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

This morning, on the Black Isle, my breakfast is -

Bacon x 2, lorne x 2, eggs x 2, black puddingn fried bread, beans and coffee. I'm told this is a Scottish breakfast.

Yesterday, in Elgin, I had

Bacon x 3, lorne x 2, a mealie pudding, haggisn eggs x 2, potato scone, beans and coffeem

This too was a Scottish breakfastm

I,M coming to the conclusion that cafes just make it up.


If I were to go to a cafe in YOUR town, what would I get for breakfast?

Ramsay smoked streaky bacon, Cumberland sausages, fried bread, Ramsay of Carluke black pudding, grilled tomatoes, field mushrooms, bubble ‘n’ squeak and your choice of egg; poached, fried or scrambled.

RF

Coffee (the best in the country - but they all say that).
A choice of The Big or the All-Day.
Coffee (the best in the country - but they all say that).
An English Muffin (but it isn't)
Coffee (the best in the country - but they all say that).
Then with your mint, Coffee (the best in the country - but they all say that).

Mostly, I think you'd get indigestion. Or eggs benedict.

A can of coke and a roll-up.

Mmm, healthy!

You can get that in a café?

RF

Well, that used to be my favourite breakfast, until I accidentally gave up smoking a few years ago. Now I have to make do with toast.

How do you roll it up?

rolled up?

With a bread roll?

RF

Snap, Icy!



Seriously, though, folks. In our town at the cafés and hotels, you'd get a breakfast buffet with sliced cheese, cold cuts, yoghurt, croissants, some with a nutty, fruity or chocolaty filling, lovely rolls and soft warm bretzels, jam, Nutella, cream cheese, eggs - boiled and scrambled - and bacon. On Sundays the buffets are refilled with more lunchy stuff from about 11, and breakfast can go on till 2 pm. I've never closely looked at the lunchy things, but I've seen potato croquettes, schnitzel, spätzle and goulash out of the corner of my eye.

On R4's 'The Unbelievable Truth' on Monday, they mentioned Mrs Beaton's recipe for Toast Sandwiches. So why not a toast in a roll?



...and it's but a short step from their to Scotland's favourite, a roll and tattie scone.

their? there.

There, there, Ed.

Full Irish breakfast would always include fried potato bread, and beans should NEVER be on a brekkie plate! Other fried bakery items are optional: soda farl, pancake. Sausage and bacon, eggs fried or poached. The jury is divided on whether there should be fried tomatoes and/or mushrooms. Hash browns are an evil foreign invasive species.

Some of the freakiest breakfast buffets I've seen are in Sweden. There's all the healthy berries. Then there's a half-dozen different fermented milk products. Then there's cheeses, cliced with a peculiar rotary cheese plane. And a shelful of carcuterie, including boiled sausages. And huge blocks of grey, liver pate. And pickled herrings. But most peculiar of all...what looks like Coleman's mustard but turns out to be a fish egg paste.

Oh...and cakes.

You can't beat a Full English, except, perhaps, if you go to the West Country and have it with Hogs Pudding:

http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/hoggs_pudd.htm

>>You can't beat a Full English

Yes you can! There's the full Mexican. Huevos Rancheros with *tons* of chilli.

How does one "accidentally" stop smoking?

Mmmh... Café, croissants

>>How does one "accidentally" stop smoking? <<

I had no intention of stopping. In fact I was a militant "I'm not giving up" type. One evening I lost my tobacco and papers somewhere and, on the spur of the moment, said I'm not buying any more. And I didn't. I still get a bit annoyed about it sometimes.