Traditionally, people in Britain and Ireland have enjoyed a substantial hot meal for breakfast, featuring eggs, bacon, and sausages, accompanied by toast and tea or coffee. These items are sometimes eaten separately on morning rolls. Many other items (for example kedgeree, grilled or fried tomatoes, black pudding or white pudding, baked beans, fried sliced bread, various types of fried potatoes and mushrooms) may be included depending on taste and location. Today, this dish remains popular but is not usually served at breakfast time during the week. Many people instead reserve the full cooked breakfast for weekends, or go to a cafe for it on the weekends. A full breakfast is also a meal available any time at many cafes and greasy spoons. It is also served at hotels where it can be quite substantial in size and variety. The author Somerset Maugham once quipped that "the only way to eat well in England is to have breakfast three times a day."
This traditional cooked breakfast has largely been replaced by simple, light foods mainly eaten cold: fruit, yogurt, packaged cereal with cold milk, and toast with a variety of spreads such as butter, jam, marmalade, lemon curd, Marmite, or peanut butter. Porridge is a traditional breakfast in Scotland as well as the rest of Britain in the winter months. In most British hotels this breakfast is included in the room rate.
However, times have progressed and due to the need for fast nourishment, cold breakfast foodstuffs such as commercial cereal brands (sugarpuffs, branflakes, weetabix etc) are becoming the norm for many persons first meal of the day; the option of smoothies and yogurt has also became a popular choice in later years as well as French-influenced croissants as a sweet replacement to toast or crumpets. |