The Full English Pie

 The 'Full English' is the name popularly given to the full fry up breakfast  ....

The Full English - A Spanish Staple?

.... a meal much beloved by the British population for generations, and a meal the composition of which I have posted on once before.

 

In the popular British imagination, it both fills up the sides, and cures hangovers, and those are just two of the many reasons why the British males (and females, when abroad or on holiday), will generally opt for it, if its on the menu at hotels or cafes. So much is this meal liked, that in Spain, Portugal and Greece, its a popular meal for cafes and hotels to offer all day, where British and Irish tourists are in any sizeable numbers.

 

Indeed the cultural invasion of Spain, by the full English breakfast has, combined with the popularity of the Downton Abbey television series about British Aristocrats, led to an interest in the traditional English breakfast by its Spanish viewers ... well according to the country’s biggest-selling newspaper, El País. It unusually published a glowing homage to the fry-up entitled “God save the English breakfast”, saying that it is "It is calorific, tasty, greasy, varied and absolutely wonderful,” said the paper, referring to “the very British combination of sausages, eggs, bread and beans in tomato sauce.”

The Ultimate Apotheosis Of The English Breakfast?

 

So given the near universal acclaim of the English breakfast, I was hardly going to miss the story when I read that Fray Bentos (the maker of the tinned pies, which were a staple of our meals when I was a kid, long before micro-wave ready meals were available ..... I still eat them occasionally even now), have launched a full English breakfast pie (in a tin of course). Their Pie technicians earned their crusts, by taking a year to perfect this all day breakfast pie in a tin.

Priced at £1.50 the meal contains all the key ingredients of the full English - Baked beans, Cumberland sausage, bacon and black pudding, all encased in a tin dish with a puff pastry topping. They are also bringing back by popular demand the chicken curry pie (which was removed from the range a decade ago).  

Now just in case you think that this a peculiarly British breakfast experiment, that can't be exported abroad, I would like to draw your attention to the Benidorm pub, the Good Times Bar and Grill, which has gone a long way to confirming the Spanish belief that we are indeed gastronomic savages, by producing a pizza with Full English Breakfast topping .... yep, a thick doughy cheesy pizza base, topped with sausages, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, eggs and of course baked-beans. So essentially a big English fry-up, deposited on top of a pizza and with about 2,600 calories – the equivalent of five McDonald’s Big Macs, but probably delicious!

 

The Good Times Bar & Grill Delicacy

 

The creation, unveiled on the pubs Facebook page under the legend “THE ENGLISH BREAKFAST PIZZA. YUMM,” made headlines in Spain ... and to much critical comment in 2019. “This seems like a medium-term strategy to eliminate the English from Benidorm. In case Brexit doesn't do the trick, attacking the coronary arteries of the Brits, will reduce the number of hooligans in Benidorm and will improve considerably the security and cleaning of the streets,” wrote one commentor in the Spanish daily El Mundo .... before Covid-19 gave them something more important to worry about, by effectively wiping out the Spanish holiday trade, for the last two years. 

So whilst the life of the breakfast pizza may have been rather short, the Fray Bentos pies are here for at least a year or so. However unfortunately both items are not going to be generally available (the breakfast only at Home Bargains and the Curry Pie at Asda) ..... I happily admit will be on the lookout, especially as I have both a Home Bargains and Asda store near me.