Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Not Breakfast in America

One thing, however, I won't miss is the American breakfast. I've eaten breakfasts across the country - cheap and expensive - and they have ranged from just bearable to disgusting. Muffin-cakes are an abomination, apparently designed to sustain the medico-industrial complex, there's something seriously wrong with the American egg, they can make neither coffee nor tea, porridge is beyond them and their local cereals accelerate the cardiovascular damage done by the muffin-cakes. Fruit has an entirely different meaning over there. It denotes multi-coloured solids tasting vaguely of slightly acidic water. Bacon, I will acknowledge, is passable.
Well, now I seem to be in Luxembourg, probably another computer error. I just had breakfast consisting of a fruit salad so delicious I almost ate the hotel's entire supply, a perfect omelette and sublime coffee. Guys, which part of this don't you understand?

11 comments:

  1. philip wallingMay 06, 2009 8:31 am

    I'm surprised you're surprised about Anglo-Saxon cuisine. Manicheans and Arians don't do sensual pleasure. It's to do with the separation of body from soul - body dirty and bad, soul clean and good.
    But more interestingly, what is a 'shock jock'? And what has Michael Savage said that causes 'Jackie' Smith to refuse him entry to Britain?
    On the principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend I'm inclined towards this poor fellow.

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  2. yeah, proper porridge is a must, mate. I want to know about the six unnamed undesirables on Smith's list. Not in the public interest? Let us be the judge of that.

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  3. Porridge, with a good dash of (North American) maple syrup always sets me up for the day. You'd have thought International House of Pancakes could have mastered this. I'm also surpised in the US at how any people are happy to eat out at breakfast. I much prefer British breakfasts though - never got the hang of the continental croissant.

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  4. Clearly, you did not visit any diners in America. You want a great breakfast (24 hours a day), you go to a diner. Pancakes, waffles (Belgian & otherwise), eggs anyway you can think of, sausage, bacon, oatmeal, cereal, whatever rings your bell...you get it at a diner.

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  5. Susan

    The diners are part of the problem.

    Sure the menu sounds great, but the execution is seriously flawed. Coffee so weak that the only thing that distinguishes it from water is it's dirty brown colour and a faint smell of burnt something or other. Unnecessarily vast piles of pancakes with a glue texture. Eggs that somehow aren't eggs - before we even start on the abomination that is a 'whites only omelette'. Fruit from a Disney cartoon and whose flavour is similarly just a fantasy.

    All that without even mentioning the butter.........

    What's wrong with a kipper, two slices of granary toast and a strong cup of tea?

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  6. I'd rather eat an american breakfast than a german or norwegian one (german dark rye bread and garlicky sausage- blurgh, and norwegian sweet cheese and pickled herrings just dont do it for me at 7am either)

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  7. So it looks like you have lapsed from the Evolutionary Fitness diet that you were following last year. Arthur De Vany will be disappointed....

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  8. Recusant, obviously you don't frequent the same diners I do. You have to ask the locals about the good place in the neighborhood; they will all know. Admittedly, the coffee will always be weak -- American coffee is much weaker than European. But you can indeed get good black tea and steep it until it's as strong as that Yorkshire stuff that Bill Nighy drinks. No marmite though. Sorry.

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  9. Susan

    You're probably right. In any case, I'd take your recommendation any day.

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  10. You've not tried the grits then ...

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  11. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/travel/10hours.html

    Check it out. My town, and the photo is of a VERY GOOD diner.

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