Breakfasts in Art: Bernard Sumner's fry up

Breakfasts in Art #2
Control by Anton Corbijn

by H.P. Seuss

I do not think any reader will mind my beginning this discussion by relaying the following joke:

I went to see that Joy Division film the other night. And you'll never guess who was sitting in front of me: Beth Ditto! Only she kept getting up and blocking my view. "Sit down Beth!", I cried. "You're standing in the way of Control!"

Unfortunately, Control is no longer in the cinemas, the Gossip's Standing in the Way of Control is not as ubiquitious as it was when it was, and this delightful joke, once so fresh, is as stale as a Victor Lewis Smith TV column. Fans of metatextuality will be pleased to note that since Victor
Lewis Smith no longer writes his stale TV column, this reference itself is stale, deliberately so. For such is the way with pop cultural ephemera, which is why the London Review of Breakfast purports to report the news from eternity as well as review breakfasts.

But this is all besides the point, the point being the scene in Control in which a cooked breakfast is prepared by Bernard Sumner for himself and Ian Curtis. I say breakfast, though the meal is clearly consumed in the evening, because its constituent parts are as follows:

Eggs
Beans
Sausage
Fried slice

It is a memorable scene. Ian (Sam Riley) is at a low ebb. Embroiled in an extra-marital affair, afflicted by epilepsy and exhaustion, he has left his long-suffering wife Deborah (beautifully portrayed by Samantha Morton) and has been forced to stay with his bandmate Bernard (played James Anthony Pearson). The meal is Bernard's way of accommodating, even comforting his friend, drawing him out of himself.

I do not imagine women in late-Seventies Macclesfield were stern advocates of the Five-a-Day, but even so, there is something very male about the unhealthiness of the concoction, its particular combination of ingredients, washed down with tea; the kitchen was then still foreign territory even for relatively mild, intellectual men such as Bernard, and you suspect Deborah would have done a better job, that Ian would need the HP Sauce on the table to render it palatable, had he any appetite at all.

Conversation is stilted; Ian does not open up; the meal does not mark a turning point. But Bernard is mothering Ian as far as the strictures of northern masculinity and his own competence will allow and this is very touching. There, in a pool of grease, is a sad truth about male friendship.

Cecconi's, Mayfair

Cecconi’s
5 - 5a Burlington Gardens
Mayfair
W1X 1LE
020 7434 1500
www.cecconis.co.uk

From the diary of Miss Eggletina Benedict (as seen by Orva Easy)

Dear Diary,

Bunked off for breakfast at Cecconi’s with the girls today – Granola and Nutella are over from Capri - such a pair of darlings though Granola’s a bit on the neurotic side if you ask me - a mecca of the rich and famous, they said! Tinted windows and everything, though I didn’t recognise anyone. George (not the gardener, the new security man, lovely chap, one eye, neck like a Hummer tyre) had a squint at the menu while I waited in the Daimler and I was reassured to note the outrageous expense to which they put you for the privilege of breakfasting in such exclusive surroundings. That reminds me, must ask Daddy to transfer a few quid. Can’t imagine why I haven’t been there before!

Rather nice inside I must say! Lovely soft lighting (well, darking, more accurately, couldn’t see a bloody thing for the first five mins). Splendid velvet banquettes and green leather chairs, rather reminded me of the inside of the old man’s vintage MG, though he’d probably use those white tablecloths to wipe the oil off his hands, the old mucker. Just my sort of place anyway, I thought.

Breakfast was super, decidedly up to scratch. I had yummy eggs Florentine - perfect - oozy yolks, soft whites, absolute lashings of hollandaise, (not too sharp or vinegary like that strange yellow goop we get at school) and soooooooo much spinach! And of course, a deliciously doughy Good Old English muffin. Yum!

But you know what… I hesitate to complain. Really I do, it seems dreadfully vulgar, but frankly, I felt rather let down. The service is just awful. Really, spectacularly, almost amusingly dire. Truculent is the word Nutty used (she’s awfully clever!) but dozy isn’t far off. George was all for having a word but I thought that was a bit much. One doesn’t like to make a scene. Shopping in Bond Street after then back to school in time for double maths, bor-ring! Can't wait for the hols!!!

