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Comment by robotmay | Hacker News Reader

The full english breakfast is our gift to the world. Honestly it's one of the only things I'm vaguely proud of - most countries fail utterly at breakfast, despite their other meals by far defeating ours (Japan, why do you eat natto for breakfast?). I do have a guilty pleasure in ordering a full english breakfast in other countries just to see the variations. I had a really quite interesting interpretation in Budapest which involved paprika sausages and beans served as a dipping sauce.

Lesser known aspect - it's totally OK to have a pint of beer with your full english breakfast. I would consider that very traditional, and it's also an extra helper against a hangover, somehow.

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I come from the Netherlands, so we're in no place to tell others how to breakfast, but do most countries utterly fail at breakfast? I find a lot do pretty OK. I guess my experience is pretty European though. English breakfast is certainly not on my list of appealing breakfasts; way too heavy for my tastes. I also don't often have hangovers to combat.

Haha yeah a full english is not something you want every day, unless you want to die at 30 with arteries full of sausages.

Most places I've been, breakfast seems to be a bit of an after-thought, and lunch is the main event. A lot of places tend to be along the lines of "coffee and a croissant", which I find really hard to adapt to as I often eat a heavier breakfast and a lighter lunch.

Aside: I have a friend in France who was introduced to a kettle and how to make cups of tea, and it resulted in an interesting French/English hybrid breakfast where we dipped some sort of French breakfast cake into a bowl of tea (only thing bigger than a coffee cup he had) :D

In NL, dinner is the main event, and for years I skipped breakfast and lunch entirely. Due to my wife being not Dutch, and finding this unacceptable, I now eat a little, but you're right, I eat little for breakfast and lunch. Lived in France for a while, and I remember those official lunches well :)

What is Dutch food anyway? Bitterballen? Just some salted fish on a thin slice of rye? Seems like everyone there in your neck of the woods eats Italian basically? I spent a solid month in Amsterdam once and the most "Dutch" thing I ate was....Indonesian?

Dutch food is stuff like stamppot, ie. mashed potatoes with eg. kale, carrots, sauerkraut.

Makes me wonder what we ate before potatoes were introduced to Europe, I have no idea really.

> Makes me wonder what we ate before potatoes were introduced to Europe, I have no idea really.

There is a very interesting book [1] on this subject, and it's title is slightly misleading: the cuisine of the Netherlands of course means you're going to be talking about European cuisine in general, and the effects of trade routes opening up (middle and central Asia first, north Africa, later east Asia and the Americas).

Highly recommended if Dutch/European history of cuisine interests you.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Kleine-geschiedenis-van-Nederlandse-k...

Dutch and Amsterdam restaurants are not a good place to look for Dutch cuisine, although I remember the stamppot restaurant fondly. I'm afraid you'll have to get into non-urbanite homes to get a real taste, in the south of the country if you can, or accept a level of fusion which some higher-end restaurants offer, but is generally hard to trace, even for a Dutch person.

You totally negated your point with that last admission.

A hangover is a symptom of physiological alcohol withdrawal. That's why having a beer at breakfast helps with the hangover.

It is traditional and there's nothing wrong with it every now and then. I'd caution against allowing it to become a habit though.

There's no evidence that a hangover is caused by alcohol withdrawal in most cases[0].

I think the thought behind "hair of the dog" remedies like a beer with breakfast is either A) getting a little drunk again helps you ignore the hangover or B) Drinking alcohol again causes your body to produce enzymes that process acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is a byproduct of our bodies processing alcohol and is thought to contribute to the hangover, along with the well-known effects of dehydration.

[0] https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh22-1/54-60.pdf

Since OP is referring to a traditional full english with a traditional pint, I assume it would be a bitter or real ale with ~3-4% ABV, so the hydration may also outweigh the diuretic effect (although it’s obviously not the ideal remedy in that regard).

Yeah, anecdotally it seems more like poor sleep and dehydration than withdrawals after a single night of drinking.

You can choose foods other than Natto for breakfast as many people do. There are many choices.

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