Breakfast, they say, is the most important meal of the day — a fact that was not lost on British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill. But how did the prime minister who led Britain through World War
II kickstart his stomach for the day? And what did a certain unhealthy habit have to do with it?
"Ladies and gentlemen, permit me please to claim your attention for a moment."
Churchill had a very storied political career, of course, but he was also a busy author.
According to America's National Churchill Museum, he wrote a whopping 72 volumes over the course of
his life, for a total of 43 books. In 1953, he even won The Nobel Prize For Literature.
How did he find the time and energy for all this? He wasn't a particularly early riser,
getting up around 8 a.m. each day, but he had quite the appetite when he arose
and his mighty breakfasts surely gave him a lot of energy to power through his workload
According to The Churchill Project, the legendary Brit was very fond of a full English breakfast,
the famously filling morning platter from his home country. At his Chartwell estate,
he would be served the meal on a tray that was shaped to fit around his sizable stomach,
catching up on correspondence and reading the day's newspapers as he ate.
His breakfast would sometimes be garnished with whichever meat he hadn't finished from
the previous day's main meal, and he reportedly also liked to wash
the calorie-heavy breakfast down with a glass of white wine. Those are interesting choices,
but they weren't the only quirks in Churchill's breakfast routine.
According to Food 52, he insisted on being served orange juice from a bottle
rather than freshly squeezed, and while he enjoyed a range of meats in the morning,
he reportedly also demanded both hot and cold food, rather than just one or the other. Toast,
for instance, required lots of chilled condiments on top. Finally, to complete
the picture of Britishness, all of this was accompanied by hot, fresh tea, and lots of it.
Preparing and serving Churchill's breakfast was a massive task each day,
and of course the legendary leader didn't cook for himself.
In fact, one of his most famous one-liners stems from his lack of experience in the kitchen.
Churchill lived in several homes, including the Prime Minister's famous residence of 10 Downing
Street in London. But Chartwell, his country house, was seemingly his favorite place to spend
his time, though, as his wife Clementine knew very well. Anthony Montague Browne,
author of "Long Sunset," remembered a discussion the Churchills had around the year 1950,
in which Winston declared to his wife that he wanted to spend the coming weekend at his
beloved Chartwell. Clementine reportedly said that this was out of the question,
as the estate wouldn't be open so the staff would be away.
With no one at work, there'd be nobody to prepare his massive breakfast for him.
Churchill responded simply,
"I shall cook for myself. I can boil an egg. I've seen it done."
Despite the line, Churchill apparently didn't go to Chartwell that weekend.
History does not record whether he ever put his experience of watching
others boil eggs into practice personally, but it's probably safe to assume that he didn't.
According to Fiona Ross's "Dining With Leaders, Heroes, Rebels And Outlaws," Churchill was just as
meticulous about the time he ended his breakfast. At 9 a.m., it seems, the meal was concluded,
which is quite a feat considering how much he appears to have been served each morning.
Nevertheless, being a busy man, this was his routine, and he was determined to stick to it.
According to Ross, when breakfast was over it was time for Churchill to indulge in another of
his favorite habits: cigar smoking. The image of the statesman with a cigar between his lips may
be a bit of a cliché, but he reportedly smoked one each morning just after 9 o'clock. For added
convenience, his ashtray was kept in a prominent position by his wastepaper bin. That meant that
smoking fit in perfectly with the rest of his correspondence-reading, orange-juice-drinking,
orderly morning. Naturally, he may not have started every day exactly like this, but it's a
fascinating and unusual glimpse into the domestic side of the man.
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