As OAPs, breakfast is an organised affair usually consisting of AllBran, half a banana or Kiwi fruit, tea and one slice of toast. Oh and regular ingestion of dried prunes or figs or both.
But today, at Mrs madf's insistence, we had grilled # smoked mackerel (not kippers! :-), and toast. I had forgotten how nice it tasted eaten with toast and marmalade and honey. I was brought up in Macduff - a small fishing town in NE Scotland where fresh fish was regularly on the menu...
# defrosted in microwave, cooled on foil with a dab of butter under the drill grill. Two minutes a side.. very little smell. Nothing left, ate bones, skin and all..
Last edited by: madf on Wed 13 May 15 at 09:29
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Although I love kippers I can't understand having them for breakfast! - they repeat on me. and I taste them till teatime!
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I don't mind fish, but I'm of the mind that it's just wrong for breakfast.
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We usually have fish for breakfast on Saturday or Sunday. Last week it was kippers, next week it'll be smoked haddock or cod. Prefer the haddock when it's available, though.
Most weekdays it's a bowl of fruit with yoghurt, followed by a bowl of porridge.
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I think smoked mackerel is grossly under-rated. At its best it outranks smoked salmon for me, especially when the salmon is served in thick slices, as is the modern tendency.
I had an old (planter) manager who breakfasted off kippers some mornings but with a glass of gin. He explained that the gin cut down the oil. Other mornings he partook of cold curry, also with gin since that was his real staple. Coffee break was gin and seed cake.
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>>I had an old (planter) manager who breakfasted off kippers some mornings but with a glass of gin. He explained that the gin cut down the oil. Other mornings he partook of cold curry, also with gin since that was his real staple. Coffee break was gin and seed cake.
Did 'ee drive a Chrysler PT Cruiser by any chance?
:}
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>>Did 'ee drive a Chrysler PT Cruiser by any chance?
Over my head, Dog. What do you mean?
He drove company Jeeps and Landrovers but also had a Jaguar Mark V, last of the truly elegant ones.
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>>Over my head, Dog. What do you mean?
Tis nothing, ambo. I was thinking of a cunning linguist I sort-of know.
:o)
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>> thinking of a cunning linguist I sort-of know.
Mangy cur! This'll learn yer!
BOOT! (yelp yelp yelp)
:o}
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>> cur!
Hungarian word brought here by Romany folks and adopted into our vernacular. Whoever said immigration contributes nothing.
:-)
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>>Mangy cur! This'll learn yer!
BOOT! (yelp yelp yelp)
Yer alright, Sire. Alright. Except when you're left of centre of course.
(*_~)
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>> when you're left of centre
Less and less often these days according to Herself who has principles. Don't often try to kick pooches either.
Even so, cunnilinguist indeed!
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>>Even so, cunnilinguist indeed!
It's the way I tell 'em.!
:-D
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>> next week it'll be smoked haddock or cod. Prefer the haddock when it's available, though.
Got some of LIDL's for dinner. In a dish with a drop of milk and a dob of butter and zapped in the microwave.
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>
Cat remember where it was, some hotel somewhere, but Kedgeree was on offer for breakfast. Now there is a cracking way to start the day.
Next best thing was a hotel in Northenr Italy, where there was a strange mix of the Germanic and Italian on offer. Stollen Cake and Prosecco.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 13 May 15 at 15:15
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An amazing number of Spanish hotels have Cava on the breakfast buffet - mind you, breakfast in Spain can last from 7:00am till noon!
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Not a fan of kedgeree myself but the boss likes it. Every 1 May at 6am, she and I nip down to the hamlet a mile away where a group of brave souls sings madrigals a capella from the roof of the church tower, and we spectators encourage them with applause from the churchyard.
All then repair to the adjacent community hall for breakfast. Kedgeree, sausage or bacon baps, croissants, toast and marmalade. I swerve round the kedgeree.
By 7.30 we are on our way home full of breakfast and the day still ahead of us. It feels like the start of summer.
My usual breakfast for the next few months will be two mattresses (aka shredded wheat) with semi-skilled UHT milk and a banana or some blueberries. Porridge in the colder months. I prefer the sausages, but it's not an option apparently, except once at the weekend.
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>> with semi-skilled UHT milk
That's another for me on the no list. Not for me I'm afraid, horrible stuff.
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Love the taste. Although we had full cream green top at home when I was a sprog, I always looked forward to the steri milk at Grandma's.
Now that the alternative at home is "her" skimmed stuff, it's no contest.
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>> Love the taste. Although we had full cream green top at home when I was
>> a sprog, I always looked forward to the steri milk at Grandma's.
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>> Now that the alternative at home is "her" skimmed stuff, it's no contest.
Always reminded me of being stuck somewhere hot and probably unpleasant. That and it tastes awful. Dry cereal never seemed so appealing when uht was the only option.
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Porridge in winter, muesli or granola in summer. Has to have oats in it or I get hungry before lunch. Often have something eggy at weekends, or even a fry up, but never fish. Quite fancy kedgeree though.
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Coffee and the paper. Two mugs...china...of strong Farrer's number 1 from Kendal.
Only then can I take on the World !
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A good few years ago I used to regularly partake of a 'Gentlemans Breakfast' on a Sunday morning, 10AM prompt, at a local, quite nice, hostelry. No names, but it involved a large fry up, with unlimited toast & coffee.
And two strippers.
It was all over, with happy endings, by 11.30, in time for the midday lunchtime clientele .
