How the traditional Irish breakfast got started

As the Irish tell it, "bacon and eggs" was indeed invented at a laborer's home.

An old peasant woman was frying up bacon for her good man in an open pan over a peat fire. She turned around to drive out an old sow and her litter that shared the cabin with her. As she was so occupied, a hen who lived in the chimney above the fire dropped an egg from its roost. The egg hit the fry pan, broke, and spilt into the sizzling fat. When the woman returned to her fire, she saw, for the first time - an egg fried with bacon! She set the dish before her good man who consumed it and then went to work,where he told the other men. Word spread from man to man and land to land, and it was relished by rich and poor alike.

- Adapted from a story told by Oscar Ashe Irish Traditional Cooking, Darian Allen