Switzerland

Group E - SWITZERLAND

What is it?

Bircher-Benner Muesli! I mixed some cinnamon and some assorted fruit and nuts into a bowl of porridge oats. This mixture was covered with apple juice and left in the fridge overnight. In the morning I ate the muesli with yoghurt.

How was it?

It was cold! Colder than I’m used to for a breakfast anyhow. This did not mean it didn’t taste great though. The flavours worked really well together (cinnamon is a true team player); I enjoyed the impact of the apple juice and how it co-existed comfortably with the oats and fruit rather than overpowering. It was a refreshing start to the day and felt quite healthy to boot.

Overall thoughts:

This has a lot going for it: it takes minimal time to prepare the night before, and even less to get ready in the morning. It tastes fantastic. It’s easily customizable so you could tailor it to suit any particular tastes you might have, whilst keeping the same base. It’s probably a  relatively healthy way to start the day as well. I just wonder how it tastes warmed up…

If it was a a Swiss footballer?

Fresh-faced and flashy midfield workman Valon Behrami.

Russia

Group H - RUSSIA

What is it?

Porridge in a bowl, rye bread and sliced sausage on a plate

How was it?

I added a little brown sugar to the porridge which gave it a little spark of sweetness. The texture of the porridge contrasted well against the rye bread and sausage. The rye bread was wonderfully crumbly within the mouth, and had a mealy texture and saltiness that made it the equal of the sausage, rather than just a vehicle for it.

Overall thoughts:

I thought that I would find this a fairly bland stodgefest, but I was surprised to find this a compelling meal. I expected to enjoy the range of textures, but I was caught out by the strong flavor of the rye bread. With some decent synchronisation this meal does not take too much effort, and I feel as though my belly is warm and ready for the rigours of the day.

If it was a Russian footballer?

I could make comparisons with the whole Russian team considering how surprised I was with the slight panache this meal had, but I’ll narrow it down to box-to-box midfielder Denis Glushakov.

Australia

What is it?

Steak and eggs!  (I used a vegetarian steak for this, obviously)

How was it?

Tasty, wholesome, filling. The veggie steak I had found was very good, carrying enough of a meaty, salty swagger to play the part. It was also thick and chewy, which contrasted with my poorly fried eggs. It was a compelling mixture, but one that lacked depth or finesse.

Overall thoughts:

This was enjoyable to eat, but was quite one dimensional. There was no sweetness to counterbalance what was on the plate and so I was left feeling more unhealthy than I normally would afterwards. I was surprised that there was enough moisture in the meal to mean that I didn’t need any condiments, so as a stand alone dish it was certainly eatable. For future consumption though it would need a little something else.

If it was an Australian footballer?

The meaty tackler that is Ryan McGowan.

Ivory Coast

Group C - IVORY COAST

What is it?

Foutou! Plantain and cassava mash rolled into little balls, and served with a peanut sauce made from peanut butter and stock.

How was it?

This has been the most radically different breakfast I’ve had thus far. The foutou had a very similar texture to mashed potato, only with a slightly stickier consistency. The taste was somewhere between mashed potato and banana, meaning that the whole dish straddled the sweet-savoury divide. The peanut sauce had a subtle sweetness, but this was shrouded in a salty haze.

Overall thoughts:

Very filling and stodgy. It took quite a while to prepare, though I guess you could make a lot of foutou in advance and despite the time it took it was very easy (most of the time was spent waiting for the plantain and cassava to soften enough to be mashable). It would be fun to make this again with additional elements with which to make it more obviously sweet or savoury, like jam or baked beans.

If it was an Ivorian footballer?

Enigmatic, bewildering, mystifying; we’re looking at Gervinho.

USA

Group G - U.S.A.

What is it?

Bacon and eggs and pancake and syrup.

How was it?

A jumble of sweet and savoury on one plate, yet every combined well with the others on the plate. The pancakes, buttermilk I believe [check this] were thick and the eggs flowed, yet neither of these tasted obviously sweet or savoury. Rather, there was a sweet-savoury spectrum on the plate, running from the bacon (the veggie bacon was adequate for its purpose) to the syrup.

