You don’t always have to drown your sorrows. Sometimes you can just eat them.
english breakfast with eggs, tomatoes, bacon, beans, sausage and optional mushrooms
In a rare moment, politics upstaged football’s Euro 2016 on BBC World News this summer as results of the Brexit referendum swept the world. Markets crashed in India, China and New York. Frantic reports went into 24/7 overdrive. The Beeb’s usually unflappable reporters freaked right out. Political author and scholar Ian Bremmer called it the greatest own goal scored by a modern democracy in all of history. At least there is one thing that will help England recover from the dark political night wrought by its Oxford sons: a morning-after, old-fashioned English breakfast, upon which we must never initiate a referendum.
Far from the madding crowd that voted England out of Europe, Thomas Hardy’s lush pastoral scenery and quiet, aching nostalgia are still accessible in a few sacred spots. Among the fields and taverns he describes (fictional Wessex; semi-factual Dorset) and beyond in Oxford, Cornwall, the Lake District, Yorkshire, and really all over England, you get this: thick, squishy toast; two eggs (poached, lightly fried, or soft-boiled with the precision of a James Bond martini), greasy bacon, potatoes, crispy sausage, baked beans in the lightest of tomato sauces, and a few slices of shriveled tomatoes.
Haute cuisine this is not, and on a healthy day, an English breakfast won’t do you much good. It exists for times of trouble. That bacon needs to be thick and soggy, the sausage made from mystery meat, and it’s just fine that the beans come from a giant can.
In a country whose best and brightest (Cameron & Boris…are they?) dimmed the lights of reason and stoked a facist fire with hate speech, zenophobia, and egocentric nationalism, we can feel sure that somewhere in the country, wisdom will prevail. When you visit a B&B in the English countryside, take heart. You won’t have to suffer the consequences of England as a European nation anymore. There will be no stale croissants. Maybe more than ever, the full English breakfast is a source of national pride.
Bodlian Library, Oxford
How and Why to Make an English Breakfast
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Oxford & the Symposium on Food & Cookery
August 1, 2016
Nice to think that when the Brits are rueing their own isolation, they can still find comfort in a familiar breakfast! One additional thing I remember from those rather shocking morning offerings was rock-hard fried mushrooms! Thanks, Gypsy, for another cross-continental food trip!
August 1, 2016
Right! Those weird mushrooms….
August 2, 2016
Hmm… Salt Beef Bagels… Really? Did you try them? With or without fries?
August 2, 2016
Oh yes I went there…
August 2, 2016
…and fish & chips still safe as the national dish.
August 4, 2016
So, the real question is where in NYC can one get a real English breakfast. Every now and then I would kill from the kind of breakfast meats depicted here.
August 4, 2016
That’s the kind of enthusiasm I like, Bob Halper! Yelp says start your day with bacon AND sausage in NYC like so:
http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=full+english+breakfast&find_loc=New+York%2C+NY