the law that you sit down with your cafe au lait & an omelette or croissant. ;)

Jules

<<I am used to a typical New York breakfast of bagels with cream cheese and lox (smoked salmon).>>

For breakfast, Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Eggs are fairly common in upmarket cafes', but your best bet for bagels with Smoked Salmon & cream cheese in the morning, is probably Marks & Spencer which are dotted around most cities.

Incidently, Scotland is often considered to be the finest producer of smoked salmon.

Geordie

chiming in here.

Purely because we have a Irish bar here who provides an 'Irish' breakfast.

We must spend too much time in this bar since when I ordered the breakfast the waitesss looked at me and said "no pudding?' :-D

They use Walls sausages, real irish bacon and heinz baked beans.

I would love a breakfast that provided kippers. Although I would have to eat them with brown bread and buttter