Daily Prompt: Fry

Frying gets a bad press these days. It is associated with an unhealthy diet of fatty foods and frowned on by health authorities and vegetarians. Last year animal rights group PETA  even suggested that Eggs and Bacon Bay here in Tasmania should have its name changed.

For me, as for many British people around the world, the Great British Breakfast is still high on the list of comfort foods. When I was growing up we would have bacon and eggs for breakfast at weekends when there was more time to enjoy it. I loved fried eggs and a rasher of lean bacon. We preferred the leaner bacon and cut the rinds off. Mum thought streaky bacon was a waste of money as you got such a lot of fat in it.  She used to fry with lard but later changed to a polyunsaturated cooking oil or if we had run out a dab of table margarine would do the trick. We would usually add fried bread on the side and sometimes a tomato and maybe even a sausage and baked beans. It was a big filling meal washed down with numerous cups of tea and we took our time over it. These were the time when we would have long talks. Mum would tell stories about when she was a little girl or what it was like in England during the war and other stories of days before she was married. We’d talk about what we would do if we won the lottery, where we’d like to go and what we’d like to see and do. We laughed  a lot and usually ended up making a second pot of tea. Eventually breakfast would come to an end when mum would suddenly realise that she had to “get on” and put the Sunday roast in the oven (another weekend tradition).

I rarely cook bacon and eggs for my breakfast now as it isn’t the same for one person on her own. I do occasionally make it for my evening meal in winter, if I’m tired and don’t feel like cooking. As I said, it is comfort food for me. Naomi and I were delighted to find that we could have bacon and eggs for breakfast on Explorer of the Seas last year. We would get up early and go up to the Windjammer Buffet for breakfast. It was quiet first thing in the morning and we could enjoy our breakfast and plan our day in  a leisurely way. As our morning plan usually included laps around the pool deck I did not feel guilty about eating fried eggs and bacon.