British vs American cooked breakfasts

[LTrew]

If you want American style bacon you have to ask for "streaky bacon"

My biggest problem with American bacon is that it is too fatty, and it is too difficult and fiddly to remove the fat.  English bacon (back bacon) is totally easy to strip of extra fat and my husband is always willing to gobble up the leftovers.

[demarco]

When I was growing up in New England, my older relatives ate baked beans and brown bread for breakfast as well as some kind of fish on occasion. I ate the beans and the bread but recoiled from the fish.  Pie  (usually apple) showed up on the breakfast menu as well. The only part of this tradition I have carried on is the pie. 

I was stunned to see sliced  tomatoes on the breakfast table when I visited England but Americans eat omelettes with tomatoes in them so it's not really as different as it seemed. 

I suspect many Americans have two categories of breakfast:  1) the thing you clutch in your fist as you run out the door; 2) the massive, megacalorie spree you have when you have breakfast out on weekends, holidays, or vacations or you decide to cook big at home.   My favorite in the second category is pancakes and bacon.  DH's is an "everything omelette," hash, eggs and toast. 

[SamiHami]

Southeastern US here:

Shrimp & Grits
Omelets with shrimp, scallops, crawfish or crab
Biscuits & Gravy (the gravy being a thick white gravy with meat in it)
Crabcakes Benedict (Heaven on a plate....yummy!!!)

[DavidH]

American vs. British bacon.  I'm partial to the American kind, but I agree it can be quite fatty.  The easiest way to solve that is to cook it until it is CRISP and the fat remains behind in the pan.  If you don't care about calories or cholesterol, in parts of the US, you then cook the eggs in the bacon fat.

While many places in the US use imitation maple syrup under a variety of brands, there is nothing like real maple syrup.  Since I'm from the US I'll say Vermont maple syrup, but there are some Canadians who might disagree with that  .

[aventurine]

American vs. British bacon.  I'm partial to the American kind, but I agree it can be quite fatty.  The easiest way to solve that is to cook it until it is CRISP and the fat remains behind in the pan.

Oh yeah.  Flabby bacon is nasty - gotta cook it till it's crispy. 

[Diane AKA Traska]

American vs. British bacon.  I'm partial to the American kind, but I agree it can be quite fatty.  The easiest way to solve that is to cook it until it is CRISP and the fat remains behind in the pan.

Oh yeah.  Flabby bacon is nasty - gotta cook it till it's crispy.

See, to me, crispy bacon is just this side of salted charcoal.  I prefer it flexible.

[Wonderflonium]

I had a gigantic lunch and am stuffed to the gills, and yet you people have me craving pancakes with lots of syrup and crispy bacon. For shame! 

My mom's mom's family is southern, and we always have sliced tomatoes with breakfast (and if they are in season, with lunch and dinner too). I didn't realize that was a British thing!

[jmarvellous]

I don't really go in for giant breakfasts. Growing up, Sunday was the one day of the week when we had anything other than bagel, toast, cereal or oatmeal (aka quick stuff) and a banana, always a banana. We either had waffles, pancakes, french toast, or omelets. Meat was very rare for breakfast unless it was ham in the omelet.

These days I eat cereal or fried egg and toast almost every day, with eggs and toast or waffles on Sundays. Usually with coffee. Once in a while I'll go out -- this weekend I had a pear pancake and two eggs over easy; a month or so ago I had tofu scramble (like scrambled eggs but for vegans), toast, vegan "sausage" and fruit. That was good!

Grits ... maybe they're better if you grew up with them; I don't usually bother, as they're often quite bland and gritty . Definitely a regional dish.

[Betelnut]

Bagels and cream cheese are good too!  When I lived in NYC, the mecca for bagels, I would rush out, buy a NY Times and my breakfast--an onion or garlic bagel with a smear of scallion cream cheese and a chocolate chip muffin.  I would take that home and read and eat for a long time.  Heaven!!!!!

[aventurine]

MMMMmmmmmm bagels

[cicero]

Bagels and cream cheese are good too!  When I lived in NYC, the mecca for bagels, I would rush out, buy a NY Times and my breakfast--an onion or garlic bagel with a smear of scallion cream cheese and a chocolate chip muffin.  I would take that home and read and eat for a long time.  Heaven!!!!!

NY bagels! yum!
whole wheat with cream cheese, smoked salmon, tomatoes, red onion.

or

cinnamon -raisin bagel with cream cheese.

[Dindrane]

This American, when confronted with bacon in an Irish breakfast for the first time, felt enormously shortchanged.  That's ham, not bacon!  I do like it, but not when I'm craving bacon.

In the end, though, I really can't eat a "real" breakfast at breakfast time.  Most of the time, I have a bagel or a bowl of cereal or similar and call it good.  When I do eat eggs and hash browns and so forth, it can mess up my eating schedule for the rest of the day.  Because of that, I usually have it for brunch (and then have an early dinner) or just eat it at lunch time after having something like toast when I first wake up.

My personal favorites are good biscuits and sausage gravy (which can be sort of a hit-or-miss dish even in the south, but definitely outside of it), hash browns, pancakes, Belgian waffles (none of those other kind without the deep pockets), eggs (fried or poached in a restaurant, scrambled if I'm at home), and bacon or sausage.  I never eat all of that in one meal, though.

I have never cared for grits, like even a little bit.  I'm a born and bred southerner, but give me hash browns any day.  I really don't much like home fries, either.  I did discover the best hash browns in the whole world at my favorite breakfast place, though -- stuffed hash browns.  Basically, it's two layers of hash browns sandwiched around sour cream, cheese, and chopped bacon.  It's like a baked potato made of hash browns.  It is AWESOME.  My husband and I will sometimes split a steak-and-eggs breakfast that has 3 eggs and the stuffed hash browns (and pancakes) from this place.  I can't imagine one person eating all of that, since we both always leave full, and it's the cheapest breakfast going.

I don't really drink juice, so my breakfast drink of choice is often diet soda.   I like coffee, but I don't always like drinking the coffee available in restaurants, because I don't think it tastes very good.  Plus, I can't always get just plain milk to put in it -- some places (particularly breakfast diner type places) really only have the little mini-moo type things, and I really dislike those.

[kareng57]

IME, B&B breakfasts in the UK were usually quite good, but also quite predictable.

Two eggs, sunny-side up, bacon possibly with sausage as well, toast, hash-browns along with fried tomatoes.  Overall, very hearty portions, and it's pretty difficult for even an indifferent B&B hostess in the UK to ruin breakfast.

In the US (I'm Canadian) I tried grits once, out of curiosity.  Blech....try unsweetened Cream of Wheat...

[Brentwood]

I had breakfast for dinner tonight: two eggs over medium, two strips of bacon, crispy hashbrowns, and pancakes. And coffee. Two cups of reasonably good coffee.

[Wonderflonium]

I did discover the best hash browns in the whole world at my favorite breakfast place, though -- stuffed hash browns.  Basically, it's two layers of hash browns sandwiched around sour cream, cheese, and chopped bacon.  It's like a baked potato made of hash browns.

Oh. Oh my. I neeeeeeeeeeeed those!