Expectations of an 'English breakfast' abroad

[mysparkleismissing]

Hubbie had an English breakfast in France yesterday and was grumpy that the sausages and bacon weren't what you'd get at home

Would you expect what you'd get at home?

Or allow poetic licence given the frankfurter type sausages are what they see as a sausage

Dh ordered this on a trip to France recently (knowing full well what it was - he wanted to try it). The waiter practically had him sign a disclaimer.

And l'll bet "they didn't even speak English".....

This!!!

Your husband is a Neanderthal.

Given that the Spanish Parador we stayed in for our honeymoon could not make a decent cup of tea, my expectations of a cooked breakfast would be very low. Even my french cousin admits British sausages are much nicer than continental ones.

Anyone who expects a full English breakfast abroad deserves all the judgement they get. If that's what sets him up for the day he needs to stay home.

was it the Forum! Massive hotel - very ‘Trump’ in style!

The French don't go in for big breakfasts, do they? Croissants, bread, pain au chocolat, etc. Although cold meats can be on offer. I'm vegetarian, but even going to back to before I was, the idea of sliced ham, or tongue, or whatever, at breakfast time doesn't seen very appealing. A Continental thing, I think.

Yes - usually with scrambled or fried eggs too, rye or poppy seed bread , smoked salmon and in German centric hotels, bottles of cava - best breakfasts in the world- although Swedish ones I’ve had were great too

Seriously, you're in the country with literally the world's best breakfast pastries and your husband is whinging about a full English

World's best pastries? Nah, Denmark wins that one!

Ha ha. A few weeks ago I was given the side eye for asking for ice to put in my Crémant. It was a very,very hot day and the drink wasn't cold enough. They did bring some and it made all the difference.

Anyway, OP, your DH needs to widen his horizons,gastronomically speaking. You're in France!!

Having lived in Copenhagen, sausages and bacon were in my opinion uniformly crap ( on a breakfast) I was told all their best pork went to UK! However bizzare y their hotdogs were another level-fabulous!

I'd be happy to try that. Not sure about cava at breakfast but the food sounds great.

I thought English breakfast literally meant sausage bacon and eggs etc.

If ordered in a foreign country I’d expect local versions of the ingredients!

I think if a breakfast is described as English it does rather raise expectations. But when in France…

Just leave him in Cleethorpes or any other seaside resort (where you can get an excellent full English).

Then you can travel alone to France and pig out on several large croissants and jam accompanied by a café grand creme.

I don't want sugar for breakfast.
I both want & need protein to fill me up until lunch.

No I wouldn't. If they don't have the same ingredients, they don't have them. What would he like them to do? Honestly I'd be telling him to 'grow the * up' if he was my husband.

I'd never expect to find even a reasonable approximation of a full English outside England, but I did once have a fantastic meal described on a Parisian diner menu as "petit déjeuner anglais", which consisted of 4 long, thin, generously buttered slices of baguette arranged in a square on a plate, with two fried eggs and several slices of fried prosciutto in the middle. Plus OJ and good coffee. Bloody lovely it was too. I make it myself occasionally when I have a fresh baguette.

The two most overrated meals are a full English & Fish & Chips. It's just grease with grease & we wonder why the rest of Europe thinks our food is crap!

In Berlin cafes they used to come in old fashioned 3,tier cake stand tiers - one tier had various breads and often a croissant

one tier had cold meats, salmon and hard boiled or scrambled or fried eggs ( you picked)

1 tier had soft whipped cream cheese and butter and jam

seriously excellent and often quite reasonable - we used to order 1 between 2 with a granola bowl with yogurt on the side - never needed lunch!

I’d never eat an ‘English’ breakfast abroad.

That's just streaky bacon - freely available in the UK! I prefer it to back bacon (with the fat at one end and the dull dry disc at the other) as well - but seem to be in a minority among Brits.

I’ve stayed in lots of hotels in France and the mid-high tier chains ( Pullman, Sofitel, Marriott, Radisson ) always have a ‘hot buffet’ so sausages, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, hash browns, eggs etc. They would never stoop to calling it a full English but yes the products are very different as would be expected on the UK.
In fact most countries offer a hot cooked breakfast and the individual parts will be different. Chicken sausage and turkey bacon in the Middle East for example. Tiny frankfurter type saisages in Germany etc. Even had baked beans in Italy (but were home made and delicious)
Its not unreasonable for him to order what’s on the menu (despite the scoffing by many on this thread it’s totally normal to offer it) but it is unreasonable for him to think it will taste the same as the UK.
Also never come across places calling it a ‘full English’ unless it’s a greasy spoon type place in Benidorm.

If you travel, you shouldn’t expect everything to be like it is at home. Because you purposely chose to go somewhere that isn’t like home.