Overall thoughts:

I’m usually sceptical when it comes to mixing sweet and savoury, but this was a triumph. The syrup had a simplicity to it which made it easily complicit with the other items. The syrup was the real triumph on the plate. Unhealthy? Yes, no question. Delicious? You betcha.

If it was an American footballer?

The delightful yet complex sweet play of Michael Bradley makes him the closest match.

France

Group E - FRANCE

What is it?

A bowl of hot chocolate, served with some brioche for dipping in.

How was it?

Pleasant to taste and satisfying to eat in a methodical sense. The whole experience was very sweet. The dipping tactic meant that you had a whole textural spectrum to play with, as you could dip your brioche in until it was a soggy mess, or give it the swiftest of dunking to eat it al dente.

Overall thoughts:

Very simple and fun. The way of eating compensated to a degree for the lack of variety in flavours available. It felt good and homely though, and was very quick to make indeed.

If it was a French footballer?

Soft and delicate with a sweet touch, we’re looking at wee Antoine Griezmann.

Honduras

Group E - HONDURAS

What is it?

Baleadas! Refried beans folded in tortilla, with a basic accompaniment of sour cream and cheese (they would normally use summat similar to feta but I couldn’t grab anything vegetarian so just went with the cheese in my fridge).

How was it?

This was warming. The gruff saltiness of the beans meshed perfectly with the cooling edge of the cream, and the cheese added a nice edge. Texture-wise it was a bit gloopy, sitting somewhere between porridge and soup, but despite this the overall taste was good.

Overall:

This was very quick and easy to put together, and was fun to eat too. It made me feel warmed within which was a good sign. It certainly has some textural shortcomings which could be easily remedied by the addition of further ingredients (this version of the baleada I had was pretty basic, and often they contain scrambled eggs amongst other things). A solid performance.

If it was a Honduran footballer?

Physical, but with the potential for more subtlety and nuance, we’re looking at violent but occasionally dynamic full-back Emilio Izaguirre.

Cameroon

Group A: CAMEROON

What is it?

Spaghetti omelette! Pretty much what it says on the tin: an omelette was made comprising of leftover spaghetti, plus a little onion and tomato. It was served within a small baguette with mayonnaise.

How was it?

Wowzers, this a stodgefest. Chewy spaghetti in chewy egg in chewy bread (the mayo wasn’t chewy thankfully). I probably made too big a portion for myself as I struggled to get it all down. The onion and tomato didn’t make a big enough impression to cut through the stodge. The best mouthfuls were the ones that contained the most of these veg and some mayo.

Overall thoughts:

It certainly set me up for the day to follow, and there was something pleasant about how greasy this felt. Ultimately though it was a bit too carb heavy. It would be improved by getting rid of the spaghetti or the bread. It was a fun way to use up leftover spaghetti from the night before though.

If it was a Cameroonian footballer?

This was a large bruiser of a breakfast. We’re looking at defensive midfielder Stéphane Mbia.

The Netherlands

Group B - THE NETHERLANDS

What was it?

Toast, served with a variety of sweet nonsense: chocolate and hazelnut spread, honey, and hagelslag, a sprinkling of hundreds-and-thousands that you would normally apply to cake.

How was it?

Mixed results. The chocolate and hazelnut spread was wonderful, sweet and full-bodied. The honey had a different kind of sweetness, more sugary with a thicker texture. The hagelslag was horrible though. The tiny crunches jarred greatly with the toast, and the sweetness of these was muted. It was not pleasant, and I hope this type of nonsense isn’t too widespread in the Netherlands.

Overall thoughts:

Simple, but the single-minded pursuit of sweetness has led this particular place into a brutal place. The hagelslag is the type of thing I would imagine a 5-year-old pestering their parents about having for breakfast, thinking that it would be the most delicious thing ever. Guess what, kid? It ain’t.

If it was a Dutch footballer?

Pleasant and skilled on paper, but on pitch a brutal thug who doesn’t fit the team’s overall aesthetic: Nigel de Jong.

Belgium

Group H: BELGIUM

What was it?

Croûtes dorées, which could be translated into spiced French toast (the two countries share a fair bit of cuisine) or ‘snazzy eggy bread.’ An egg was beaten with milk, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bread was dipped into this mixture, then fried in butter. Sugar was sprinkled over the toast once it had cooked.

How was it?

