What constitutes the perfect full English breakfast?

[Richard Roman]

When I get home later this month my first breakfast will include:

2 rashers unsmoked danish back  bacon, a good sized pork sausage, 2 fried eggs (easy over), button mushrooms, a half grilled tomato, 2 pieces of fried black pudding and fried bread. All washed down with a good mug of tea (with milk and sugar) - also English mustard for the sausage.

All followed with hot butterd toast and marmalade

here are some replies from the guardian on this most important of questions:

Two fried eggs, two rashers of smoked back bacon, a good quality pork sausage, a couple of slices of black pudding, buttered toast and a grilled tomato, mustard and ketchup to taste and plenty of strong tea. No hash browns, baked beans or anything else.

CaroleBristol

Can't speak for the full English, but in the 1970s, a greasy spoon near King's Cross station advertised "Full Scottish breakfast – 50p". This consisted of a mug of tea, a bacon roll, two "wee Regal" cigarettes and a copy of the Daily Record.

notinkansasnowtoto

When I walked the Pennine Way about seven years ago I ate a full English at each of my 17 stops. Each was slightly different in terms of ingredients. The variables included baked beans, mushrooms, fried bread, black pudding etc, around a core of bacon, eggs and sausages. The core also varied in terms of how the eggs were cooked (some days there was a choice, others not), the number of sausages and whether the bacon was smoked or unsmoked.

My conclusion was that the primary requirements were, that the breakfast is individually cooked with good quality fresh core ingredients with whatever else is available. Plus, of course, a good pot of strong tea and hot toast.

I have also walked long distance trails in Scotland and found a "full Scottish" has the same variety and same requirements for perfection.

John Bromhall, Balerno, Edinburgh

Seeing as the decline in the English character started when we stopped drinking beer at breakfast, a true full English should include a pint of bitter.

John Gresham, Waterloo, Merseyside

[Fin MacDonald]

I think the English breakfast was the original inspiration for a true American breakfast, which has dispensed with the superfluous aspects, such as pudding, and which actually cooks the eggs to perfection and adds the proper amount of crispy hash browns, so I think y'all can pat yourself on the back for that.  (What's with the tomatoes and mushrooms, for heaven's sake?)

[Richard Roman]