27 January 2024 , 13:01
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What you eat for breakfast is personal to each person, but most people will agree that some ingredients just have no place in a Full English brekkie.
Bacon, sausage, beans, mushrooms, tomato, hash browns - they're all acceptable and have a place in the meal. But many moons ago, when people used to indulge in the breakfast, people used to attempt to get one of their five a day by placing a controversial fruit in the mix.
The fruit in question? Pineapple. That's right, they'd be tucking into delectable heaps of bacon, while also chowing down on pineapple as well.
Historians revealed that tropical fruit was all the rage on English breakfast plates in the 16th and 17th Centuries, and there was a good reason.
Christopher Columbus didn't bring pineapples to Europe until 1493, meaning they were expensive and unavailable for everyday Brits for centuries. So, serving up your Full English with ingredients thought to be exotic at the time was a sign that you were wealthy, and had status, reports the Daily Star.
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Pineapples were so sought-after they even became a symbol of taste, with Sir Christopher Wren using them to adorn the top of the St Paul's Cathedral towers in London around the end of the 17th Century.
Guise Bule de Missenden, founder of the English Breakfast Society, recommends putting pineapple on your Full English, sharing that it "adds variety to your plate."
He told the Telegraph: "Pineapples used to be seen as exotic, expensive, difficult to obtain and were a highly prized breakfast ingredient for wealthy English families, which is why you can find lots of old English pineapple breakfast recipes.
"King Charles himself loved them, so if you wanted to add a touch of the exotic to your plate and eat like a 17th-century lord, there is no reason not to give it a try.
"A slice of grilled pineapple can add variety to the English breakfast plate. Simply swap the mushrooms or tomato for a frilled pineapple slice in someone's English breakfast one day to give them a surprising and unexpected delight."
If you like hash browns on your Full English, though, it's bad news, as the English Breakfast Society does not agree with them.
The English Breakfast Society has dubbed the frozen potato treats as "a lazy American replacement" to bubble and squeak, as the traditional breakfast lovers fear that fish fingers or even kebab meat could soon be added to the list of acceptable accompaniments on a brekkie.
Would you eat pineapple on a Full English? Let us know in the comments.