Welcome back to another blog hop, with #OpenBook. Here’s this week’s prompt.
Don’t forget to click the link to see what everyone else has to say on this week’s subject. It’s at the end of my post.
Are you a breakfast eater? What is your favourite breakfast food?
Being at sea shaped my breakfast habits. When you’ve been up working all night, or for a reasonable period of it, breakfast is more of an event.
It can be the equivalent of dinner, if it comes at the end of the working day, or an alternative lunch, if you’re halfway through a shift.
One of the best things about keeping the 4 am to 8 am navigational watch on a ship at sea was the smell of bacon frying at around seven in the morning.
By this time, you’d been on watch for three hours, the Bosun had been up, and you’d shared a cup of tea and discussed the day’s jobs for the crew. This last hour was when the ship came alive, and thanks to the smell of bacon, you could anticipate a good breakfast to round it all off.
A ship’s breakfast was designed for someone who had been up and about for a while, with an appetite to match.
As well as cereals, fruit juice and/or porridge, there were eggs to order (fried/poached/scrambled), bacon, sausage and any number of other delicacies, all dependent on the whim of the catering department. Things like black pudding, devilled kidneys, fried potatoes, kedgeree, mushrooms or fried tomatoes, the list was endless and varied day to day. With toast and marmalade, and tea or coffee to round it all off.
It either filled you up after a long night or set you up for a morning’s work.
I must admit that I don’t eat like that every day in retirement. Even though I don’t have a navigation or cargo watch to keep, I still get up at five am, only these days I sit at my computer to write.
By seven, I’m ready for something to eat, but I have no catering department to get up and cook it for me, so I have to do it myself.
I do ensure that I’m well fed and ready to face the rest of the day. Some days I’ll cook bacon and eggs, maybe adding whatever else I can find in the dark recesses of the fridge.
On other days, I’ll just have toast or cereal. But there’s always lots of black coffee to wash it down.
It all depends on how enthusiastic I’m feeling.
What do you think about this week’s subject?
Let me know by leaving me a comment.
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I’ll be back with another post on Thursday. See you then. Meanwhile, have a great week.
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P.J. MacLayne
I’ve never had a job that required me to work overnight. Yes, I’ve started early some days, but never had to reason to eat first thing in the morning.
Richard Dee
I always thought that the meal I had at the end of a shift was dinner, no matter what time of day it was.
Kelly Williams
Nice! I’m going to have to look a few of those up. Never heard of them!
Richard Dee
They’re all delicious, even more so at the end of a long night.