By Gerry Moran
We were talking about food in the pub the other night. Now we weren’t chatting about falafels or fajitas or fancy foods that one gets in fancy restaurants or cafes. We were talking about breakfast!
It’s nine o’clock at night and we’re talking about what’s eaten at nine o’clock (or thereabouts) in the morning, namely: the ‘Full Irish Breakfast’. Only in the pub!
Anyway, the question that arose was: how do we eat our morning fry? ‘With a knife and fork’ came the immediate reply for which the same smart-Alec was nearly devoured for serving up (appropriate puns I should think) such a clichéd reply.
The quality of repartee in my local is usually far superior to that tasteless (appropriate pun again) retort.
As for the question: ‘how do we eat our fry?’ it transpired that some folks don’t eat the full Irish the way most of us normal (whatever that might mean) people might. Apparently, some of my colleagues in the local have a rather unorthodox method of eating the full Irish.
Some eat the sausages first, then the rashers, then the puddings, then the tomatoes and finally the egg. Though not necessarily in that order. The rashers could be eaten first, the tomatoes second, the puddings third and so on and so forth. It’s random really which item they pick on first.
The point being – they eat all of each item on the plate before progressing to the next. Now maybe I’m wrong but I like to savour a bit of everything on the plate – at the same time. I like to put a bit of sausage, rasher and egg in my mouth all at once – plus a sliver of mushroom and tomato if I can manage it.
However, I do make an exception with the pudding, especially the black pudding. Now I don’t mean to be racist regarding the little black pudding, but I find its potent taste dominates everything else I might put in my mouth. And so, I’ll either leave it till last or skip on it altogether.