Z still eats

We had breakfast for supper tonight. An English breakfast – or rather a British one, I’m not trying to exclude – is, perhaps, the perfect meal. In this case, it was bacon, poached eggs, fried potatoes and, slightly from left field, asparagus. But treating asparagus as soldiers to dip into the egg yolk is very good. We still have some bacon and quite a lot of eggs, so we’ll have a variation on the theme on Tuesday (the fishmonger calls on a Monday) when it will be bacon and eggs with fried bread and mushrooms. Possibly some tomatoes if I’ve been shopping.

Breakfast … kedgeree, kidneys, smoked haddock and poached egg, every sort of egg, sausages, kippers, bloaters, devilled bones and so on and so on … can hardly be bettered, surely? Porridge, toast and marmalade and innovations like cereal and yoghurt certainly belong to the morning meal, but the rest can be eaten at any time. A bit animal-product heavy, now I look at it: but that’s traditional, if not necessary.

Anyway, we do have rather an egg mountain, though I think the chickens have been laying away for the last few days. The big brown hen is broody. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t the dedication to sit long enough to raise a brood and it isn’t convenient anyway, just now, so I’m removing any eggs under her, but I shut the chickens in their greenhouse yesterday and got two eggs, whereas there had been none for the previous two days. I don’t know where they’re laying, though. I’m far too unobservant to follow them around and find out.

9 comments on “Z still eats

  1. Blue Witch

    “An English breakfast – or rather a British one, I’m not trying to exclude”

    And therein lies the problem of the curent obsession with inclusiveness and not offending people. It is NOT ‘British breakfast’; it never has been; nowhere in the world will you find that on any menu. *I*’m offended by the idea that it now has to be ‘British breakfast’ rather than English breakfast. Or am *I* (as an English woman) not allowed to be offended in this ridiculous current climate?

    We are fast losing our ‘English’ identity, and it is imperative that we do not lose our traditions through trying to please everyone in pursuit of something which is only a problem because we are told it needs to be.

    Reply
    1. Z Post author

      I wasn’t attempting not to offend, but someone could, quite rightly, have pointed out that porridge is Scottish. A “full English” has to be a fry-up. comprising eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, mushrooms, fried bread, fried potatoes, baked beans etc or any combination of those. You don’t ask for “an English.” I’ve had fry-ups in Scotland that included haggis and that wouldn’t have been called a full English, though the other components would have been the same. Kedgeree, another traditional breakfast food that I meant to mention and forgot, is Anglo-Indian in origin – when I was a child, it was all just called breakfast.

      I’m English, but I’m also British and I was born and live in the United Kingdom. I don’t have any problem with using any of those descriptions. I don’t think my daughter-in-law, whose parents were from Bangladesh, would hesitate to describe herself in just the same way, but she could add Bangladeshi and Asian too. I’ve been welcomed into other countries and cultures and I’m all for inclusiveness.

      Reply
      1. Z Post author

        I didn’t forget kedgeree, I see (really helps to re-read a post). I’m pleased. A breakfast staple in my childhood, a supper one now.

        Reply
  2. Tim

    I used to stay at a lovely hotel in Edinburgh which had ‘full Scottish breakfast’ on the menu (usual EB ingredients). I don’t recall being offended by that.

    Reply
  3. Mike and Ann.

    The last time our younger great grand daughter came to see us, she went to ‘help’ Ann in the kitchen (something she loves doing) and Ann asked her what she would like to make this time. She answered immediately that she wanted to make kedgeree. Ann asked her where she’d got that word from, and she couldn’t remember. So she and Ann made kedgeree (as best Ann could remember it). Astrid insisted that kedgeree had herbs in it, so we showed her the herb garden and she picked the ones she liked the smell of, and to my astonishment the resultant dish was reasonably edible !!!!

    Reply
  4. Blue Witch

    It seems that anything Welsh, Scottish, or Irish is allowed to stand as its own entity (eg Tim’s Scottish breakfast) and no-one questions it. See how many products in supermarkets are called ‘Scottish’ or ‘Welsh’ and then see how many are called English… It’s not that we don’t have them, it’s that there is a huge wish not to offend.

    If you go to Scotland or Wales you see lots of national flags flyting proudly. In this country, if most people see a Cross of St George, the English flag (out of international events football season), then , I’d posit, most people would assume racist conotations. They would round here, anyway.

    I’m just tired of seeing everything ‘English’ having to be subsumed under ‘British’. It might be a semantic point, but semantics lead thinking, and I’m tired of being told what to think by ‘political correctnes’ gone mad.

    Reply
  5. Mike.

    Hello Blue Witch. Do you remember that old joke that a Scottish newspaper editor’s main duty was altering football results so that they read Britain Wins or England Loses?

    Reply
    1. Z Post author

      The only reason the English flag has racist connotations is because racist groups claimed it. It was that way round, not the other. It’s absurd to say I was being PC in adding British – I had said English first, but realised that I was mentioning porridge and I might well have had a teasing comment from someone, asking since when was porridge English? Mike’s comment is right – it’s a joke but it’s also true. Similarly, Andy Murray was always Scottish when he lost and British when he won, in the papers here.

      Reply
  6. Blue Witch

    I wasn’t having a go at you Z, I was bemoaning that everyone feels the need to apologise for (things) being English these days.

    The English flag has never been well regarded. England flies the Union Flag most of the time when the other 3 nations would fly their national flag. A few English churches fly the Cross of St George, but by no means all.

    And as for why residents in England have less (political) representation that those in the other 3 nations of the Union, well, it’s all part of the same ‘let’s not offend minorities’ (however large the minorities might be) debate. A total nonsense.

    Reply

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