Op-Egg: What we talk about when we talk about wedding breakfasts

by Hashley Brown

Getting married is a fraught business. Not only do you have the standard barriers to progress: the mother-in-law, invitations, what socks to wear; you also have to think about feeding people. In the face of this sticky problem, the new Mrs Brown and I decided to ignore it altogether. We made this decision not only because wedding meals can be tedious, relative-filled affairs, but also because they are so inappropriately named. No wedding breakfast I can think of has ever had a fried egg in it.

Whilst you may argue that the significance of the name lies in the breaking of the fast of bachelor-hood, I feel this literal interpretation leaves much to be desired and casts breakfast in a thoroughly unsavoury light. To my mind, breakfast is a celebration. Each morning one revels in the light of a new day. It is an existential marker one eats to affirm that he or she made it through the night.

It is disingenuous then to talk of a wedding breakfast, when in reality there are two real wedding breakfasts to consider: what one eats at the start of their wedding day, as celebration of life so far, and to gird the loins for challenges ahead; and what one eats with their bride or groom on the first glorious morning of married life. To me these meals are crucial - setting the tenor of both the wedding and the marriage to come.

In a concession to tradition, Mrs Brown and I spent the night before our wedding apart. I was hosted by friends and when bleary eyed - and with a hint of trepidation - crawled down their stairs on the big day, I was greeted with that cheery and heart warming call of 'Breakfast?'. What to eat on a morning like this? Not enough and you risk collapsing at the altar, too much and that knot in your stomach becomes an unpleasant sausagey one. My host, A., took the decision out of my hands and within moments had plated up 2 poached eggs on granary, with a watercress salad on the side. In one fell swoop she had provided me with a hefty protein hit for the day, whilst eschewing any greasy unpleasantness. Full marks to the lady, I thought, as I sat around the table with my best-man and good friends feeling the warm glow of breakfasting communion. I felt prepared, both emotionally and physically, for the day ahead.

[What followed went smoothly and safe to say there was no altar collapsing thanks to the prescience of my host.]

As dawn broke on the first breakfast of my married life, Mrs Brown and I were ensconced in the warm 16th century embrace of the Rookery Hotel in Clerkenwell. Thankfully there was to be none of that awkward breakfast buffet small talk, or sipping from ludicrously small glasses of juice that one can often experience in a hotel breakfast, as the Rookery only serves breakfast in bed. Not all breakfast options are suitable for leisurely and prostrate eating either, and thankfully no plates of sloppy beans or obstinate egg combinations were on offer. What arrived, on a substantial and sturdy wooden tray, was a breakfast to remember.

A bacon sandwich for me and a basket of fresh pastries for her came surrounded with freshly squeezed juices, dark velvety coffee and reassuring tea in a generous pot. It was a simple yet luxurious way to start the day. The bacon was thick cut and old-spot in a fresh warm ciabatta, the pastries and bread were glowing in that just baked rather than just re-microwaved way, and once we'd opened the complimentary bottle of champagne that we hadn't had the wherewithal to pop in the small hours of our arrival, a sumptuous feast was guaranteed. This wedding breakfast had no need to be fat free or considerate of the events of the day ahead. What it needed was to be decadent, to celebrate the start of something special...

Mr & Mrs Brown are still married.

The Dartmouth Arms, Dartmouth Park

The Dartmouth Arms
35 York Rise
Dartmouth Park
NW5 1SP
7485 3267
www.dartmoutharms.co.uk

by Poppy Tartt

If Tufnell Park were a staircase, the Dartmouth Arms would be its ornate newel post carved from one chunk of timber, it is that solid and comforting. As the pub’s reassuring embrace enveloped us, Monsieur Bébé and I pinched each other to check for dreams. ‘Waking,’ confirmed Monsieur. We held the breakfast menu aloft for inspection. Its style and substance was, if concise (full English and veggie options and a range of breakfast sandwiches are available), wholly pleasing. It even boasted an endorsement from that doyen of English breakfasters, Mr P. G. Wodehouse.

