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.

My grandad was a war time vicar who had homemade rice pudding for breakfast with jam 😂

He was quite large in his later years (as you can imagine!)

We sometimes have it for lunch, never dinner as I would have terrible indigestion

My DGGF had porridge made with water and salt at the breakfast table every single day and had a relatively manual job.

With my DGPs the family always had a cooked breakfast on Sunday mornings (my DGF made it) and my DF continued this when I came along.

We never ate breakfast as a family. My DF went to work before I got up and I never ate breakfast.

With my DS when he was younger, I made whatever he wanted, sometimes a cooked breakfast, sometimes cereal and toast.

I doubt that many years ago people had the money to provide meat at each meal.

DH nearly 70, had Weetabix or Ready Brek when little, nothing at all as he got older (mother an alcoholic by then)
Me 62, couple of cereals to choose from, plus orange juice (that concentrate in cartons, was all the rage) Scrambled egg at weekends.

I think porridge, certainly in my part of the world. Made with salt and a bit of milk on top. I was just munching on my porridge with peanut butter, raspberries, seeds and maple syrup and thinking that my Granny would be turning in her grave!

In working-class households, the children often had bread and butter or jam but any meat went to the man of the house because he was the one doing the physical labour (although plenty of women and older children did this too).

The 'Back in Time' series are excellent for this.

I'm sure Readybrek used to taste nicer in the 60s and 70s, I didn't have it for a long time but when DS had it in the 90s, I tried it and it wasn't as nice

Child of the 70s here and we did sit at the table together before work and school. Cereal and toast for my brother, usually shreddies. Poached egg on toast for my Dad. Tea (in a pot) for everyone. As a non milk drinking, non egg eating coeliac that hates tea my 70s breakfasts weren’t great and in the end we settled on tinned fruit.

In George Eliot’s Middlemarch (set around 1830s) she has Fred Vincy demanding a ‘fried bone’ for breakfast. I still can’t quite work that one out! Anyone know? Also ‘red herrings’ - kippers? At any rate his sister Rosamund couldn’t bear the smell!

Grapefruit was fancy. It was a dinner party starter not an everyday breakfast

My grandparents had grapefruit for breakfast, sometimes fresh. sometimes tinned. They lived in a two up two down terrace in East Manchester and were working class and not fancy.

I can remember going on holiday in the 70s and the starter in the evening being either a wine glass of packet orange juice or a grilled grapefruit half with brown sugar and a glace cherry on the top. No grapefruit at breakfast though!
Breakfast was porridge, weetabix and my father made cooked breakfast on the weekend including, shudder, black pudding.

Grew up in South Africa in 60s/70s. A different hot porridge every day of the week in winter (oatmeal, semolina, Pronutro, mieliemeal, Maltabella). In the summer choice of cereals (Weetabix, Coco pops, or my favourite Country Morning, which does not exist any more and which I miss a lot!). On the weekends dad would make scrambled eggs on toast, French toast, or full English depending on mood, weather and finances. Lots of people in SA would have pawpaw for breakfast as well but none of us liked it. My granny had grapefruit because she was always on diet and that's what the women's magazines told her to have.

I remember 'breakfast sets' in the 1970s, all metal it would have grapefruit bowls or egg cups and, a toast rack, salt and pepper and a little pot you put jam in.

I forgot to mention tea, there would likely be tea.

talking to other people at breakfast, or being in the same room as other people, is horrible. I'd rather not eat if I can't do it alone in silence when it's early in the morning. All my family feel similarly so I am sure it was the same in our genepool 300 years ago that there was no congregating around the breakfast table.

DHs mum expects us to assemble fully dressed, alert and capable and ready to make interesting conversation while we tuck in to breakfast. It's unbearable.

@Rosehugger Grapefruit for breakfast was either posh, or a diet food. Maybe they had it on holiday e.g. on their honeymoon, and decided to adopt this practice? But it certainly was not the norm.

Depends how far you want to go back and who you were. I believe the Romans only eat once a day at noon. In medieval Britain religious doctrine dictated when and what you could eat. Pork and bacon were eaten with eggs. And the full English was created to use up ingredients before the start of lent. Industrialisation gave way to set working hours and everybody eat something. Eggs and bread were common but there were regional differences. Kellogg had a big impact in the 20th century. Wartime introduced rationing and the 50’s introduced toasters , slice bread , instant coffee and cereals laced with sugar.

My maternal Nan always had a massive saucepan of porridge on the go, made the scottish way with water and salt. It was grim but kept my builder Grandad and uncles going! Mind you they drenched it in sugar or honey when she wasn't looking.

My other Nan made porridge with fresh unpasteurised milk, butter, sugar and cinnamon. Dear God it was amazing. She was a country house cook and would put this on around 6am when she left for the day and everyone helped themselves.

I always assumed it was some kind of chop, or maybe bone marrow?

In old books the middle class/richer people always seem to be having a lot of fish at breakfast time. Sometimes they have bacon and egg (no mention of having it with anything).

I suspect/think a lot of people who were going out to work took things with them for breakfast, especially if they were having to travel.

I think they probably started to eat grapefruit after they retired, after going on holiday to a B&B, and probably thought it was good for them too. But I don't think it was that unusual and it wasn't expensive. They also had toast with it.

We also would have stewed plums/damsons and crumble and so on in last summer. Again, not expensive or posh, I think they just really liked it.

Bertie Wooster quite often has eggs, mushrooms on toast or kidneys. I quite want to try the kidneys, I used to like steak and kidney pie.

This thread has made me hungry! :)

In my 60s and 70s childhood we ate what is now called a cooked breakfast / English breakfast every day except for Sundays. So bacon eggs and fried bread as a minimum. Followed by toast and marmalade. Sometimes sausages or fish fingers or just a boiled egg or two. On Sundays we had cereal and toast.
I'm amazed we're all still alive and healthy!

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/devilled_kidneys_58867

I may give this a go sometime. Think I may get them to myself anyway.

Bread and dripping
Porridge
Toast
Cheese & oatcakes

I didn't ever have cooked breakfast growing up in the 1980s - only on holidays - other than bacon butties at the weekend.

Normal breakfast was two slices of toast with Flora and jam and some cornflakes or rice krispies. And a cup of instant coffee, from the age of 4.