When I meet up with rugby club friends from that era we still laugh about it. Hard to believe in this day and age. A different world away. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
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>>That's another for me on the no list. Not for me I'm afraid, horrible stuff.
When my brother and I used to stay at our leather craftsman friends remote moorland cottage on Bodmin Moor, he would sometimes bring us up some tea in the morning.
He only ever had Carnation evaporated tinned milk in his owse and, as much as I luv me tea, I couldn't stand the smell of that stuff, let alone drink it so, it would go straight out of the window once he had gorn back downstairs.
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In my view milk of any description has no place whatsoever in tea or coffee and nor has sugar. Learn to drink the stuff without either and you will appreciate its real taste.
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I usually drink coffee black, but can't stand black tea. I haven't taken sugar in either since I was a child.
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You are drinking the wrong variety. Stuff like PG tips is designed to be drunk with milk to counteract the tannin. Go to a decent tea merchant and buy something with less tannin and more flavour.
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>> In my view milk of any description has no place whatsoever in tea or coffee
>> and nor has sugar. Learn to drink the stuff without either and you will appreciate
>> its real taste.
In my view, your view is needlessly proscriptive. It is of course possible to enjoy Tea or Coffee with milk as well as without, why restrict yourself with gustatory dogma?
May I ask, would you, do you, take your Turkish Coffee unsweetened?
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"May I ask, would you, do you, take your Turkish Coffee unsweetened?"
If its basically the same stuff as Greek coffee with the grounds in the cup, yes. Don't put it in espresso either
I always used to take sugar in tea and coffee. When I stopped taking it about thirty years ago I found the stuff almost undrinkable but after a couple of weeks you become much more aware of sweetness and start to find that sweetness overpowers the taste of coffee and now I find it unpleasant.
Use very little milk in our household - a pint or so a week mainly in cooking. It's not dogma I just don't like the taste of the stuff and the fatty feel it leaves in your mouth.
If give a cup of tea or coffee with milk in it of course I would drink it out of politeness but its certainly not how I would choose to make it.
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>> "May I ask, would you, do you, take your Turkish Coffee unsweetened?"
>>
>> If its basically the same stuff as Greek coffee with the grounds in the cup,
>> yes. Don't put it in espresso either
Clearly, sir, you have the tastebuds of an anaerobic digester.
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Porage (as I was brought up to spell it) every morning, summer or winter, then a few hours later, about 8 am, a second breakfast of toast and marmalade.
But I like to get my money's worth of Full English on holiday.
Full Irish was exactly the same, except that they only lightly grilled the tomatoes, so they still tasted of tomatoes, not over-toasted puree with orange string.
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>> Porage (as I was brought up to spell it) every morning, summer or winter, then
>> a few hours later, about 8 am, a second breakfast of toast and marmalade.
Porage? Call it what you like, but at 6:00am in the morning I call it a late supper.
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In "The Raj at Table" David Burton gives the origin of kedgeree. It is from the Indian khichri, a combination of dal and rice boiled with spices. The British adopted this as breakfast dish but substituted fish for dal, dropped the spices and added hard boiled eggs. On home ground, smoked haddock became standard and it seems many of us think kedgeree is a Scottish dish. In the event, the best I have ever had is from a down to earth café in Peebles (the one attached to a fancy china shop, if you are looking).
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Monday to Friday its the oats so simple microwave porridge with salt. 2 mins int he microwave at work and its ready. Whether I drive or cycle in that's the breakfast.
Weekends are different - sometimes a fry up including square sausage and tattie scone. Other times, moreso if I am on my own and I can open the house windows, then its mackerel or kippers. Both need to be hot though.
Best fish I ever tasted in my life was an Arbroath Smokie served here www.oldbrewhousearbroath.co.uk/menu.php
starter of Smokie Bacon Ramekin and main course of Arbroath Smokie.
Salivating just reading the menu again!
I also once did a smokie on the barbecue, cut in the middle, butter inside then wrapped in tinfoil! Deeeee licious!
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My favourite breakfast many moons ago was hotcakes and lashings of maple syrup.
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Mmm one of my favourites when in the US, seems to be on every menu. Probably no good for you but I could eat them till I burst.
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>> Weekends are different - sometimes a fry up including square sausage
There is no such thing as a square sausage, it is at best a burger with sharp corners.
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>> >> Weekends are different - sometimes a fry up including square sausage
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>> There is no such thing as a square sausage, it is at best a burger
>> with sharp corners.
Don't you call it 'Lorne' sausage Bobby?
Still doesn't look very sausagey to me!
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Oh it is very sausagey! Indeed some of them are into double figures with their meat content :)
Lorne is its"trade" name but usually when you ask for a roll and sausage you will be asked "links or square"
Last edited by: Bobby on Thu 14 May 15 at 15:11
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>>"links or square<<
After all those years delivering in Scotland I now know what it was they said, and the reason why breakfast was always a surprise!
Stand waiting at a T Bar on a Bellshill or Cumbernauld industrial estate after 8 hours driving to get there and ask for a 'breakfast in a roll' and all you get is a bloke talking a foreign language!
I never knew what I was going to end up with as all I did was nod, but it always tasted good:)
Another thing always confused me was being asked for 'where's yer lines'
To us they are POD's (proof of delivery) but I'm sure the whole of Scotland until you get past Inverness where I can suddenly understand the accent, thinks I'm thick....perhaps they're right!
Pat
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Breakfast - devonite