Very interesting. This occupied the middle-ground between sweet and savoury. Add some jam or chocolate and you’ve got a delicious sweet breakfast. Add some cheese and you’ve got a top savoury option. This versatility gives the meal good potential depth. The bread feels fuller for the dipping it takes before frying.

Overall:

I was left wanting to try this one again, to fully explore its strengths and to see what works best with it. I’d dearly love to try it both with a sweet jam and with some cheesy beans. It’s this potential in its flexibility which give the dish its strength. It’s also relatively quick and simple to prepare.

If it was a Belgian footballer?

Versatile, and able to perform a couple of different positions, we’re looking at Marouane Fellaini.

England

Group D - ENGLAND

What was it?

Of course, a full English breakfast (of the vegetarian persuasion). We had fried egg, beans, mushrooms, sausages, tomatoes, and toast.

How was it?

Glorious, as always. You get such a wonderful mixture of foods with this breakfast, with each component able to offer something completely different. Sweet, salty, soft, hard, juicy, crunchy. It all seems to coexist and cohere as well, and the whole meal is hearty and homely. This will not fail to set you up for a day.

Overall thoughts:

The only criticism I could level at this breakfast is that it can take a while to put together, but if your synchronisation skills are up to it you could get it all ready in the time it takes to cook one of the items in the oven. A clear favourite in my books.

If it was an English footballer?

Creative and hard-working, brilliant and battling. In the current squad we’re looking at Steven Gerrard.

Croatia

Group A - CROATIA

What was it?

Burek - A pie-type food, made from filo pastry and feta cheese. It is a commonly eaten food around the Mediterranean and Adriatic, and so this type of thing can be found in quite a few countries. (I actually bought this from a Greek pie shop…)

How was it?

It was a simple affair and warmed my stomach wonderfully. Quite salty, with a wonderful contrast in texture between the brittle crunch of the pastry and the soft swampiness of the cheese. It was not a particularly nuanced breakfast, but the few things it did it did well.

Overall thoughts:

This did a good job as a breakfast, warming me up both physically and mentally. The only problem was that it was two dimensional. You could quite easily get fed up of eating this regularly. Different fillings would be the way to get around that particular problem.

If it was a Croatian footballer?

We’re looking a powerful individual, a stodgy defender in the mould of Vedran Corluka.

Mexico

Group A - MEXICO

What was it?

Huevos rancheros – eggs fried with salsa, served on a tortilla with salsa, cheese and avocado

How was it?

As with lots of Mexican food this was a wonderful mess of different textures, temperatures and tastes. It felt wholesome and cohesive, and especially hearty. Although chaotic in appearance there was a balance to the dish; richness, sweetness, heat, all countered by cool, salty, plainness elsewhere. The tortilla kept it all together.

Overall thoughts.

It took a bit longer to prepare than some breakfasts do, but this was a big return for the amount of effort put in. If I had added some refried beans it would have even fitted in with my requirements for a full English breakfast (egg, beans, carb, fleshy element). This is an early front runner in the World Cup, and will probably go a lot further than the Mexican football team.

If it was a Mexican footballer?

Slight but with lots of dynamism and flair, we're looking at Giovani dos Santos.

Brazil

Group A - BRAZIL

What was it?

Papaya, coffee, cheese roll, and grilled cheese baguette

How was it?

There was a wonderful contrast between the soft and sweet scented papaya, and the crunchy saltiness of the grilled cheese baguette. The cheese roll added further textures, with a crisp outside giving way to chewy interior. Very stodgy and also salty, but the moistness of the papaya balanced things out.

NB. I had planned to make my own pao de quiejo but was unable to find any tapioca or cassava flour in Bexhill. The bakery-bought cheese scone sounded like it would be the best thing to emulate the flavours and textures of the Brazillian food, and made things a lot easier for me too :-)

Overall thoughts.

Relatively simple to prepare, this breakfast offered a nice simple balance of flavours and textures, feeling substantial enough to kick off the day. A pleasing opener for the hosts.

If it was a Brazilian footballer?

Seemingly plain yet secretly subtle defender Thiago Silva.

