Eating Albion

Maggie’s very strong tea

W. Somerset Maugham once said, “To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.” Well, last Saturday I had three different traditional English breakfasts, all in the name of research for a German pop science show called Galileo. I wonder if Maugham ever followed his own advice to the letter, because if he had, he’d have been reaching for the Rennies by the end like I was…

Maximus Films (the production company) had originally contacted Russell via eggsbaconchipsbeans.com, but he was busy (or more likely didn’t fancy eating three cooked breakfasts in one day) and so kindly passed them onto me. A couple of phone calls and emails and we’re set. At 7:30am on Saturday morning a car pulls up outside my house. In it are production manager Katja (5′11″ of blonde Germanic beauty), cameraman Oliver (cool, calm, collected and designated driver around London streets), and presenter Harro (the joker and my brother in on-screen fry-up eating). They are all such a great bunch of guys and, though it’s a job, it turns out to be really good fun.

The Crew

The idea for the piece was to look at three different aspects of the full English, its history and how it has changed to reflect trends. I came up with the following:

Classic greasy spoon:
First we go to the fantastic Maggie’s in Lewisham. The eponymous Maggie is already dishing out strong tea from a huge pot at 7:50am, with a smile and that general laidback motherly humour that comes from mature Irish ladies. The ‘build your own’ option would have taken too long to explain on camera, so on my recommendation we opt for the bacon, egg, bubble and fried slice. For my money it’s a more traditional, pared-down version of an English breakfast, and it’s more of a British historical story to try and explain what ‘bubble and squeak’ and a ‘fried slice’ is. I’m sure most Germans are only familiar with hash browns and baked beans and other latter-day American additions to festoon the full English.

We do the interior shots first, with me talking Harro through the menu choices. Maggie then brings over a jar of something yellowish, asking “Have you tried Irish sauce?” “No,” I say, intrigued. “Well, try some of that. It’s what we put in it that makes it special,” she says, walking away. I pick up the jar, start unscrewing the lid, and am just telling the guys how it looks like mustard, when a toy snake on a spring flies out of the jar, causing all of us to jump and the other clientele to fall about laughing! We then set up and shoot the exterior shots, the gist of which is that Harro is lost and confused, and I see him and help him around London.

Lovely ladies!

We also take some time to chat to an old Irish gent. Well, actually he starts talking to us, about bacon and how back in Ireland he used to kill the winter pig. He’s that classic old milky-eyed Irish boy you very rarely see these days, except as a cliché in TV shows. Within the space of three minutes he’s rattled off two stories about potatoes, told a rude joke, flirted with Maggie as she went past with the tea and mentioned the Blarney stone. All to the complete uncomprehending bemusement of the Germans.

Cafés like Maggie’s are fantastic, and, sadly, sole-proprietor places like this are a dying breed. They’re the sorts of places that have been serving the community for years, where you’re always assured a friendly welcome and a hot debate about last night’s football with your endless supply of hot strong tea. The food is never going to win a Michelin star, but it’s cheap, filling and good, and I think all the better for it.

On to the next shoot

The organic fry-up:
Next we hop in the car and head up to Marylebone to the Natural Kitchen, with me giving a running monologue about the neighbourhoods we pass through on our way. As we hit the Old Kent Road, I say, “You have Monopoly in Germany, right?” “Yes,”, they reply. “Well, this street’s the crappy cheapest square straight after ‘Go’.”

As you’d expect, the Natural Kitchen is packed with tasty organic, wild and artisan food produce. A friend of a friend, Sander the chef is a Dutchman, and he was taking point for the breakfast prep while I talked Harro though the menu. We opt for the full organic English, which comprises one Cumberland recipe sausage made in the butcher’s downstairs, Berkshire smoked back bacon, and one perfect free-range organic fried egg. There’s also a zingy grilled tomato flavoured with a few dried herbs that give it some oomph, a hand-made hash brown potato cake and some fried mushrooms. It also comes with a nice slice of soda bread toast.

I picked the Natural Kitchen because it, along with many other such cafés and eateries, offers an organic, home- or hand-made version of the full English or classic fry-up, reflecting the change in consumer demand. It cost nearly £8, but the quality shone through in the ingredients. The sausage, for example, even impressed Harro, and the Germans are known to take their sausage very seriously. It’s a solid, meaty fella, as thick as a baby’s arm and highly spiced with seasoning as all good Cumberlands should be.

The Natural Kitchen staff were all smiles and helpful, but the same sadly could not be said about the guy at a nearby table with his yummy mummy wife and kids. He was playing ringtones to his toddler on his phone, and when Katja asked him - extremely nicely - if he could stop while we filmed he said “No. Why don’t you go and film somewhere else?”, although eventually he did shut it off. Coincidentally, I’d already forewarned the crew about the ‘Marylebone set’ - those annoyingly posh, rich, demanding types you see in Waitrose on MBH, dressing down some poor member of staff over some tiny point - and sadly this incident proved me right. The most infuriating thing was, before we’d started filming I’d seen Keith take time to speak to this toddler and give the boy a colouring book - all good customer service. The guy in question had then seen Keith talk to us and help us, so he knew we were there with the management’s full approval. Basically, he deliberately chose to be a rude, arrogant idiot rather than a nice human being. He’s obviously deeply unhappy and unsatisfied with his life despite the money, and can only play with his child by waving a phone playing ringtones at it. Do you know what, I actually felt embarrassed for him.

Anyway, I take the opportunity to do a little bit of shopping in the NK, picking up a nice rack of lamb, some new spuds, and a few baby leeks, and hastily throwing together a random cheese board with the help of Gemma, who’s worked there since day one and still loves it.

The posh fry-up:
Next up was meant to be the Worsley, but they were playing silly buggers with the PR. We thought about the Ritz, Claridges , etc., but in the end we go to Canteen for a posh-style final fry-up (they did win best breakfast 2007 in Restaurant Magazine). Also on the menu are eggs, bacon and bubble, so I suggest we go for that to contrast with Maggie’s. The first and most striking contrast is that it costs three times as much. The bubble is a little bit drier, but you could tell it was home-made, and the cabbage still had a firmish bite to it. The bacon is also different, being streaky and much more crispy.

I sum up the role of the cooked breakfast in British society, explaining that it’s a treat, a luxury, something you either take the time to make yourself or enjoy on holiday, or with a hangover. I then go on to talk about how it’s changed over time to respond to our needs and the supply chain. We end the piece with me looking a proper porker, with Harro jokingly pretending to be beaten back by the might of three full Englishes, whereas I cleared my plate(s). He then declares it a very good breakfast… in moderation.

We shoot some external shots again, and a piece with a taxi zipping us about and us legging it out of the cab — it’ll look great in the edit — and then, after putting the gear back in the car, I take the gang to the NFT bar for a swift half and a sit-down. They offer me a lift home, then they have to drive to Heathrow and catch a plane to Iceland to film the next strange food thing… rotten shark flesh!

I have to say it was the most fun I think I’ve had in ages, but for your safety please leave eating three cooked breakfasts in the space of eight hours to the professionals and possibly dead authors.

Post shoot beers, halves for the Germans, large one for me