Bonjour Blog! Continuing the French theme, I’ll be writing about breakfasts this week, and putting two of them head-to-head – in one corner, the mighty Full English, and in the other, the majestic Continental!
While in France, I had an average of around 1.5 breakfasts a day, not counting brunch or a cup of coffee on its own. I have now patronised a café in most of the major towns of Normandy, it seems. The stereotypical French breakfast is the espresso and croissant, sometimes with some beurre/butter and freshly squeezed jus d’orange/orange juice (which tastes AMAZING), and is a delicate mix of mostly caffeine and carbs. In truth, almost all the French breakfasts I had were exactly like that. Lunch was also delicious. It seems everything in France tastes awesome!
As for England – generally it’s one breakfast a day, with the stereotype being a large plate of sausage, bacon, hash browns, baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread, scrambled or poached egg, black pudding, and perhaps a small dish of brown sauce on the side, served with tea – a broad-brushed mix of carbs, oils, and meat. There is a lot of that available, and very tasty it is too. It’s also rather expensive to have it every day. Lunch and dinner have less nationalities attached to them than breakfast, it appears!
They each have various merits for me. I like the larger size of the English breakfast. However, it is quite rich; I have a policy of always clearing my plate so I simply decide to have a smaller lunch instead! The French breakfast is certainly more delicate and I love the variety of pastries (when they’re properly made only; many places in England make them dry, crusty and squishy), but then again, many places don’t make English breakfasts properly either. You probably know I simply cannot pick favourites, but I think the best thing for me to have is a light English (one bacon, one sausage, one hash brown, one poached egg) followed by a small plate of French (one croissant, one pain-au-chocolat, one cup of coffee) – that’s everything, thank you waiter!