I’m dining in Edinburgh this evening, so there’s scant chance of turkey, but that’s okay, for I’m going out to eat with the local humanists. And for breakfast tomorrow at my B&B I have four options:
1. Scottish smoked salmon and scrambled egg (tempting, but inferior to #3):
2. Haggis with poached egg and potato scone (McSween’s Haggis, with minced beef and sans offal, is good, but that’s not on offer, so I’ll eschew this choice).
3. Traditional Fry (the one I will choose, of course), with my choice (any or all) of bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomato, hash brown, baked beans, and either poached, scrambled, fried, or boiled eggs. The consumption of vile, canned baked beans for breakfast is a moral failing of many in the U.K. I can only surmise that many years ago, in the absence of real breakfast food, someone opened a can of beans, and since then it’s become a “tradition.”
4. Or I could have the Health Nuts’ Choice: continental breakfast. That’s for weenies.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone about to gorge in the U.S. Here’s a suggestion about what to be thankful for (and a biology lesson):
h/t: Julie
OK, that’s it. I’ve silently tolerated the dissing of Marmite up to now, but now it’s the humble baked bean in your sights and I’m not standing for it.
I demand satisfaction. A field of your choice, with your seconds, dawn tomorrow, a copy of Signature in the Cell each. May the best man win.
Also eat the haggis it’s lovely, nothing wrong with a bit of offal! Was over in Edinburgh for a stag had a lovely breakfast with haggis standing in for the black and white pudding. Next thing you’re going to say you don’t want to try drisheen.
I’m with you on baked beans, many a morning it’s gotten me through the first difficult minutes of the day! All though being from Ireland it was bachelors for us.
Well, you would win if it were a farting match!
Agreed. Thre’s nothing wrong with canned baked beans. I haven’t had Marmite for many years but it might be nearly as good as Vegemite, the toast spread of heaven.
Try some of the local produce as well … Ardbeg 10 year old is quite lovely!
(I meant not for breakfast of course!)
One place we stayed at Loch Lomond had whisky to put in your oatmeal. I thought that would be a staple, so I passed it up, as it was only the first day, and I wasn’t quite used to driving on the wrong side of the road yet. On second thought, maybe that would have helped…
Us Englishers are raised on baked beans, when I first heard we are the only country to regularly eat them I was in disbelief, I still haven’t recovered from the shock. I now look at a can of heinz and think of a traditional dish of the Philippines called Balut. I wonder to myself whether it’s seen as the same thing, just a quirky cuisine of our culture. But I don’t think anyone claims baked beans make you better in bed.
I grew up believing my British tinned baked beans were real cowboy food, onky to learn with some dismay that in that form it’s a Brit thing.
Please pop a plate of #1 up to the ISS with request to drop it in the upper part of south central New Mexico on the next go round.
Thaannk you.
You seem to be confused Jerry. REAL haggis is the good stuff, and baked beans (not the terrible, disgusting sickly-sweet American version) are excellent with scrambled eggs and bacon. I do hope your B&B has Lorne sausage rather than link sausage, but if not, make sure you get some Lorne; it is the far superior form of breakfast sausage!
I have no Scottish ancestry at least in the last 200 years, but I would marry a haggis if one proposed to me! (I would be quickly widowed…)
Sorry, Spoken for…
Cannibal.
Errr, “Cannibalee .. ?”
Will you be there for more than a day? I think I’d go for 2, 1 & 3 in that order.
& spam’s not an option with 3?
I’ll have a can of baked beans (Heinz, of course) for breakfast over biscuits in gravy any day. That was the “special” at the Furnace Creek Inn yesterday… yuck.
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Biscuits and gravy! Or as we would describe it, a wet scone with warm baby vomit.
When I first told my Scottish husband about biscuits and gravy he gave me a look like I was insane; the image that popped into his mind was custard creams and Bisto! That would indeed be disgusting.
I had the same idea with Hob Nobs.
Un bouquette pour monsieur Creosote, s.v.p.
This is so wrong.
A great biscuit with red-eye gravy is unbelievably good.
Biscuits and gravy are traditionally the breakfast of leftovers from the night before; like onion soup or collard greens, it came out of poverty.
