The Full English and Afternoon Tea

Britain's food culture is best entered through its two table rituals. The full English breakfast is the morning anchor: bacon, sausages, fried eggs, baked beans, mushrooms, grilled tomato and toast, with black pudding for the committed - and the regional variants are half the sport, Scotland adding tattie scones and square sausage, the Ulster fry contributing soda and potato bread. It lives everywhere from formica-tabled greasy spoons to country-house sideboards, and the humble caff version has its own devoted connoisseurship. Afternoon tea is the opposite pole: a ritual of leisure credited to Anna, Duchess of Bedford, whose 1840s habit of bridging the gap before late dinner became a national ceremony - finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, pastries on a tiered stand, and properly brewed leaf tea. The cream-then-jam or jam-then-cream question still divides Devon and Cornwall with theological seriousness.

What you actually see

• The caff fry-up - the formica-table classic with builder's tea.
• The regional variants - tattie scones north, soda bread across the water.
• The tiered stand - sandwiches, scones and pastries in ascending order.
• The scone debate - cream-first Devon versus jam-first Cornwall.

When to go

Both run year-round; afternoon tea suits a rainy day better than almost any activity Britain offers. Grand-hotel teas book out days or weeks ahead, especially weekends.

Honest expectations

Hotel afternoon teas at the famous London addresses can pass 60-70 pounds a head - excellent tearooms in Bath, York or the Cotswolds deliver the ritual for a third of that. A true full English is a commitment; plan no serious lunch. Quality varies wildly - a tired buffet fry-up and a great griddled one are different meals.

Nearby

Every high street cafe, seaside tearoom and grand hotel lounge in the country.