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History of the Full English

The history of the full English breakfast

• There is very little information about when the Scots and English started combining all the ingredients that make up the full English breakfast, but we do know a few things about the origin of the individual ingredients.

• Before tea was introduced to Britain, the English had two main meals, breakfast and dinner. Breakfast was ale, bread, and beef. It was not until the mid 17th century that the beverage first appeared in England.

• Modern bacon originated in Wiltshire in the early 18th century when many pigs were imported from Ireland. Calne in Wiltshire was a regular resting place for herds of swine and was thus assured of a constant supply of pigs for curing. The butchers there developed a method of curing half pork sides in a brine solution known as the “Wiltshire cure”. This produced low salt sweet bacon that became a staple of the English diet.

• The ancient Chinese used to fry eggs and tomatoes together.

• Black puddings originated in Europe and were brought over to England by European monks who called the product “bloodwurst”. It was when the monks visited Lancashire that the food was renamed “black pudding”.