On cheese scones, plain butter for me.

If you can serve it hot, I'd go for kedgeree.
The blessed Delia has a recipe at
http://tinyurl.com/ynnokp

BTW, another British cookery site says
"It should be noted that smoked haddock is often marketed in the United States as "finnan haddie," whether it is the authentic Scottish article or not. If the product is a strange fluorescent yellow, it is artificially smoked and should be approached with caution"

Cheese scones are nicest served slightly warm, split and spread with a little butter, though they are perfectly nice cold, too.
They shouldn't be sweet though, so no (or only minimal) sugar is required in the dough.

How about some good English cheese? Something like a block of Wensleydale plus a block of Double Gloucester?

For BREAKFAST???!!

Yeah, but this is more like lunch really, between 12 and 2pm.

OK. I'm defeated:)

Close observers of this site might have gathered I'm pretty convinced things have got steadily worse in Scotland since the demise of the great Adam Smith. Probably the influx of all my ancestors' compatriots too feckless to get the boat to Liverpool and settling for Stranraer instead. You can, after all, always tell an Ulster Scot. Not much, though.

But, Sheila, Dr Johnson's otherwise still accurate observations about North Britain no longer apply in one crucial area: breakfast.

Over the years, Scotland's given me marvellous breakfasts of herring, both straightforwardly (or preferably in oatmeal) fried or smoked. Trout ditto. Salmon ditto. Haddock poached, fried or smoked. Haggis. Burns alone knows how many different kinds of sausage including those ghastly Irish 99.9% breadcrumb things they eat in Glasgow. Did I say haggis? Occasionally magnificent ham, frequently magnificent bacon. When really lucky, mutton chops: when staying with posh friends, bits of wild bird.

True, cheese is usually tucked away in the corner of hotel spreads marked "for Continentals only". But it's there - and in modern Scotland often excellent.

So given Scots' catholic approach to appropriate breakfastime food, why the prejudice against English cheese?

Gulp, I don't think I would want any English breakfast or brunch, truly I don't. But carry on..and enjoy!

This combination of stuff isn't what we would normally eat for breakfast or lunch. We are trying to think of things to fit into a meal we don't eat (brunch) that reflects 'Eastenders' and can be served cold. Bit of a tough one really...

Don't worry. You'd love a real British breakfast if you were here...

Brunch: a composite of breakfast and lunch. Common where I come from, as a late breakfast (about 11am) which therefore will include some lunch-type food as well. I don't understand the recoiling from cheeses as a breakfast food - when did anyone last have a French or German breakfast that didn't include a whole range of cheeses? But we're talking UK so the jellied eels, pickled onions, meatloaf, cockles (not welks please!) and fishpaste (jarred liver pate) sound just right!!

We don't eat meatloaf - we just buy his records. I don't think I've ever has meatloaf.

If you actually wanted to reflect the current East End you would need to bring things like dosas and sambals.

Nona, what is a real English breakfast? Seriously I would like to know. It seems like most of the English Fodorites use words that I can't even translate. I do better with Italian translations regarding food..plus I have been to Italy so many times I know what to expect.

So seriously, and in "plain" English please..what is a typical English breakfast? Thank you.

The standard English breakfast in my house is a bowl of cornflakes and a mug of tea eaten in my pants.

The "traditional" English breakfast is a calorie overload which contains permutations of the following: Sausages; bacon; fried eggs; mushrooms; tomatoes (cooked); black pudding; baked beans; fried bread; toast; scrambled or poached eggs. There are regional variations like white pudding and in Scotland things like square sausage and haggis.

We rarely eat breakfasts as big as these. The only people who regularly eat an English breakfast are builders - who work hard enough to work it off. However when a British hotyel/B&B is offering breakfast it means the above stuff (although there will be lighter things like cereal available for namby-pamby types).

Typing all that has made me hungry.

Alright audere, so B&B's serve rather gross breakfasts and the residents of England eat a normal breakfast I take it..cornflakes and a cuppa tea eaten in ones pants. "Eaten in my pants"? Pray tell how do I translate that? Do you mean you have your cornflakes and tea while (I think you say whilst) wearing your pants or do you put the cornflakes and tea IN your pants and then..oh never mind I don't think I want to know.

Our cousins across the pond are too confusing.

Nona..any thoughts from you?

I'm a single bloke who lives alone. I do many activities in my pants.

And there's NOTHING gross about a well-cooked English breakfast. It can be a masterpiece (although often isn't)

Our American friends need to realise that vests and pants are undergarments.

Josser...OH! I had no idea. I thought pants were the outgarment that men wore. What do you call them, slacks?
Whoever thinks we speak the same language is quite wrong.

I'm still fascinated by the bacon butty, myself. Also can't seem to get the "eating in my pants" thing; breakfast in my underwear?, don't think so.
Sorry this thread has caused confusion but the suggestions, and my lack of knowledge there of, have been eye opening. And I have been to Britain, all areas north and south, at least 20 times in the last 20 years and am going again next month. In the hotels and b&bs the standard breakfast is the bacon, egg, and baked bean thing.

I am still leaning toward the cheese scones (with no jam)for the brunch.

Quite, Margo. One thing I'm aware of, when my neighbours have a group do of some sort, is that we all tend to think we have to cater on our own for everybody, and there's masses left over. So stick to one or two things.