Breakfast World Cup mission statement

(Originally written on 11th June 2014)

As followers of the blog will attest, I am a fan of football. I try to play it, watch too much of it, talk about it far too frequently. In many ways this mirrors my breakfast fandom. Football is my favourite sport and breakfast is my favourite meal.

For the uninitiated, the football World Cup rolls round once every 4 years, and 32 of the best teams from all sides of the globe meet to challenge for the title of world champions. This year I will be supporting England, as I have at every world cup since 1998. Now England's chances of winning are regarded as slim (I reckon they'll make the quarter finals), but how would they fare if the countries battled it out, not on the football pitch, but on the breakfast table?

Breakfast culture varies greatly around the world. I was flabbergasted when I found out that the UK eats around 90% or so of the world's baked beans. Why aren't all the other countries eating them for breakfast like us? There must be something else going on, and so I intend to use the world cup as an excuse to take a brief tour around the culinary world to see what tricks are being missed, and to see who can rightfully stake a claim to the best breakfast in the world.

For the next 32 days, the duration of the football World Cup, I will start my day with a vegetarian breakfast (I remain vegetarian) associated with each of the different countries that are involved in events in Brazil. I will then rate the countries against each other, using the same tournament framework as the football competition, and eventually I shall crown one nation as Champions of Breakfasts of Champions.

During my meticulous research I ran into a couple of problems:

a.) some countries don't tend to have breakfast in the same way Brits do

b.) some countries share very similar “traditional” breakfasts

c.) some countries really love meat

In these cases I have taken the odd liberty here and there, in order to make for a more varied and interesting contest. For example, I have read that lots of Australians do not eat steak and eggs for breakfast, even as a special treat. This dish does have a historical significance (so I've read) though, and so I will be doing my best to recreate it as it is significantly different to other breakfasts I will be trying. At the time of writing I'm not quite sure how I will recreate steak in a vegetarian manner, but by the time I put Australia to the test I can assure you I will have found a way.

It's a big undertaking. I don't think I'll have ever gone for so long a period without toast and marmite (might have to shoehorn vegemite into the Australian breakfast) but it should be an exciting adventure. It may be difficult bringing a samba rhythm and carnival spirit to my kitchen between 6am and 8am on weekdays but I'll give it my best shot.

Gabbing with Gareth at Breakfast at Tiffany's

May 19th.

I'm not a fan of the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. First watched by me on New Year's Day a few years ago, I found its conclusion ultimately dissatisfying with no probative value, and its overplaying of what was at its opening a very good song was frustrating. Admittedly, the scene where the kids are all sitting round talking about something, and the camera circles the group, and there's lots of emotions, and it's all ad-libbing by the actors, that bit is impressive. Ultimately though, the whole thing felt inconsequential and there was too much of unlikeable characters doing unlikeable things, and so when the film closed to Simple Minds (again...) and Emilio Estevez with his fist raised pointlessly in the air, a meaningless gesture from a paper champion, I felt as though 2000 and whatever had gotten off to the worst possible start.

When I was younger, I often got Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Breakfast Club mixed up. I do the same thing with The Princess Bride and The Princess Diaries. Fortunately, Brighton does not have a cafe called The Breakfast Club, and so there was little risk of me going to the wrong venue for my rendezvous with Gareth Strachan.

Gareth is a friend that I have met through past and present housemates Tim and Zia, who all worked together in Ottakars bookshop in Guildford many moons ago. Back then Gareth also organised a couple of film festivals in the town, at which, before we'd even met, he introduced me to some great cinema which I would recommend to anyone; The Seventh Seal, The Seven Samurai, Shaolin Soccer and Riding Giants. I doubt he ever chose to screen The Breakfast Club at one of these events.

These days, Gareth is more concerned with creating film that curating it. He has recently applied for a place on a prestigious screenwriting MA course and all fingers are crossed that he is successful in his application. He has previously written plays that have been performed, and well-received I might add, and this creative experience would ensure that he would be superb in this field.

It would be quite an involved course though. Doing a MA is generally an all-consuming venture. I previously did my Creative and Critical MA part-time whilst continuing to work full-time, and so I was able to offer a wee bit of advice to him about this side of things. Generally speaking though, Gareth is driven and would like this to be an inroad towards a career. As much as he enjoys teaching and his greeting card line is beginning to take off, he feels his real talents lie in the creative writing. All fingers are indeed crossed.

