Respect Your Breakfast

‘Laugh and be fat, sir!’ Thus spoke Ben Jonson, poet and playwright, Shakespeare’s contemporary, and a lover of good food, wine and laughter.

Merriment usually accompanies food and drink, and laughter is usually enjoyed in the company of friends and people of goodwill. Laugh when you’re alone, and you are likely to end up in a lunatic asylum.

‘Honour your food,’ said Manu, the law-giver, ‘Receive it thankfully. Do not hold it in contempt.’ He did go on to say that we should avoid excess and gluttony, but his message was we should respect what is placed before us.

This was Granny’s message, too. ‘Better a small fish than an empty dish,’ was one of the sayings inscribed on her kitchen accounts notebook. She was apt to quote several of these little proverbs, and one of them was directed at me whenever I took too large a second helping of my favourite kofta curry.

‘Don’t let your tongue cut your throat,’ she would say ominously. ‘You don’t want to grow up to be like Billy Bunter.’ She referred to the Fat Boy of Greyfriars School, a popular fictional character in the late 1930s.

‘Just one more kofta, Granny,’ I’d beg, ‘I promise, I won’t take a third helping.’

Sixty-five years later, I’m still trying to keep that promise. I keep those second helpings small, just in case I’m tempted into a third one. I’m not quite a Bunter yet, possibly because I still walk quite a bit. But the trouble with walking is it gives you an appetite, and that means you are inclined to tuck in when you get to the dining table.

Last winter, when I was staying at the India International Centre (IIC), I would go for an early morning walk in the Lodi Gardens, followed by breakfast at the Centre. They give you a good breakfast at IIC, and I did full justice to the scrambled eggs, buttered toasts, marmalade and coffee. I could have done with a little bacon, too, but apparently it wasn’t the season for it. Well, when I looked across at the next table I saw solitary figure breakfasting on water-melon—and nothing else! This made me feel terribly guilty, and I refrained from finishing off the marmalade.

‘Aren’t you Bond?’ asked the man at the next table.

I confessed I was—not the other Bond, but the real one—and it turned out that we’d been at school together, in the dim distant past.

‘You were always a good eater,’ he said reflectively. ‘In fact, you used to help yourself to my jam tarts when I wasn’t looking.’

We chatted about our school days and companions of that era, and then he went on to tell me that he was suffering from various ailments—hence the frugal water-melon breakfast. As I wasn’t suffering from anything worse than a bruised shin (due to falling over a courting couple in the Gardens) I felt better about my breakfast, and immediately ordered more marmalade and a third toast. When we parted, he urged me to switch to water-melons for breakfast, though I couldn’t help noticing that he eyed my scrambled egg with a look that was full of longing. I guess healthy eating and happy eating are two different things.

Diwali, Christmas and the New Year are appropriate times for a little indulgence, and if someone were to send me a Christmas pudding I would respect the giver and the pudding by at least enjoying a slice or two—and sharing the rest!

But strictly speaking I’m a breakfast person, and I stand by another of Granny’s proverbs: ‘If the breakfast is bad, the rest of the day will go wrong.’ So make it a good breakfast; linger over it, enjoy the flavours. And if you happen to be someone who must prepare their own breakfast, do so with loving care and precision. As Granny said, ‘There is skill in all things, even in scrambling eggs.’