Compatible in all things (apart from Monsieur’s pathological dislike of les champignons), we ordered the full English twice, and repaired to a large round table by the window. I removed my shoes and put my feet up. It was like being at home, only better. Monsieur obtained the Sunday papers from a nearby shop and we opened them up and spread them all about the table and all over our laps and dropped some of the least interesting parts on the floor. Breakfast arrived on big white oval plates and was lovely. The whites of the eggs were as clean and shiny as the plates themselves, the yolks like melted wax, the bacon porcine, toast thick and marvellous, tomato rubicund and jolly as a plump lady with a hat on . . . The je nais sais quoi of it all was I just don’t know what.

The one disappointment was the underdone sausage, which, were I less English, I might have sent back for a grilling. But everything else was so perfect, and – rather like when you realise, moments from the act of lovemaking, that your bladder has other things on its mind – I couldn’t quite bear to mention it . . .

The Boiled Egg and Soldiers, Clapham

The Boiled Egg and Soldiers
63 Northcote Rd
Clapham
SW11 1NP
020 7223 4894

by Dee Caff

There may be no better time to indulge in a Full English than on the first morning of a festival, which is why my festival-bound friend and I donned our baggy waisted eating-apparel and chowed down on some serious sausage. It’s amazing what the thought of living on nothing but rich tea biscuits, beer and cigarettes for three days can do to the appetite.

Our spot of choice was The Boiled Egg and Soldiers, which, cursed though it is with seeming like the backdrop to an irrepressibly smug Richard Curtis film, is still a top breakfast destination for anyone in the SW area. The place exudes the kind of laid-back promise of a good brunch that you might expect from Uncle Monty’s larder. Stripped wooden floorboards, intimate seating and the smell of smoked bacon are a cosy lure, while a blackboard announces that the place is fully licensed, so you can indulge in a little hair-of-the-dog.

If you tire of the joy of watching the yummy mummies wheel past with their Alfies and Jezebels, then the menu makes for excellent reading with its sheer unabashed promises of indulgence. Feasts such as ‘The Works’ beckon with sirloin steak and black pudding, while ‘Old School’ boasts smoked haddock and poached eggs with lemon mayo on toast.

I opted for a good old ‘Traditional’ (£6.95) with eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes and a sausage. The prices are fairly steep, but you are paying that couple of extra quid for noticeable quality, which is what you want when you’re about to spend the best part of a week in a drunken stupor, deciding between the nutritional benefits of cheesy chips and pizza.

My breakfast really was everything I hoped it would be – the sausage herby and delicious and the mushrooms oozing with butter – every little thing cooked perfectly, right down to the crispy rinds of the thick, salty bacon. The service was a little on the nonchalant side, but our food came promptly and we left full of beans, just about ready to face the indignity of service station toilets, navigational mishaps and hairy men in small T-shirts.

Special Dispatch: High Street Cafe, Bedford

High Street Cafe
5 High Street
Bedford
MK40

by Bob El Ensquique

The sun was up, the sparrows were singing and, being underemployed, the day was mine. After taking a morning stroll along the blossoming riverbank of the graceful Great Ouse, I fancied some nourishment. As it is ideally situated by the town bridge, I decided to try the High Street Cafe.

Barging in through the sturdy metal framed door, my reception was like a cuddle from a chubby aunt. A chirpy waitress with an impressive pony-tail greeted me; everything felt right. I ordered the vegetarian set: egg, beans, tomatoes, hash browns, bubble & squeak, toast, and tea/coffee. With all this for just £4.50, it was a veritable snip.

After spending a few minutes admiring the cafe’s decor – as well as blackboards and coat pegs the walls featured, to my surprise, Las Vegas cityscapes – and listening to two talkative pensioners planning their afternoon shopping spree at Bhs, my cuppa arrived. The hot tea did well in both key departments: it was bracing in strength but also refreshingly milky.

An oval platter of fried enjoyment was soon slid under my nose, followed by four pieces of hot buttered triangular toast. The presentation was tidy; three hunks of tomato lined the top of the plate, with beans taking centre stage, flanked by bubble on one side, and egg and hash browns on the other.

Unfortunately, the asymmetry of the plate’s arrangement was matched in its ability to satisfy. The bubble and squeak was flavoursome and filling, but lacked texture; there was no crunch to it. The hash browns were a joy, striking the perfect balance between brittle shell and tender innards. Heinz beans and a little fried egg with a creamy yolk provided ample slipperiness to the dish, but I wasn’t keen on the tomatoes, which I found a tad soggy. My tomato worries were eased however when I combined them with the toast to make bespoke toasties, and I did manage to clear the plate(s).