Gareth is also not the best at time-keeping, and so I had a decent amount of time in Breakfast at Tiffany's with which to take in its ambience. I took in all of its ambience. We both agree that Brighton is a very easy place in which to simply exist and have a nice time and that's exactly what I did, enjoying Heart FM, the wooden furniture arranged so spaciously and the multiple pictures of Audrey Hepburn adorning the walls. Couldn't see Emilio Estevez anywhere though.

And so, the breakfast:

Veggie Set

Egg, veg. Sausage, tomato (fresh, tinned or grilled), beans, mushrooms, and 2 hash browns, bubble & squeak, and 2 toast or hash brown

Veggie Set - £5.95

I had eaten at Breakfast at Tiffany's a few times previously, but those jaunts had been a long time ago. The one thing that had stuck with me the most from those visits was that the cafe was one of a select few that offered bubble and squeak as part of its vegetarian breakfast, and it was with gusto that I launched myself into it when it arrived. It is a mystery to me why more places don't serve it; it adds a different dimension, both in taste and texture, and is a quintessentially British breakfast item. Here again it did not disappoint, bringing a soft and rosemaric presence to the dish.

Its potatoey cousin, the hash brown, came in at the other end of the texture scale, incredibly and satisfying crispy, whilst retaining a tuberous taste which was sufficiently different to the greenery-laden B&S. The other carbohydrate provider, the toast, was both buttered and plentiful. Now, the menu does say that I had a choice as to whether I had a mound of toast or a further hash brown. Unfortunately, when ordering, I was not presented with either of the choices indicated by the menu. I would have probably opted for toast in any case, but it would have been good to have been able to vocalise this preference.

Note the application of finger to 'thinking cleft'

The other advertised choice regarded the tomatoes. For me, most of the time it would be a straight toss-up between tinned or grilled. Unfortunately I was again not given the opportunity to be the master of my own destiny but fortunately again they successfully guessed that I would have opted for tinned tomatoes on this occasion. Perhaps the kitchen staff at Breakfast at Tiffany's are clairvoyant? That would be a welcome innovation in breakfasting, and would help to combat that gross vagueness that often plagues the most urgent fastbreaker. These tomatoes were plump buds that exuded a great amount of juice with prompting, and were a fortunate success.

Prompting was also required by the egg. It was solid from the outset, but with careful probing it suddenly yielded a warm blanket of yolk, rather in the manner in which you might gingerly explore a skin lesion before accidentally bursting it. Other moisture was provided inevitably by the baked beans, whose caramel richness prompted me to think of much more aesthetically pleasing imagery entirely.

The other downside, aside from the lack of choice on ordering, came in the form of the flesh options. Both the mushrooms and the sausages suffered from the same blandness as The Breakast Club. The mushrooms, seemingly fried in oil, and the sausage, of the glamorgan genus, were lacking in character like the majority of John Hughes' cast.

At the final credits began to roll over mine and Gareth's breakfast, I felt satisfied with what I had eaten. The meal was large, varied and interesting. Although it didn't blow me away, lacking the ever-present glamour of Ms. Hepburn, it was warm, pleasant and satisfying. Perhaps the pictures of Audrey in the cafe are misleading, and in fact the venue is named after the mid 90s chart hit by Deep Blue Something. The breakfast here was much more reminiscent of enjoyable chart-bothering pop rock-by-numbers than being a dish that could make you divinely and utterly happy.

Function: bubble and squeak raised the homely factor 4/5

Adherence to Canon: Yes

Value: felt decent 4/5
Taste: on the whole, satisfactory 3/5

Presentation: solid positioning 3/5

Venue: lots of space, but order options not given 3/5

Overall: the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there: 3.5/5

Joining Janoh at Moksha Cafe

April 20th.

Ah, the good old days. One of the most regular areas of conversation around the cooked breakfast table. When you are too tired/hungover to bear thinking about the future, great comfort can be found by looking back to a brighter time before dehydration and lack of sleep took hold. I haven't really had many chats about the good old days on this blog thus far, but when I went for breakfast with Ian "Janoh" Humberstone over the Easter weekend we managed to have a decent one.

