Big British and Irish Breakfasts

Drool!

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Hope you and Mrs H are feeling better soon!!

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Oh, no John -I’m sorry to hear that.
Hope you have a mild dose and are soon on the mend

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Felt like shit for a week. Can’t stop coughing.

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So sorry you and Mrs. H caught it, and missed your cruise. Bummer. Hope you feel better soon.

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I’m doing my GenX part to help HP sales in Canada.

I’m going to Google English Breakfast near me now.

Slight tangent:
I enjoyed a bacon butty with HP on sourdough at Emmer Bakery on Harbord in Toronto. HP on Bacon Sandwiches is good, with or without an egg on it.

Like many of our long established brands, HP is now owned by the American company, Heinz.

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Canadian-made HP is also made by Heinz, through Kraft-Heinz which took over Cdn Kraft. https://www.kraftheinzfoodservice.ca/en-ca/about-kraft

I am going to buy a glass bottle of imported British HP to see how it compares to Canadian-made HP.

The regularly eaten “Full English” has been in decline since the 1950s.

My guess is that a significant driver will have been the move away from heavy manual industrial work - fewer calories needed for office work. And maybe the increase in women going out to work, so fewer “housewives” with the time or inclination to cook a breakfast for hubby.

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I think also, the work force has changed in terms of cultural background, and what’s for breakfast. The British cafes (as in British greasy spoons) disappearing. People getting fatter so attempting to avoid things like fat and sausage (speaking from my own perspective, as someone always Battling the Bulge while being a food lover)

About 15 years ago, if I wasn’t staying at a British hotel that included breakfast, I’d often get egg bacon and toast at a Polish run Cafe/ greasy spoon in London, or other variation with less food and less calories, for a few GBP, rather than paying 12 or 18 GBP at a posh hotel.

On my last 3 or 4 visits between 2011 and 2018, I started including the breakfast upgrade with my hotels, partly because I liked seeing the variations in fry-ups.

Most of my favourite fry-ups have been those included at b&bs and small hotels in the smaller towns in the UK , Ireland and eastern Canada. I splurge on a restaurant or pub fry-up maybe 3 times a year in Canada.

I’ve never made a full fry-up at home.

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I have a theory (which I hope doesnt come across as too elitest).

When I volunteered at the hospital, I would always reckon that folk comin gto my information point, who were significantly overweight would be working class (usually confirmed by the district they lived in). My theory is that they were probably still cooking the meals that their parents & grandparents made but were no longer burning off the calories in the factories.

FWIW, my fullest of Full English breakfasts was at a Polish run greasy spoon (wooden bench seating). in the Brentford area of London - bacon, black pudding & white pudding, a sausage, beans, mushrooms, tomato, fried bread, fried egg, bubble & squeak, toast and coffee.

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Also, portions.
Muffins, butter tarts, sandwiches, especially in Canada are so much bigger than they were 40 years ago.

The British premade sandwiches at EAT, M&S, are roughly the size of what sandwiches used to be in Ontario. Restaurant sandwiches in Ontario are twice that size, lately, usually.

The burger I ordered yesterday- without fries- was big. Twice as big as a burger would have been 20 years ago. Prices have gone up, and while a standard restaurant needs to make $15 or $20 off each customer, they want the customer to feel like they’re getting value, and I think it’s easier to increase the amount of food on the plate. My dc’s burger with fries came with close to 2 cups of fries. Maybe 1/4 were eaten.

And of course, food is a comfort. Most of us eat when we want to be comforted. We have been living in stressful times, and it’s been much harder on those who are working class or not working.

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I read a bit about the food here and was surprised, as I used to think alcohol was always served there.

Where? In the UK & Ireland?

Since April, restaurant, cafe and takeaway businesses in England must now publish the calories of each dish on their menu. And it has actually affected my selection a couple of times - you look at the count and think that’s the whole of the recommended daily intake.

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Happened to me a few weeks ago. I was in a pub near the in laws and I was going to order the Korean chicken burger , but it was pushing 1,300 calories according to the menu. This was in the evening. We went for Sunday lunch a few days later and no calorie count on the menu at all. A blessed relief when it’s a roast.

From what I understand a business will only be fined if they are issued with notices for not displaying calories and they have 250 or more employees. It wouldn’t be surpised if some places stop displaying them.

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Yep, you’re right. It’s really only going to effect the chains

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For around 5 years, chain restaurants with 20 or more locations have been required to post calories in Ontario, Canada.

At my 2 local chain pubs, any sandwich and chips/fries meals, fish & chips, and burger & chips/fries meals were around 1500-1800 calories. The only meals around the 700-850 calorie were the small size chicken curry with rice, the shepherd’s pie (really, cottage pie, shepherd’s pie is ground/minced beef in Canada unless stated otherwise). I’ve eaten a lot more chicken curry and shepherd’s pie over the last 5 years than before the calorie counts were posted.

Edit: my local chain pub no longer offers the small chicken curry.




Many casual restaurant and pub menus are now much more streamlined than they were in mid- March 2020, to keep things simpler for kitchen staff, since there’s a kitchen staff shortage now.

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@shrinkrap this is a neat thread.

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I’m on it!