The great build-up to the food may have made me overly critical of my meal, because I really had no strong complaints and I even tipped the proprietor.

Full, I departed the High Street Cafe and continued my aimless riverside walk.

Breakfasts in Art: Oeufs a la Camus

Breakfasts in Art # 1
L'Etranger by Albert Camus

by H.P. Seuss

In my adolescence, I was briefly but fervently an existentialist. I would skulk to school worrying that I might slay a passing pupil for the sheer hell of it, just because the sun got in my eyes. I would mistake indigestion for profound realisations of the essential now-ness of existence. And I would foist Camus's L'Etranger on all my friends.

Not all of them found inspiration in his scorched streets and crystal seas. However, one read the novella at least as voraciously. But you can never predict another's reaction, and to the question "which is your favourite bit", he cited not the famous opening line; not the dazzling scene of the Arab's slaying; not the bit where Meursault nobly faces his execution at the hands of an incomprehending state; but the following sentence: "Je me suis fait cuire des œufs et je les ai mangés à même le plat". Or: "I cooked some eggs and ate them out the pan". This he regarded as the pinnacle of Camus's acheivement.

With the benefit of my years, I realise my frend's instincts were more acute than I first imagined. For though I grew out of my existential phase fairly promptly, I have never quite grown out of my taste for oeufs a la Camus, a dish that captures the very essence of French intellectual chic and teaches us something of life.

The preparation could not be simpler. Crack two eggs into a thin slick of oil in a frying pan, cook to your taste and consume them with a fork, standing up ("j'ai fait ma cuisine et j'ai mangé debout" Meursault explains later). A piece of buttered baguette may accompany your eggs, though strictly speaking, it would be inauthentic (Meursault eats his feast "sans pain parce que je n'en avais plus et que je ne voulais pas descendre pour en acheter"; however, I take it that he would have eaten bread were some lying around, so I see no reason to forgo carbohydrate for the sake of it). One important point: a stick frying pan should be used as non-stick is liable to scratch on contact with fork, but this being a rather bourgeois concern, I will emphasise that seasoned metal imparts a better taste to the eggs and Meursault would not have encountered Teflon in 1950s Algiers. A wok, it occurs to me, might provide an interesting variation; I don't know, I have never tried using one.

One obvious advantage of the dish is that the eggs do not get cold. But this again seems a trifling care, so instead I will emphasis the dish's philosophical worth in freeing us from the absurdities of bourgeois routine; in making an urgent appeal to our senses; and in isolating the
life-force of the egg, distilling breakfast to its very essence, reminding us that existence precedes it.

The Waterhouse, De Beauvoir Town

The Waterhouse
10 Orsman Road
De Beauvoir Town
N1 5QJ
020 7033 0123
www.waterhouserestaurant.co.uk

by Orva Easy

The infinite variety with which humanity is blessed is a thing to treasure. In the hustle of everyday life, the constant fight to stand out against the tide of faceless others, it is hard to step back and take joy in our never-ending diversity. Sitting at a window table in the Waterhouse (feted as London's most eco-friendly restaurant, a fact which is neither noticeable nor interesting for those concerned purely with the question of breakfast - dear readers, we shall ignore it) overlooking the Regent’s canal, presents a splendid opportunity to do just that. And I will tell you, it is a curious and wonderful thing to discover that however many joggers there are panting their way along the towpath, there is an equal number of very distinct gaits. It is nothing short of astonishing. You wonder how some of these people stay upright.

While marvelling at these many miraculous methods of forward propulsion, one is treated to a delightful breakfast experience. The airy restaurant, empty but for one or two cashmere-trendy east London couples and an army of charming staff, put me in mind of a beach-side café in Sydney in which I once enjoyed a superb eggs Benedict - albeit minus the sun, sea and golden sand. Old-style blues and calypso are non-intrusive, and though they leave the teabag in, which would horrify my refined colleague Miss Tart, you are at least provided with saucers on which to deposit the offending sack of spent leaves. The eggs, my companions agreed, were superb, while the sausages were tiny but plentiful, with a hint of thyme. With two choices on the menu (three items for £5.50 and five at a whopping £9) I would have been righteously outraged if I had opted for black pudding as one of three, so meagre was the portion, but after some debate it was decided that the single meaty field mushroom was preferable to the usual sloppy mess of limp, overcooked slices. All of this came seasoned lightly with a pinch of smugness and a dash of relief that it was not us heaving our breakfast filled bulks down the towpath.

