20 April 2012

WHEN IN FRANCE

We love being in France, everything about it, especially the food.  But every so often we start to think longingly about the things you can’t get so easily on the French side of the channel.

A full English breakfast.  So we had one, with a French twist – a full Franglais breakfast perhaps.

full english2 full english1

Bacon – French, very thick and smoked from SuperU - “poitrine fumée”

Egg – free range, fried, from the village butcher

Tomatoes – tinned, French

Sausage – a chipolata also from the butcher

Baked beans – Heinz, brought from England

Potatoes – not a traditional element but they looked nice – pommes risolées, from the freezer cabinet in SuperU.

All dished up with fresh white bread from the boulangerie and real butter.

DELICIOUS !!

25 comments:

  1. I've been enjoying your views on differences - as or BIG breakfasts which I think may be enjoyed both by Poms and Skips (Aussies) I find its a coffee and a vegimite roll on the way to work these days.

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    1. Leon, we mostly have a very light breakfast but occasionally treat ourselves to a big brunch....on this day that was exactly what we needed.

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  2. Jean we quite often have a brunch at the weekend, sometimes we even have egg and bacon for an evening meal. We love the thick slices of poitrine fumée. The only thing we have not had is baked beans, I have not even looked for them, but I am sure they are available at some of the shops that have international sections. The only thing that we really miss is ginger tea, but if I am energetic enough I can always grate some ginger. Diane

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    1. Diane, I am sure I have seen Heinz beans on the English shelf in the supermarket.
      Ginger tea sounds lovely. I'm surprised you can't get it in France, they seem to go in for a lot of herbal teas.

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  3. Your post brings a smile to my face! Whenever we make our annual journey to the Lot we have to include a couple of four-packs of baked beans! Although now that those large refrigerator jars are available, I think we'll use those this year... Just before we leave for the drive down, we do a shop for packs of bacon, which we then freeze upon arrival . We also love those pommes risolees from the French side! My husband needs his breakfast fix about once a week -- I'm quite content with the French way! We are able to get Heinz beans in France -- but they are a bit pricey!

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    1. Broad, I wonder how much bacon crosses the English Channel each year !!

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    2. Maybe a new job opportunity for me: exporting Heinz baked beans to France!!!

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    3. Phil, if you were prepared to export teabags, black treacle, peanut butter and paint you would be a very popular person !!

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  4. That looks delicious, Jean. We never have a cooked breakfast at home nowadays, but occasionally I'll do a goof fry-up for lunch or even supper and then it has to be the works. :-)

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    1. Perpetua, there's nothing like a good fry-up !!

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  5. The poitrine fumee looks like a good idea, and when next in SuperU will buy some. At the moment we get our bacon from our local Intermarche, and it is extremely thin slices of bacon which fry down to almost nothing. Those potatoes look nice as well, - perhaps a good idea for when I don't have time to cook. Baked Beans? Definitely available at both SuperU and Intermarche. They used to be one of my favourite foods back in the UK, but I have gone off them here. They don't seem to taste the same, or it might be me changing my eating preferences. That breakfast looked nice though!

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    1. Vera, I can recommend the bacon, the potatoes....all of it !!

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  6. The very thick poitrine fumée, that you mention Jean, is known in the UK as a "streaky bacon chop". The tomatoes are the correct ones for a roadside caff "full english", be they French or English labelled,and are Italian plum tomatoes.
    Chips is standard init!
    So you have got them in mini-bite sized chunks.
    You only seem to be missing the fried bread, the lamb chop, the kidneys and the fried, tinned button mushrooms.
    That's a full roadside or traveller's pub English Breakfast!!

    Plus, of course, the ten slices of toast, the slab of butter, the jar of thick cut marmalade and a large pot of Taylor's Yorkshire tea!

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    1. Tim and/or Pauline, we did consider mushrooms and black pudding as well but what we had was quite enough, as it turned out. I do admit though, to a spot of marmalade on a well-buttered piece of bread afterwards.

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  7. Hope Nick is fully recovered, no doubt just in time to return to work.
    C'est la vie...

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    1. Gaynor, he's fine now, as you say, just in time to go back to work.

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    1. Walt, oatcakes were not on the menu because they take some forward planning and this was a last-minute "got to have a fried brunch - let's go to the shops NOW" kind of thing !!

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  9. Ah, the mushrooms and black pudding explained. And the ketchup?
    I miss the mild cheddar.
    Glad Nick has recovered.

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    1. Ken, we did have ketchup, and Daddies brown sauce, brought with us from the UK.

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  10. So glad you enjoyed it, but just the sight of Heinz baked beans is enough to give ME a "tummy bug." Jerry loves them. It's the only serious flaw in our relationship!

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    1. Mitchell, you must be the only person I have heard of that doesn't like baked beans.

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  11. I do like a full English. Someone was telling me that Weatherspoons in the UK do a full English for £2.99. I couldn't believe that it was any good at that price but may try it out as an experiment soon. Phil x

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    1. Phil, at £2.99 I wouldn't even try it. Goodness knows what's in the sausages at that price. Cheap sausages always repeat horribly, I find.....!!

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