Monday, 28 April 2008

the foul english breakfast

with the exception of marmelade and the made-for-tv glamour of nigella lawson's kitchen concoctions, english food is indisputably disgusting. it is nowhere more disgusting than the muck known as "the full english breakfast". (one's mind drifts back to the opening of "withnail and i" when marwood takes breakfast in a camden town "caff": all "news of the world", bad teeth, and frying eggs swimming in rancid oil.)

and yet i'm openly glad the english keep eating as they do. that despite the bullying of government and the medical profession, the cajoling of rick stein and nigella, and the swearing of gordon ramsay, i'm glad the english remain as wedded to bad food as they were when orwell, in sisyphean fashion, wrote his famous essay "in defence of english cooking". after all, one of the things which makes the english so immemorially english is their stoic consumption of dreadful food.

so i was especially glad to see that some english schoolchildren had thwarted the new "healthy foods" régime in school tuckshops by smuggling in the contraband junkfood: fizzy drink, chips, chocolate bars and the like (see story here). echoes of harriet tubman's underground railroad, the relief of mafeking, and the famous "turkey twizzler revolt" against jamie oliver in east end comprehensives.

it's heartening to see that despite the unremitting attempts to turn them into europeans the english remain, at the table anyway, thoroughly podsnappingly english. it is greatly to their credit, as it says in "pinafore".

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm. I have to take issue with this. Have you eaten out in Britain lately? British food these days is actually pretty cracking.

coffeesnob said...

cracking? really? nevermind. thanks for the correction.

the posted article was really an occasion to celebrate the dunkirk spirit of english schoolkids doing whatever it takes to avoid healthy food.

Anonymous said...

just because it's bad doesn't mean it's English....McDonalds? Choc bars?
m

coffeesnob said...

this is true. bad doesn't mean english. but english (food) usually means bad. ever seen a fry-up? don't. it could scar you for life.

Gretta James said...

CS my whingey Australian Pal... I'd cook you up an English breakfast that would certainly fill you up after the night we would have just had together!!!

Nuff said I think ;)

Gretta x

coffeesnob said...

what? me querulous?

yes to grex, no to grub.

i think i'd rather spend a weekend in the priory than eat from a deep friery.