Ma Bakers Cafe, Prees - A Mundane Breakfast Full Of Happiness
I try not to judge. I think in my impending old age I feel most proud that I no longer judge. I am far more accepting that the world is better off with varying opinions. It’s fine not to agree with everyone. If anything, I have become quite grateful that the world is full of different opinions, different thoughts and different points of view. I’ve learnt to put myself in other people's shoes, to try to see the world from their perspective. Even if just for a moment to maybe get an insight into their thinking, reminding myself that it’s absolutely fine for them to think differently to me.
I’m not always right, I can’t ‘always’ be right…right? That’s what my wife tells me, anyway. But she is always right. So that’s something to consider. I don’t mean that in a 1970s working man’s club circuit comedian’s content sort of way but in a genuinely, she is always right, kind of way - even when I’ve got my stubborn head on (most of the time) and I really don’t think she is, she really is!
But of course, there are always going to be situations where it’s impossible to understand someone else's point of view. However hard you try, it will never make sense. For instance, people who think immigration is this countries biggest issue…..
While no one is always right, people can always be wrong. Like the ever-confusing ‘food is just fuel’ people…you know those types? The ones who literally only eat because they will die if they don’t. The people who would happily move to nothing but meal replacement drinks and do away with meal times completely.
My biggest confusion with this lot is what exactly happens when they put food in their mouth? What happens next? Does their mind not fill with various thoughts and emotions? Is it just a vacuous space? An empty, dark, silent room? Mindless, inconcenient chewing until the food slips down their throat without a care in the world? I sort of visualise an astronaut floating off into the cosmic darkness alone, getting smaller and smaller as they head into the silent distance. Is there not a single moment where a mouthful sparks even the slightest of happy nostalgic memories, completely out of the blue? Are they generally less emotive in every part of their life? Or am I overly emotive? Is that the real problem? It can really make you doubt yourself. Especially now I am comfortable understanding that I’m not always right! I can feel an internal dilemma starting……
I don’t actually think it's me, it's definitely you. It can’t be me because I am delighted that while I sit alongside the extremely busy A49; just outside Prees, Shropshire, in a very popular biker cafe; shoveling one of the most mundane and underwhelming breakfasts of my life into my ever munching mouth, I am filled with the happiest memories of my days at University.
As I take a piece of the back bacon and top it with a slightly sweaty, almost boiled-like, unseasoned mushroom and some totally unseasoned tinned tomatoes, it's first the smell and then the flavour that takes me right back to my house at University. A smile inducing combination. Not from enjoyment but from a reminder of an easier time, relentless good times with a complete absence of seasoning in any of my cooking.
Bacon, tomato and mushroom was a core combination in my University kitchen and as a result now a core memory that I didn’t even know I had.
Often a shared meal in our house, this was a crowd and wallet pleasing meal usually in the form of a sauce stirred through pasta. Its full formation would be a great indication of how far through the term we were and most importantly how badly we had budgeted our student loan. Week 1-3 would generally be the full and very generous shebang. Plenty of bacon, lots of mushrooms and premium chopped tomatoes - stirred through a mountain of pasta from the then full catering sized bag of pasta our families had sent us back with. Of course it was also absolutely drowned in grated cheddar cheese. Big bowls of comfort food for our completely unrefined palates. The perfect stomach lining we needed to help protect our poor stomach from the 6 litres of cheap cider we would send its way a little too often. As the term went on the mushrooms would soon disappear from the menu, then the bacon portions would slowly dwindle, before completely disappearing. Next we would run out of cheese leaving an underwhelming plain chopped tomato and pasta effort. By this time, the seasoning would be as vacant as the ingredients. Without a full appreciation of the role of salt in cooking, it was considered as much of a rare luxury as cleaning the oven. No longer having the salty input of the bacon was not as obvious then as it would be for me now. There was some sort of contentment with the lack of flavour. By week 10 of the term and bank balances running on fumes, the meal would have sunk to an all time tasteless low of just a small bowl of plain, boiled pasta.
So with one mouthful of this breakfast, that has much like my University approach to seasoning, left all responsibilities with the bacon, suddenly I’m back in my University living room, proudly presenting underseasoned bowls of pasta to my housemates watching Alan Partridge, The Office or Phoenix Nights with anticipation in the air as to exactly how much of our student loan we were going to put behind the bar that night.
From a flavour point of view, this is far from a good meal. One egg is slightly over cooked, both are completely unseasoned. The beans, like the ketchup are confusingly well balanced in their lack of flavour - neither sweet, tangy nor salty and definitely not tomato-ey. A sort of nothingness like the contents of a ‘food is just fuel’ person's head when they eat a meal. It says a lot when the highlight is the addition of BOTH fried bread AND toast on the plate.
But flavour is far from the only indicator of good food or a good meal. Surely good food has to be thought provoking. It should be emotive and it should make you at least want to smile. This fry up ticked all those boxes.
It's a great reminder that flavour does not define good food alone. It's the situation where you eat it, it's the company you eat it with, it can even in some instances be the result of what seem like inconsequential moments in your life. It’s the secret ingredient of nostalgia. Something so personal to each and every one of us, the thing that makes each of our emotive experiences and responses unique when we eat the same meal. A situation where no one is wrong! (unless they don’t have any response, right?!)
Which begs another question. Has a ‘food is just fuel’ person ever eaten a good meal? Ironic in the sense that that is exactly what I think they all need!
I don’t know?! I’m not sure I’ll ever know! Which I must remind myself is absolutely fine. I can sit here over the moon that nurturing a precious connection with food means that I can enjoy even the most mundane, underwhelming and unseasoned meals with a smile on my face.
