The Full English Breakfast – it’s one of the pillars that holds up our small island nation, and one of our most famous exports, alongside the Sainsbury’s meal deal, Piers Morgan, and perpetual misery.
What do all those things have in common? Well, they’re all a bit shit, aren’t they?
I know this is verging on blasphemy, and don’t get me wrong here; I’m not saying the Full English is disgusting, nor am I arguing for a blanket ban on anyone ever serving three different variants of dead pig on the same plate – I’m not some kind of breakfast fascist. All I’m saying is, you all go on about there being no better way to start your morning than with a Full English, and you are all fucking wrong.
The thing is, each individual component of the Full English is excellent. I fucking love eggs – eggs are one of the best foods that exist. Bacon is salt made of meat, and that’s not an insult – what sounds better than salt made of meat? Nothing. Nothing does. Sausages are great, black pudding is criminally underrated, even tomatoes and mushrooms taste pretty good now I’m a fully-grown adult and not a stupid baby who cries when he looks at a cauliflower.
So why then, if all the components are so good, is the Full English such a mediocre meal? Why does Eggs Benedict absolutely blow it out the water? Why is it not a patch on a plate of huevos rancheros? Why is it deeply inferior even to the humble bacon sarnie?
It’s a bit like a mixed grill. Sure, I love steak, sausages, chicken wings, pork chops and bacon, but I don’t need them all on one plate, do I? That’s a full-on animal massacre. It’s like a trainee chef got pissed and took a chainsaw to the cast of Babe.
But the main reason a mixed grill is never that great, and it’s reasoning that rings true for the Full English too, is that it’s always a bit disappointing. You’re never going to have the best steak of your life as part of a mixed grill, are you? You’re probably not even going to have a good steak.
I’m not saying that a Full English can’t be excellent, but more often than not, they aren’t. To get what you really want you normally have to take matters into your own hands, and even then getting the timing right is a true art. When you add in the amount of grease scrubbing you have to do when you’re finished, it’s a bit of a pain in the tits isn’t it, let’s be honest.
The one killer argument everyone always makes for the Full English Breakfast is that it’s the perfect hangover cure – that the heaps of greasy meat and carbs are exactly what you need to sort you out after a big night on the tomato sauce. This is bollocks, though. The mounds of salt and fat definitely hit the spot as you’re shovelling them into your booze-stained mouth, but give it an hour and you’re bloated, knackered, and even more dehydrated.
You spend the rest of the day slumped on the sofa in your pants, releasing gases that are bordering on toxic and generally feeling like a waste-of-space shit excuse for a human.
Here’s my theory – if the Full English wasn’t called the Full English, we wouldn’t love it as much. Because it’s something that we’re famous for, we’re naturally very protective over it. It’s like when someone slags off your shit hometown – who gives a fuck if it’s only got one pub and the old Woolworth’s has been empty since 2009, it’s yours, and you’ll defend it to the hilt.
Thing is, when you move elsewhere, you realise that you don’t especially want to go back to that shit hometown, because what you have now is better. Ditch the Full English and have a better breakfast – it’s what we all deserve.
