Meal

A full breakfast is a breakfast meal, usually including bacon, sausages, eggs, and a variety of other cooked foods, with hot beverages such as coffee or tea, or cold beverages such as juice or milk. It is especially popular in the UK and Ireland, to the extent that many cafés and pubs offer the meal at any time of day as an "all-day breakfast". It is also popular in other English-speaking countries.

In England it is usually referred to as a 'full English breakfast' (often shortened to 'full English') or 'fry-up'.[7] Other regional names and variants include the 'full Scottish', 'full Welsh', 'full Irish' and the 'Ulster fry'.[8][9][10]

The full breakfast is among the most internationally recognised British dishes, along with such staples as bangers & mash, shepherd's pie, fish and chips and the Christmas dinner.[11] The full breakfast became popular in the British Isles during the Victorian era, and appeared as one among many suggested breakfasts in the home economist Isabella Beeton's The Book of Household Management (1861). A full breakfast is often contrasted (e.g. on hotel menus) with the lighter alternative of a Continental breakfast, traditionally consisting of tea, milk or coffee and fruit juices with bread, croissants, or pastries.

"Instant breakfast" typically refers to breakfast food products that are manufactured in a powdered form, which are generally prepared with the addition of milk and then consumed as a beverage.[12][13] Some instant breakfasts are produced and marketed in liquid form, being pre-mixed. The target market for instant breakfast products includes consumers who tend to be busy, such as working adults.[13]

A champagne breakfast is a breakfast served with champagne or sparkling wine. It is a new concept in some countries[14] and is not typical of the role of a breakfast.

It may be part of any day or outing considered particularly luxurious or indulgent. The accompanying breakfast is sometimes of a similarly high standard[15] and include rich foods such as salmon, caviar,[16] chocolate or pastries, which would not ordinarily be eaten at breakfast[17] or more courses.[18] Instead of as a formal meal the breakfast can be given to the recipient in a basket or hamper.

Variations of breakfasts across countries and cuisines

Refer to this Wikipedia Breakfast page for a list of countries and continents and their variations of breakfast. The cuisine articles linked in the breakfast page regarding each countries and continents cuisine may display variations of breakfast more thoroughly.

A packed lunch (also called pack lunch, sack lunch or bag lunch in North America, or packed lunch in the United Kingdom, as well as the regional variations: bagging in Lancashire, Merseyside and Yorkshire,[20]) is a lunch prepared at home and carried to be eaten somewhere else, such as school, a workplace, or at an outing. The food is usually wrapped in plastic, aluminum foil, or paper and can be carried ("packed") in a lunch box, paper bag (a "sack"), or plastic bag. While packed lunches are usually taken from home by the people who are going to eat them, in Mumbai, India, tiffin boxes are most often picked up from the home and brought to workplaces later in the day by so-called dabbawallas. It is also possible to buy packed lunches from stores in several countries. Lunch boxes made out of metal, plastic or vinyl are now popular with today's youth. Lunch boxes provide a way to take heavier lunches in a sturdier box or bag. It is also environmentally friendly.

Another variation of lunch is the meal deal,[21] this is a meal often bought from a store and contains the following: a sandwich or pastry, a bag of chips, salad or fruit and a bottled drink. Meal deals are a staple of many Western high-street supermarkets and convenience stores; they are generally offered at a deal price and are highly convenient for the busy working person. Some stores are now adding premium meal deal items and salads to their meal deal inventory. Critics, however, criticise the meal deal for increasing the levels of single-use plastic waste in circulation and persuading people to buy more food than they originally intended or wanted - contributing to the growing obesity crisis.[22]

A full-course dinner is a dinner consisting of multiple dishes, or courses. In its simplest, English-based form, it can consist of three to five courses, such as appetizers, fish course, entrée, main course and dessert. The traditional courses and their order vary by culture. In the Italian meal structure, there are traditionally four formal courses: antipasto (appetizers), primo (the "first" course, e.g., a pasta dish), secondo (the "second" course, e.g., fish or meat), usually accompanied by a contorno (a side dish), and dolce ("sweets", or dessert).[25]

Many traditions conclude a formal meal with coffee, often accompanied with spirits, either separate or mixed in the coffee.

Preparing food for eating generally requires selection, measurement and combination of ingredients in an ordered procedure so as to achieve desired results. Food preparation includes but is not limited to cooking.

Cooking or cookery is the art, technology and craft of preparing food for consumption with the use of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in various types of ovens, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions and trends. The ways or types of cooking also depend on the skill and type of training an individual cook has. Cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments. Cooking can also occur through chemical reactions without the presence of heat, most notably with ceviche, a traditional South American dish where fish is cooked with the acids in lemon or lime juice.