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

Mind if I post an alternative take on your description of this most hallowed of institutions?

Bacon:
If you don't have a butcher who can supply you with good free range local bacon from an organic farm in your area, some of the supermarkets now supply good stuff (In the UK, check out the Helen Browning range or Duchy Originals). There are two advantages of using this type of bacon; firstly, it isn't injected with gallons of salty water prior to packing so as to increase the volume of the meat - hence water doesn't run out of the bacon during cooking and you're not left with shrivelled strips of gristle and a pan full of horrible white, lardy, grimy brine. Secondly, this bacon tastes of meat - not damp chewy salt.
Cook the bacon to your preferred method. I like to use a ridged griddle pan; however toasting the rashers in front of an open fire is a time-honoured traditional method. The meaty part should be succulent and moist, the fatty edges should be crisp and tasty. It's not hard to do.

Eggs:
Again, fresh, top- quality produce here is the key. Terms like "Organic" and "Free Range" translate as follows:
"Forget the namby-pamby stuff about whether or not it's good for the animals, the food just tastes better".
Cook the eggs to your preference. Fried eggs may be cooked in a little butter or olive oil - a non-stick pan may not be a traditional choice but it is really handy here. Turn them once or, if you prefer "sunny-side-up", gently baste the whites in the cooking fat.
Poached eggs are good with "alternative" breakfast meats such as black pudding, white pudding or haggis, served with a toasted (English) muffin for the bread.
Scrambled eggs are usually best served as the basis for a lighter breakfast. The nicest way to prepare them that I know of is to put a good lump of butter in a cold (non-stick) frying pan, add a tiny splash of milk, a good grind of freshly milled white pepper, some Maldon Sea Salt flakes, and perhaps a crushed dried chilli. Place the pan on a medium heat. As the butter begins to melt crack some fresh eggs straight into the pan, don't beat or whip them first - try to keep the yolks hole. Use a wooden spoon to gently stir the whites as they set around the yolks, combining the milk and butter into the albumen. When the whites have just about set begin to break the yolks and fold them in, the yolks cook and set much more quickly than the whites and it's nice to leave the yolks a little "runny" while ensuring the whites are properly cooked.

Fried Mushrooms:
Mushrooms are usually best a day or two after they were picked, this allows them to dry out a little. Field mushrooms tend to hold a lot of water and if you try to cook them on the day they were picked you'll find that all the water seeps out from the mushrooms and drowns whatever you're cooking. I like to lightly fry the mushrooms whole in a little butter or oil, then slice them before serving. They keep their flavour a little better that way.

Fried Tomatoes:
Not really worth too much fanfare. However, they can be nice halved and fried face down in the pan with the bacon. The sweetness can offset the salty bacon quite pleasantly.

Black Pudding:
An ancient, traditional, and quite delicious form of sausage, unfairly maligned and widely rejected as inedible by narrow-minded morons simply because it contains blood.
Well, when was the last time you ate meat that didn't?
Think about what goes into a "Tesco Value" sausage, the sort of thing which most people would happily munch on all day until the battery-farmed, antibiotic-high, gentically-modified pigs come home!
Which do you think contains the most wholesome animal products?.. A nice couple of slices of black pudding from your local butcher or that slab of warm dogfood you find in the middle of a MacDonald's burger?
Just grow up and try the stuff, for Bob's sake! Don't base your judgements on the slopey-foreheaded misconceptions of the generation that gave us frozen dinners and microwave ovens!

Coffee or Tea:
Tea, please! No sugar.

Sausages:
Stick to the theme. Invest in some good quality sausages, or even make your own! Don't prick the skins, unless you want them to split and dry out - just cook them gently... treat them with the love and respect they deserve. Roasting them brushed with a little olive oil on a wire rack in the oven is pretty much the best way of doing them, they cook right through nice and evenly and you don't need to pay them too much attention. You can get some flavoured sausages and speciality things, these are often great! I would only suggest to try and get flavours that compliment the rest of the meal.

Fried Bread:
There are many bread options with a Traditional Breakfast. A fresh, crusty white bloomer loaf, sliced up into doorsteps is hard to beat. Fried bread is good if you brush it with olive oil, (Or lard if you want to be a real traditionalist, or you think that artery is something to do with a bow and arrow) give it a quick flash in the pan after the bacon, then finish it under the grill. This should make it moist on the inside and light and crispy on the outside. Ordinary toast is probably best saved for a little breakfast "dessert" with butter and jam or marmalade - you don't really want it on the plate with the eggs and bacon, it just goes cold, tough and chewy. As I mentioned, toasted and buttered English Muffins are really good, particularly with poached eggs, or try them with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on Christmas Day. For a change try Scottish Oatcakes with Haggis and a poached egg, and maybe a couple of rashers of streaky - a predictable yet wonderfully flawless combination.

So there we have it... A bit of planning, thought, care and imagination is all you need for a delicious, and Great, British Breakfast. Oh , and don't forget the HP sauce!

You speakth the truth, all hail! I'd like to add a couple of things though - potato cakes warmed in the toasted are perfect for soaking up the wonderful fryup juices, and are less deadly than fried bread. Also this kind of meal is best served for a large group of friends, with proper place settings and plenty of tes/coffee and oj!

Thanks for writing this - I was starting to worry no-one else liked food! Quite agree on the sourcing of good meat and eggs.

Couple of personal preferences: I like the tomotoes to be left alone, cut side down until they get a bit of black on them - gives a nice bitter contrast to the sweetness - and prefer toast to fried bread, because it's less fuss to get spot-on.

Baked beans and optional extra, or mushrooms (again given a bit of a browning, certainly not slimy) but not usually both.