In Edinburgh, look out for the ghosts of David Hume, Adam Smith, James Clerk Maxwell and James Hutton. In Glasgow, James Watt and his teacher Joseph Black (discoverer of latent heat)
They kept goats?
Darwin at medical schoolalso, as well & Conan Doyle…
Seems to me than since it is Thanksgiving you should go for the holiday salmon!
I dreaded Haggis the first time I had it ( in Edinburgh ) and I could not believe how nice it was. I wish we could get it from a good butchers here in Dublin. It’s lovely with a small amount of mashed-potato. I am jealous. Its “offaly” good – sorry, such a terrible pun.
And i totally agree with you on the baked beans – truly a desecration of the great fry.
Happy thanksgiving.
I quite enjoyed real Haggis the one time I had it. But not for breakfast. The thing I didn’t like so much was the black pudding, ubiquitous with a Scottish breakfast. I did find out that it depends. I did have one that was quite good, but I can’t remember where that was. Mostly it was just too dry.
I’ve often wondered how many people are even remotely aware of hos the American celebration of “Thanksgiving” really began.
John Two-Hawks tells it like it really was:
“It is good to celebrate Thanksgiving, to be thankful for your blessings. It is not good to distort history, to falsely portray the origin of this holiday and lie about the truth of its actual inception.
“Thanksgiving’ did not begin as a great loving relationship between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag, Pequot and Narragansett people. In fact, in October of 1621 when the ‘pilgrim’ survivors of their first winter in Turtle Island sat down to share the first unofficial ‘Thanksgiving’ meal, the Indians who were there were not even invited! There was no turkey, squash, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie. A few days before this alleged feast took place, a company of ‘pilgrims’ led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local Indian leader, and an 11 foot high wall was erected around the entire Plymouth settlement for the very purpose of keeping Indians out! Officially, the holiday we know as ‘Thanksgiving’ actually came into existence in the year 1637. Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaimed this first official day of Thanksgiving and feasting to celebrate the return of the colony’s men who had arrived safely from what is now Mystic, Connecticut. They had gone there to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot men, women and children, and Mr. Winthrop decided to dedicate an official day of thanksgiving complete with a feast to ‘give thanks’ for their great ‘victory’….”
~John Two-Hawks.”
It’s frightening and hard to believe, I know. Here’s more evidence though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pequot_War
Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday.
Regardless of its history, what I’m completely confident about is that it would be impossible for Congress to create such a holiday now.
Imagine: one day out of the other 365 whose only purpose is to eat as well as you can with people you like or love and to shut your pie hole with your complaints and be grateful.
About the cartoon. It was evolution that provided the turkey, but it was intelligent design (human-directed selective breeding) that turned it into “a ball of walking meat”.
While true, that is still a product of the processes of evolution. It is humans harnessing the power of selection of traits, thus evolution. The intelligent part is yet to be determined as it is still questionable regarding the direction of the design (overall, disregarding the fate of the turkey).
Yes, you’re right. It is difficult to imagine that a gelatinous “Butterball” turkey is the product of intelligent design (except, perhaps, that pop-up timer).
You don’t like baked beans? But what do you put on your jacket potatoes?? I mean, grated cheddar and Worcester sauce are good, but they need those beans! 🙂
You’re right – McSween’s is lovely haggis.
I just wanted to add that the comic is “Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal”, by Zach Weiner, for those who didn’t know http://www.smbc-comics.com/
I’m English, and while it is a staple, frankly, I can live without baked beans. I almost feel slightly unpatriotic now!
However, I take umbrage with anyone who disses Marmite! How can anyone not like the salty, savoury, umami burst? Delicious with hot buttered toast and in Cheddar cheese sandwiches.
That and Gentlemen’s Relish. Smells like fish food, tastes divine.
Another vote here for Gentleman’s Relish.
Someone has an unhealthily close association with fish food. (Not me!)
I am an Aussie but have an English mother so baked beans were eaten at home but not by me.
Couldn’t stand them along with Vegemite and peanut butter.
I recently made baked beans from Jamie Oliver’s book using home grown borlotti beans and they were fantastic.
Also, spaghetti was only ever found in a can along with tomato sauce.