h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Our nation's one & only lasting contribution to international cuisine: the GBB.

(Note to Californians and other fat-conscious people: this posting contains numerous references to FRIED FOOD. Look away now.)

1) Bacon: personal preference is for smoked back, no particular brand but MUST be dry-cured. (Note: the person who invented the idea of injecting water into bacon should be hung up by the heels over a slow fire, along with Margaret Thatcher who helped perfect the process of injecting air into ice cream before she went into politics). The way to fry bacon perfectly is to wear no clothing, ensuring that you are cooking at the correct temperature to prevent hot fat spitting all over the place.

2) Fried bread: this is the quintessential British basis for breakfast, although I must admit to experimentation with potato waffles and hash browns with some success.

3) Eggs: again, fried is the classic. I favour scrambled (this may be due to a horrible childhood incident involving my grandmother which I won't go into here, the details are too painful to remember).

4) Black pudding: it's really hard to get good black pudding these days. Reader recommendations invited. Obviously, it must be fried. White pudding is rarely seen in England these days and seems to be more a feature of the GIB (Great Irish Breakfast).

5) Sausages: The secret is NOT to prick them before frying. Classicists favour the bog-standard Walls pork sausage. As an avant-garde GBBer, I will quite happily go for pork-and-leek, Lincolnshire or whatever else is lurking in the fridge at the time.

6) Optional extras: Mushrooms, fried (natch) are one of my personal favourites. Baked beans too on occasions. I do NOT favour tomatoes (cooked or otherwise) but some people insist on them. Hey, it's a free world (sometimes).

Obviously, the perfect complement to the GBB is nice cup of

The nasty subject of the NBB (Non-British Breakfast) should also be briefly mentioned here. Tourist boards of European countries, get smart: if you want to attract more British visitors, DO NOT MAKE THEM EAT CHEESE FOR BREAKFAST. Please feel free however to provide copious amounts of muesli, I fill bags with it and take it home for my cat litter tray.

The NAB (North American Breakfast) involves maple syrup and can only be discussed on a more adult-oriented website than this one.

In Scotland you get fairly good black pudding in supermarkets (you can buy the big sausage of them) and it does not have the minging big cubes of fat in them White pudding is also in the scottish version, as is the ubiquetous haggis slice. One thing you missed out is the lorne sausage. M'mmmm.

I cannot eat one every day, but once a month, or after a good night out you just cannae beat it Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

"lorne sausage" - tell us more, Scotsbeing! What's a lorne sausage got in it? ? ? ? ?

Is that the big square sausage that everyone likes up here (scotland)?

More specific! Must have more details. Do you have a List?

Was passed in mention above in the Great British Breakfast

Under the section on Fried bread not just any bread is used in the Irish tradition oh no we have our own bread for frying

The humble potato is the esential ingredient in potato bread which is a slim unlevened bread which is far more tastey than the American pototo contribution the Hash Brown

And the second is the Soda Farl which is a scone like mixture

Without these two breads no Irish Breakfast is properly dressed. As for the Black Pudding this was always part of me grandfathers fired breakfasts at the weekend along with white pudding similar but not as dark. Sadly harder to find with the loss of many traditional butchers.

Leading supermarket now do produce potato bread and soda farls (bread) so you don't always have to do what I once did and traipse across London to the Irish sector to get all the right incredients.

By the 'Irish Sector you mean Kilburn?

Well, that's a start. It's a 'square' sausage. Doesn't bother me, I'm not prejudiced. But we need an ingredients list DAMMIT! The Scots will eat pretty much anythoing so we need a List

Also with a GBB you should have some toast put in the centre of the table, like you get at B & Bs and Hotels. In fact, if you go to those places you also get something like a Cereal or Juice before the Big Breakfast. If you are a visitor to the UK, you really cannot complain about being hungry after breakfast.

spook

Yes, the fruit juice with hotel breakfasts is a GOOD THING. I favour grapefruit which is a shame as some hotels do not have it. I generally skip the cereal option at hotel breakfasts as it leaves more room for the Main Event.

(Totally irrelevant aside - do you reckon the Talking Toaster in the first series of "Red Dwarf" was made by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?)

PP

Sod healthy edating - my perfect day out is to take the bike and find a cafe where they do a big British Breakfast. Only problem is that over tyhe years the standard of fried bread has changed. Whereas it used to be crisp, darkish golden brown, it is now impossible to find. It is invariably limp and not even the right colour. I have tried cooking it myself but fail. Sooooo, does anyone know a good cafe in Wales for fried bread, and does anyone have tips on how to cook it at home?

the best breakfast you can get in this great land of ours is in a Transport Cafe, eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, fried slice, tomatoes and mug of tea for a couple of quid, after that you don't need lunch but you maybe able to hear artery's hardening

The standard of fried bread in caffs has indeed fallen lately. I have a problem with cooking it at home because I actually prefer brown or wholemeal bread for sarnies, whereas fried bread should of course be made with white bread. So I would have to buy 1 loaf of each and end up throwing most of them away after they went mouldy. Hence my earlier reference to hash browns - one of the few good culinary things to come out of the USA IMO. They don't even need frying as they come pre-cholesterolised and can be simply be bunged in the oven. This has the important additional benefit of freeing up a cooker ring for one of the optional extras mentioned earlier.

I don't live anywhere near s so can't help you on that one.

Note to editors: smiley needed!

I agree with you about the hash browns, fried bread is usually done in the chip frier that's why it's so hard

the easiest way to fry bread is to use a frying pan. what's the need for a chip frier?

spook

It's how they cook large quantities in industrial kitchens

Well, see above...if you have a standard 4-ring cooker, you obviously need 1 ring for bacon, 1 for eggs, 1 for (say) mushrooms. If you fancy another optional extra like baked beans then fried bread becomes problematic. Hash browns solve this problem by going in the oven (& you don't have to keep an eye on them there).

Traditional recipe for lorne sausage, so it has been said....

Ingredients:
2 lbs Ground/minced Beef
2 lbs Ground Pork
3 Cups Fine Bread Crumbs
2 tsp Pepper
2 tsp Nutmeg
3 tsp Coriander
3 tsp Salt
1 Cup of water.

Method:
The beef and pork should not be too lean or the sausage may be too dry.
Mix really well by hand then place in an oblong pan about 10" x 4" x 3". You might need two pans. Place in the freezer for a little while till it's just starting to set. Remove it and cut them to the thicknes you like and put them into freezer bags and put them back in the freezer. When required, defrost and fry in a little fat or oil until brown and cooked through.

BCNU - Crescent

>"if you have a standard 4-ring cooker, you obviously need 1 ring for bacon, 1 for eggs, 1 for (say) mushrooms. If you fancy another optional extra like baked beans then fried bread becomes problematic. Hash browns solve this problem by going in the oven (& you don't have to keep an eye on them there)."

i disagree. you use the grill that usually comes with an oven to do the bacon and sausages, 1 ring for eggs, 1 ring for mushrooms and 1 ring for tinned tomatoes. if you fry tomatoes then you put them with the mushrooms. for fried bread you fry it at the end in the mushroom pan. hash browns go in the oven or deep fat frier.

spook

Now this is the sort of hard information I was after. Can you buy this delicacy anywhere south of the Border or would you have to make it yourself?