The idea of the English breakfast a

The idea of the English breakfast as a unique national dish, stretches back to the thirteenth century and an English institution called the gentry, who could be considered to be the guardians of the traditional English country lifestyle and a group of people who saw themselves as the cultural heirs of the Anglo-Saxons.

The gentry were considered to be a distinct social class, made up of the 'high born and people of noble and distinguished blood', its members were the senior members of the clergy, those with social connections to landed estates, relatives of titled families with no title of their own, landowners and 'genteel' families of long descent.