table talk / By Joseph Byrd

A Breakfast Odyssey, or Breakfasts I Have Known

Beyond eggs over easy

(Feb. 14, 2008)  When I was 16 and had my learner’s permit, my father conscripted me to drive him to a mine site several hours into the Chiricahua Mountains. We left Tucson at 5 a.m. and had breakfast around 7 at a truck stop in Wilcox. For the first time in my life, I could order anything I wanted for breakfast. Suddenly, I was starved. He watched bemused as I devoured a sirloin steak and warm apple pie with cheddar cheese melted over it. It was absolute Heaven! I’ve never looked back.¬†

Breakfast: the first meal of the day. No aspect of world culture could be more varied, and no distinction between rich and poor more dramatic. For most of humanity, it is very basic. Porridge, for instance. (“Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold” refers to the remnants of a pea-soup supper eaten cold the next morning.) In some parts of the world, rice gruel is common; in others, some form of bread, perhaps dipped in tea or milk. In Southeast Asia it is soup; in Southeast Europe, yoghurt or kefir. Generally, cold climates tend toward more substantial and hot (oatmeal in Scotland), while warm ones tend to lighter and cooler (feta and olives on Crete).

Breakfast at the Woodrose Café in Garberville: Eggs over easy, Niman Ranch bacon, home fries and an English muffin. Photo by Bob Doran

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In earlier times, of course, dinner — served at mid-day — was the main meal. In the early 18th Century, William Byrd of Westover usually took boiled milk, or occasionally chocolate, for breakfast. Benjamin Franklin, working as a printer in London at the age of 19, consumed only barley water, and wrote disparagingly of his press-mate, who drank beer (“I thought it a detestable Custom. But it was necessary, he suppos’d, to drink strong Beer that he might be strong to labor”).

This column is not about world breakfasts, however, nor about history; it’s about me.

Breakfast: in theory, a simple meal. Yet I’ve never been able to relax into the comfort of the same thing every morning. Lord knows, I’ve tried — hominy grits can be marvelous, but unless I want to do it right, stone-ground, cooked perfectly and served immediately, it’s mucilage. Nancy’s Yogurt with fruit isn’t bad, but cold stuff is not what my body wants in the morning. And dry cereal is the very antithesis of food, with or without milk. In fact, breakfast cereal is the invention of the 19th century mountebank Rev. Sylvester Graham, who conceived it as a cure for “lust.” It is certainly that.¬†

I am a breakfast eclectic. I enjoy all manner of things, from a grilled cheese sandwich to milk-toast. Often, it’s leftovers — like soup, stew, chili, warm cheese on cornbread or thin slices of steak on a toasted baguette slice.¬†

As with all good marriages, Beni and I have found virtues in each other’s quirks. Cutting-edge sushi I learned from her, odd breakfasts she learned from me. While we normally have a modest breakfast, on vacation we are adventurous. We have in our travels found succor in Virginia (salt-cured) country ham and biscuits, pozole, goat tacos with queso a√±ejo, rabbit burgoo, baked macaroni and cheese with ham chunks and link-sausage/ripe tomato sandwiches on salt-rising bread. Dim sum, of course, is a platonic ideal, a parade of small tastes (at its authentic best including exotic dishes like duck feet and sweet rice pudding steamed in lotus leaf).

We suffered in France, where there is nothing available but potent coffee and bread until after noon, though we were occasionally saved by bakeries with fresh, warm croissants filled with molten dark chocolate. But in one Yorkshire inn I was served a traditional English breakfast of gammon (Canadian bacon, only better), sausage, black pudding (good, just don’t ask what’s in it), a basted egg, broiled tomato, sautéed mushrooms and griddled potato cake. Beni got perfect soft-boiled eggs presented in porcelain egg cups, and “toast soldiers.”

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