Post-pub nosh deathmatch: Mealy pudding v migas Following a long winter hibernation burning the fat reserves gained from a generous serving of Dutch delicacy kapsalon, our Special Projects Bureau post-pub nosh team has emerged blinking into the spring sunshine to bring you a further selection of quality international cuisine designed to soak up the excesses of a night on the …
Beans might be a good contender for a future Special Projects Bureau breakfast-off?
I have endless arguments with my American girlfriend about the merits of good old English baked beans versus the whole host of different Mexican beans.
One thing we can agree on - beans themselves are much too bloody healthy and should be accompanied by as much unhealthy assorted fatty meats as possible to counteract this travesty.
English - baked beans, preferably Heinz, presented with bacon/egg/black pudding/etc.
Mexican - breakfast tortilla with plenty of assorted beans. I'd have to consult my girlfriend on the proper types of beans to use in this case as apparently we just don't have the taste or linguistics here to describe the full range of varieties.
Also possibly the American breakfast of chicken fried steak and hash; and I'm sure your Spanish friends have strong ideas on beans as well.
That bacon looks like a hand cut slice of home cured, the sausages look like butcher's sausages... Okay, the lack of beans and mushrooms is possibly criminal, but overall it looks set to make a heart surgeon gibber, so it's a good breakfast...
Damn, now /I'm/ hungry too...
Ah well, farmers' market tomorrow, and a potentially lethal cholesterol Smörgåsbord will follow...
No. You have forgotten that stale bread can, and should, be used to make bread pudding. A quantity of cold tea is also required and sugar and raisins/sultanas as well (to add a Spanish element). Lovely filling stuff, will stick to your ribs nicely too.
I have to remember it fondly though as being now gluten intolerant means I can no longer eat it. GD bread is not suitable, ends up a soggy mess instead of something delightful.
Then there is the one where you cook the slices of stale bread in egg custard with sultanas. My mother would do it with a meringue topping and we called in Queen's pudding. Some adulterate it with jam between the slices but there's no accounting for taste.
And of course stale bread can be made into breadcrumbs which have a multitude of uses.
I don't like fried foods that much at all. Nor preserved meats, nor baked beens, nor eggs,
YEARS ago while still young, my parents stopped at a roadside cafe (perhap a little chef anyway that sort of thing) around 8 in the morning, they both had fry ups for breakfast.
I always have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, but here I went for.
Burger & chips - For breakfast
Anyway a proper Cornish pasty beats either of these two meals.
I realise this is a niche activity but I've always found getting up and going for a run cures a hangover. Mind you this is after the Scottish precaution of necking as much water as you can hold before retiring to bed. One effect is to wake you early enough and get you out of bed anyway so you may as well go for a run. Length depends on age and fitness. Time was I swore by 9miles as doing the business but the other week I could only manage 5 after a day spent drinking while watching the rugby 7's followed by wines with dinner.
Must do better.
I think it works partly because it deals with headache nicely probably through the blood being required in your muscles not pounding around your temples and partly because your body lacking breakfast (I really meant first thing) turns to the alcohol and metabolites as urgently needed fuel. The raised post run metabolism deals with the remainder. You can substitute an endurance exercise of your choice though. A weights session might work but I expect that might make your headache worse, not better.
It also has the advantage that you can tuck into a fry up for breaky afterwards with a clear conscience.
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Oralè cabròn. Now you're talking! Spanish food is sadly lacking in flavor, and that essential ingredient, CHILE! Sorry escoses, but Scottish cooking doesn't even qualify as food to my taste buds.
Suet is essential to refried beans and to flour tortillas, but otherwise not necessary. Likewise I suspect Spanish (I.e. Gachupin) chorizo is not up to my standards for flavor. Breakfast burritos forever! Washed down with either Modelo or Cuautemoc cerveza!
Palabras necias menso. Your foolish words betray your ignorance. Chiles are of many varieties and some are mild enough for your pallid palate, but it is fiery food for a fierce people and perhaps not for you.
Mexican beer is of the best, but it is true that in the early days of beer in cans in Mexico, beer would rust the interior of the can imparting an undesired taste. To eliminate that taste, a bit of lime was added to the beer beginning a drinking tradition still practiced in Mexico.
If you can manage to stagger around the kitchen preparing food and not amputating appendages long enough to cook this, you haven't had enough to drink.
All I can manage on the way home from the pub is a kebab and a minicab. Thankfully they're adjacent premises.
You haven't really tried mealie pudding until you've had it deep-fried in batter and served with chips. Don't forget the salt, vinegar, pickled egg and a dollop of sauce. Salad cream works surprisingly well. Any chippie north of Montrose should do, although the closer to Aberdeen you get the better.
Typically the only other way we eat it (in NE Scotland) is as an accompaniment to mince and tatties, although skirlie is more common - the main difference being that skirlie is prepared entirely in a skillet, usually fried with dripping and no suet, whereas mealie pudding is boiled, and always contains suet.
To further confuse matters, the Irish have an entirely different sort of "white pudding" that is basically pork sausages with a higher than normal proportion of rusk - essentially pork is just a minor ingredient.
Even better, cut a square in the middle of the (very thickly sliced) bread before putting it into the pan then crack an egg into the hole this leaves. Don't forget to fry the left over square of bread too though! My preference is to do this in butter rather than dripping.
Gah, I hail from the North, and can confirm these abominations exist, and can be found in many a chipper!
As if it needed confirming, I can confirm that they really are as vile as the sound. They are normally the '10 for a £1' out of Iceland variety, and taste of cardboard made soggy with ungodly quantities of grease.
I've never seen that particular "delicacy" outside of Edinburgh, and I hope to never see it again. In fact my one and only encounter with it was an accident.
I was a skint student looking for a cheap meal, and the chippie down the street had two separate menus: one for regular chippie fare, and one for pizzas. The pizza menu was well outside my pathetic budget, but for some reason (I didn't understand at the time) they also had the single entry for "Pizza" on the chippie menu ... just £1! Like a mug I ordered it, then watched in horror as they took a slice of pizza dough, spread it with tomato paste from a tube, covered it in grated cheddar cheese (eugh!), folded it in half, then deep fried it.
I was too shocked to say anything, and just took it like Oliver Twist meekly clutching a bowl of gruel, then walked out, still gawking. Just the smell was awful, but the one bite I took nearly killed me.
I stuck to peanut butter toasties after that. It was a big thing in Edinburgh. They say the second most prevalent smell in Auld Reekie, after the infamous hops cloud, is the lingering smell of peanut butter.
May I humbly suggest the Bauernfrühstück (farmer's breakfast) available in less reputable parts of Germany. This is essentially a large (6 eggs) omelette filled with fried potato, various high-fat sausage slices and assorted vegetables, which has the advantage of adding high cholesterol to the saturated fat.
Something from the sweet trolley?
I recommend the traditional suet and jam roly-poly pudding, with custard and golden syrup.
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