What did people used to eat for breakfast.

[forevercooking]

Years ago. When people all sat around the table for breakfast before one or both parents went off to work and the kids went to school. What was being cooked/prepared/eaten? I can't imagine men were off down a pit on a diet of cornflakes but maybe I'm wrong.

Bacon, egg (only 1 each), black pudding and fried bread were for Sunday only in our house.
Normal breakfast was porridge with a dollop of syrup or jam in the middle. Sometimes a single poached egg on a single slice of toast.
Tea (with sugar) for all from being weaned. Obvs weaker for the tiny kids.

(I was born 1959)

I love food threads thanks OP!

in Downton abbey the staff seem to have porridge plus toast and marmalade which is now pretty much my daily breakfast. The upstairs lot have scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. (I know it is a tv series, but this is the sort of thing I look out for!).

My mother (now aged 75) was brought up outside the UK in a very rural area. They used to have mince and peas on toast, porridge with milk and butter; scones etc. They had meat of some sort 3 times a day. Usually lamb chops for lunch etc. They were all - very well upholstered. She desribes her upbringing as extremely poor but there were 4 kids and meat 3 times a day which to me seems amazing.

Father aged 75 same rural area as my mother used to have toast, butter and jam and porridge

DH was brought up in the UK and the 60s and in a well off family who had a full time cook. They would have kedgeree, scrambled eggs, toast, fruit salads, muesli, kippers and also trout which he would fish for in the morning.

Me brought up in a different country and in the 70s it was usually toast with butter and honey. Maybe some grapefuit. Scrambled eggs at the weekends.

Grapefruit was posh or special dieters' food. My Aunt had it for breakfast and she was on a permanent diet.

I had ready brek this morning with a bit of honey in 😂

My German grandfather's diet was very much dictated to by what food was around. He lived near a farm and often bunked off school to go to the farm, hence the Farmers Breakfast. Lots of things like eggs were generally available but used in other meals. Meat could be hard to come by. This was after WW1.

@HoppingPavlova re:grapefruit for breakfast. In working class families in the U.K. before the 1960s grapefruit would not have been common. There is no part of this country where you can grow edible ones in your garden.

If you mean pre- the advent of corn flakes and other cereals, then it would have been porridge or a boiled egg.
I know my Great Uncle born 1885, used to have a boiled egg everyday, probably from their own chickens (which they kept).
Poorer people would have had porridge, bread and dripping, bread and milk, etc.
I expect richer households would have had a full English Breakfast, at least some of the time, comprising fried egg and bacon, with fried bread, and any other accessories (tomatoes, etc), they may have had. (probably all fried).

A child of the fifties before school I had Ready Brek most mornings or Weetabix.
Sundays before church was Bacon and Egg

If I stayed at my grandparents I had boiled eggs and soldiers before school. The toast bread was always home made.

People ate grapefruit for breakfast in the 1920s/30s. Posh people, probably, and with other things, but it was definitely a thing.
ahundredyearsago.com/2020/01/16/1920-breakfast-menus/

Born in 1970. Usually toast or cornflakes. Very rarely a cooked breakfast. My mother didn’t work and my dad wasn’t working in a physical job.

No it isnt

Bread and jam with tea on schooldays, weekends we had a cooked breakfast (sausage, bacon, egg, black pudding, white pudding, tomato and fried bread). Not posh enough for Mushrooms. Hash browns not a thing! Baked beans served only on toast as a different meal!

Nearly 70 and I don't think I've ever had breakfast sat down round a table with the rest of the family. When I was a kid it was usually dashing out of the house to get the bus while eating a slice of toast.

It is like saying people eat kedgeree for breakfast now and posting a hotel breakfast menu with it on. Yes people do, but it is not a common breakfast food.

Not really; child of the 1960s and mum would serve grapefruit , liberally doused in sugar with a glacé cherry on top. Not every day , but often enough for me to detest it now.

Grew up in 70s ...cornflakes, frosties, rice krispies etc ...I hated milk so had dry with honey on (weird I know). Mum had grapefruit - as someone else said it was a diet thing. It was supposed to cut the fat you ate. I seem to remember Dad liked sardines on toast.. it was a treat if I got up early and ate with him before my brother got up.

Special K and branflakes as I got older.

Porridge, a boiled egg, toast- one for dipping and one with marmalade.

I remember reading about breakfasts and the whole "Most important meal of the day" stuff and as I recall it's mostly a PR campaign to sell food.

Breakfast wasn't really a thing for most of human history, not as we know it anyway.
Some circles, eating so early was linked to the sin of Gluttony.

Dinner and supper were the main meals, Dinner at midday, supper later in the evening.

There's a book I think it's called
'Breakfast: A History' I forget who by, Google should find it.

The industrial revolution changed a lot of things. People going off to the factories and doing shift work etc. fascinating really.

I was a child in the seventies. Everyone had cereal and/or toast. The Egg Marketing Board pushed boiled egg and soldiers for breakfast, so some probably had that. But it wasn't that different from now, except there were no cereal bars.
Those in heavy physical jobs often had a cooked meal at lunch in a cheap cafe or work canteens, but breakfast was much the same as now.

Intrigued now whether people did/still do have a fry up as a lunch or evening meal? My dad has always been one for cooking this (as an occasional treat) and I wonder if he's the only one.

50s/60s working class childhood.
Porridge with sugar and sterilised milk/cornflakes/Weetabix.

Sometimes a boiled egg chopped up in a cup with butter, salt and pepper. Eaten with bread and butter.

The cooked breakfast was Sundays only, after Mass: bacon, egg, fried bread, fried mushrooms, coffee, toast and marmalade. It was the only breakfast we had round the table as a family.

Oddly, considering how hard up we were, we always had butter, not margarine and ground coffee, not instant.

Now I think of it, I still have porridge every breakfast now, made with water and some fruit. The "cooked" breakfast is only on Sundays.

Old habits.

There is no part of this country where you can grow edible ones in your garden.

Too bad for you. We definitely grow them in our backyards here. I have one, also a thornless mini lemon, lime, mandarin, kumquat and a lemonade tree. Back when I was a child there was no such ‘fancy’ things, just bog standard oranges, lemons you had to rip your arms apart on thorns to get to and mandarins but most backyards had them unless inner city terraces but even so all cheap and plentiful.

My nan used to eat bread and dripping, cereal didn't exist until the 1950s?? Her dad worked on the railways and would often have bacon, she'd get the rind, she loved it!! Used to eat mine if I left it on my plate.

Porridge, hunk of bread, leftovers