The Sandwich Box, Highbury

The Sandwich Box
4a Gillespie Road
Highbury
N5 1LN
020 77041988

by Grease Witherspoon

Having only moved to my area fairly recently, I am still feeling smug about my decision. It's a place for parks, families, quirkiness, proximity, watering holes and local characters - and you just can’t knock it.

So it was with stubbornly high hopes that I decided to meet fellow new locals Min and Fe at The Sandwich Box, which I had already decided was a slice of Parisian quaintness. Every time I pass this tiny café-cum-takeaway with its striped awning and outdoor tables (spread over the pavement with an arrogance that only continentals can achieve), I am transported to the backstreets of Montparnasse. As we sat down I mourned leaving my sunglasses at home and instead pointed my nose upwards, trying to look like I had a certain je-ne-sais-quoi.

But instead of the Eiffel Tower straddling the horizon, our view was obscured by the cranes of the Highbury Square development; and instead of rubbing shoulders with would-be Serge Gainsbourgs, we were ogled by men in Arsenal shirts, perfuming the air with the smell of stale beer. I may have set myself up for disappointment.

Once seated, the friendly staff did their best to please, bringing a plate of toast cut from a proper loaf and completely smothered in salty butter. Très bien. But after a cup of strong tea my Gallic delusions quickly dissipated and all I craved was a proper British greasy spoon. Having arrived earlier, Fe was already tucking into a plastered together vegetarian, wheat and dairy-free option: beans, eggs and hash browns. Min had settled for a cheese toastie, a not unfeasible substitute for a croque monsieur, which I was told hit the spot. I eagerly awaited my full English, feeling my bets were aptly hedged.

There I went, setting myself up for disappointment again. The sausage was reheated and cold in the middle, the bacon was an odd mix between crispy and tough, the eggs - rubbery. Admittedly the hash browns fell apart in a flaky way that hinted at a kind of home-made domesticity, but perhaps this was only a wishful projection.

However, I did spy some homemade cakes on a counter, waiting to be sliced. Next time I might give the full English a miss, although for £3.95 you could do worse, and come back for tea and cake. So perhaps it isn’t so much "goodbye" to the Sandwich Box, as "au revoir".

Nineteen, Streatham

Nineteen
19 The High Parade
Streatham High Road
Streatham
London
SW16
0208 835 8285
www.atnineteen.co.uk

by Nelson Griddle

Forgotten Eighties popster Paul Hardcastle had a big hit with a record called “Nineteen”. It was so named, as he explained in laborious detail on the disc itself, because nineteen was the average age of a combat soldier in Vietnam.

Is there some similar statistic associated with Nineteen, the new star in the glittering firmament of eateries on Streatham High Road? Previous visits have had me convinced that the name could only refer to the average number of minutes you are likely to wait before someone comes along and asks if you’d like a drink, rather than anything so mundane as its postal address.

In short, the service at Nineteen is scatty. There’s also something a bit Vegas about the whole place, what with the metallic baubles, the leather booths, the high-end liqueurs behind the bar. Imagine the unlikely circumstance of Englebert Humperdink, say, finding himself in Streatham. Nineteen is precisely the kind of place he would choose to prop up the bar with a glass of Maker’s Mark.

Inspired by this showbizzy ambience, I ordered that American staple, Eggs Benedict - the only breakfast dish which inspired the stage name of a star of the A-Team (Dirk “Face” Benedict, in case you’re wondering).

The dish was good, but spoilt by undercooked bacon. Bacon, in my view, has to be crisp, otherwise you might as well be eating gammon. And never more so than with Eggs Benedict. This is partly because the dish rose to prominence in the good old US of A, where you’re more or less guaranteed bacon crunchier than the current credit crisis. But more importantly, all that egg yolk and hollandaise sauce just cries out for a bit of contrasting crispiness.

As for the service, well, it’s still a bit erratic, but at least their hearts are in the right place. In fact, just after we left the waitress rushed down the street to give my companion the sunglasses she had left on the table. Scatty, but sweet.