Food Fight

Eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, tomato, mushrooms and toast on one plate. Which items belong is regional and contested.

Oats cooked in water or milk. Cheap, filling, and served either as a health food or as dessert with no middle ground.

Vietnamese noodle soup where the broth is simmered for hours with charred onion and ginger before anything else goes in.

Rice stirred so its starch comes out and thickens its own broth. Stop stirring and it is just rice.

Not one dish. The word comes from Tamil, and the British turned it into a catch-all for hundreds of unrelated spiced dishes across South Asia.

Began in Southeast Asia as a way of preserving fish: rice was fermented around it and then thrown away. Eating the rice came much later.

Not rationed in Britain during the Second World War: the government kept fish and potatoes off the ration to protect morale.

Wheat noodles in broth, with regional styles built around soy, miso, salt or pork bone. The instant version came much later.

Valencian, and the original is a land dish: rabbit, chicken and beans, no seafood. Never stirred, because the crust that forms underneath is the point.