Читать книгу Cakes & Ale - Spencer Edward - Страница 13

Pardon, I should have written two; and the second is ham and eggs. A new-laid egg—poached, not fried, an ye love me, O Betsy, best of cooks—and a rasher of home-cured hog are both excellent things in their way; but, like a partridge, a mother-in-law, and a baby, it is quite possible to have too much of them. The English hostess—I do not refer to the typical “her ladyship,” of whom I have written above, but to the average hostess—certainly launches out occasionally in the direction of assorted fish, kidneys, sausages, and chops, but the staple food upon which we are asked to break our fast is, undoubtedly, eggs and bacon.

The great question of what to eat at the first meal depends greatly upon whether you sit down to it directly you emerge from your bedroom, or whether you have indulged in any sort of exercise in the interim. After two or three hours “amateur touting” on such a place as Newmarket Heath, the sportsman is ready for any sort of food, from a dish of liver and bacon to a good, thick fat chop, or an underdone steak. I have even attacked cold stewed eels (!) upon an occasion when the pangs of hunger would have justified my eating the tom-cat, and the landlady as well. But chops and steaks are not to be commended to furnish forth the ordinary breakfast-table. I am coming to the hotel breakfast presently, so will say nothing about fried fish just yet. But here follows a list of a few of what may be called