Janoh is a friend from the good old days when I studied at Exeter University. Since we finished our studies there I have only seen him sparingly; for a short period when he was considering a move to Brighton, once when I was up in Edinburgh for a family event (which led to us climbing up Arthur's Seat with a birdsong vinyl), and once when he visited Brighton to perform a gig in our living room. Once again, Janoh was coming to Brighton to perform some of his folk music.

At present, Janoh is involved in Folklore Tapes; "an ongoing research and heritage project exploring the folkloric arcana of the farthest-flung recesses of Great Britain and beyond...through abstracted musical reinterpretation and experimental visuals." He was on his way back to Exeter in association with this project and dropped in for some Easter-based shenanigans along with some performance. If you click on that link you will see that a whole lot of love and dedication is going into this project. He's a talented chap with passion strong enough to haul lost folklore out from the archives and into the fresh sunlight of the now. He truly is the folklore equivalent of the cooked breakfast, aiding the re-energising transition from past to future.

After the breakfast I was going to be heading to a nearby pub to watch a couple of football matches. In a nebulous manner we began talking about our supporting of football, and how for Janoh the teams that were in the Premiership at the time when he first started following football are the teams that should be in the Premiership now. He still can't believe that Oldham Athletic aren't regularly facing off against Manchester United and co. on a weekly basis.

It is funny how the connexions we make when we are young are often ones that stay strong with us throughout our lives. There's a lot to be said about that with regards to folk music, and how old a form of art it is. You could also argue that breakfast shares a similar venerability. If you were that way inclined (like me).

And so, the breakfast:

 Vegetarian Breakfast

Grilled field mushroom with roasted vine tomatoes, wilted spinach, free range eggs, baked beans and sourdough toast

Vegetarian Breakfast - £7.25

Now, was this a large amount of food, or was the plate small? It's difficult to tell in retrospect just from looking at the photo, but my sourdough toast did happen to topple of the plate on more than one occasion. This proved distracting when all I wanted to do was rip into my breakfast (after some careful painstaking note-taking of course). When I was able to relax without worrying about whether the breakfast would remain on the plate, I was able to enjoy some good warm flavours.

Most of the dish's components were very juicy. The tomatoes and mushrooms were positively sweating. The good kind of sweating, from vigorous exercise, rather than the bad kind that comes from being overweight and sitting in front of a computer indoors all day. Flavours backed up their juice, with the tomatoes carrying a rich fruitiness and the mushrooms seasoned with pepper. Slight disjunction was to be found with their texture however, with peppercorns present upon the otherwise smooth 'shrooms, and the vine doing nothing for me. It's only purpose seemed to be to suggest wholesome freshness, and in this capacity it failed.

Janoh (left) and Robin (right) performing some folk

The breakfast, you see, seemed to be swimming in either juice or butter, and when I finished eating there remained a lake of this residue. This undid any aspirations of healthy freshness that a rough wiry bit of vine may have had, and though such a lake was not necessarily a bad thing in itself, there were just not enough carbohydrate components on the plate to soak it up. Only the rigorously crunchy toast was there to do this. More carbs, either extra toast or some hash browns for instance, would have made a massive difference.

The majority of this lake was seemingly provided by the spinach. This was incredibly buttery. Peppery as well, but moreso buttery. The other moisture providing items were far less fluid. The beans were warm, silken, and sweet, but not moist. The eggs (I opted for poached) disappointingly had solid yolks, rather like hard boiled eggs. This laid blame of the juice lake mainly on the doorstep of the spinach. Naughty spinach.

Overall, it was a tasty breakfast, but with a few logistical flaws. My enjoyment of the meal would have been much greater had some extra carbohydrate options been present, to aid in soaking up the all-pervading juice and to provide a wider textural variety. A large plate would also have made a difference. Moksha is a pleasant cafe with good ambience which does great work with hot drinks and cakes. It still needs a little bit more though when cooked breakfasts are concerned. A larger table wouldn't have gone amiss either.

Function: in parts homely, in others stressful - 3/5
Adherence to canon: Yes
Taste: good strong flavours abounded - 4/5
Value: possibly a bit too much for these problems - 2/5
Presentation: good bean segregation but plate felt small - 3/5
Venue: nice but better suited to hot drinks - 3/5

Overall: bit too juicy - 3/5