The Hotel Continental Breakfast! How Circumstance Beats Flavour!
It might not surprise you (or it might for those that know me well) to hear that I am pretty much constantly thinking about something, especially food thoughts. Not always just about recipes and actual cooking but sometimes about culture, philosophy, things like why we eat. Deep, invasive, interruptive and hardcore food thoughts! I can be having a serious conversation about real life problems when suddenly I become vacant from the conversation, nodding politely but really wondering if you could make a pork rillette out of pork mince as a way to use it up?…………..
Someone mentioned my blogs to me the other day and it sparked a food thought………they noticed that my blogs were very detailed (***cough*** too long ***cough***) whilst hardly focussed on the food (***cough*** boring and irrelevant ***cough***)….apprently these statements were intended as compliments!….Or was that just the stern look I was giving?
Well this got me thinking…..A. my blogs are probably too long…..B. I should probably focus on the food more……C. who cares what anyone else thinks, keep writing for yourself……D. I wonder if I can make a chocolate brownie using cooked, leftover sprouts in the mix……and E. why do I write like this?…….
If we skip straight to E, I realised that when I am forging an opinion on food, my focus is always firstly on the circumstance of the meal, rather than the food itself. Its about the mood I’m in, the people I’m with, the conversations I’ve had or am having, the smiles on the faces, the toddler meltdowns, the setting of the restaurant, the music that’s playing, what I have to look forward to after the meal…….it’s all these things and for me, the food merely has to be decent value for money and I’m in for a good meal!
This for me is the main differential when it comes to restaurants. By definition all one Michelin starred restaurants should be banging out the same quality of food, yet I have had different levels of enjoyment of meals in just about all of the ones I’ve been to.
There is an almost inexplicable feeling when a meal is brilliant. You can’t really isolate why it was so good or why you preferred it so much more to a different place you tried. There was something there that wasn’t in the forefront of your thinking but you’d have noticed if it wasn’t there.………..it’s the circumstance of the meal.
The food should be the carrier for everything else. It is such an important thing to remember. The emotion, the culture, the satisfaction, the feeling of being fulfilled, it’s all about the circumstance. After a deep dive, I’ve realised what I tend to do (unintentionally until now) with my writing is set the scene. I want you to be there with me, understanding the factors that are making something delicious because the bottom line is that the food is actually the last piece and arguably the least important piece of that puzzle……..sounds a bit bonkers, I know……….but this is all the kind of what Heston focusses on at The Fat Duck, all the sensory stuff that made his food so renowned.
It’s about food memories and it’s the circumstance you are in that forges that memory, whatever the positive or negative emotion attached to it.………….happy memories create happy food which creates happy experiences and that formula works in just about every possible combination/order!
One of my favourite examples of this is the great Hotel Continental Breakfast on holiday……..it’s one of the most delicious meals out there, while technically one of the most bizarre concoctions of average food that you will ever put together…………..everything has a unique, delicious flavour to it, yet on paper, everything is pretty awful! It’s actually up there as shortlisted for my death row meal!
(Now before you all start screaming ‘WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, HOLD YOUR CONTINENTAL HORSES - THAT’S NOT A CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST?! THATS GOT EGGS AND SAUSAGE ON IT???!!!!’ I class this as a continental breakfast…anything on offer that isnt kept in the separate hot counter secction of a breakfast buffet is continental……so shove that on your over sized plate and eat it!)
The sliced ham isn’t like your idea of ‘normal’ ham, there is always a slight smokiness and pastiness to it and the breakfast is always lacking the comfort blanket a good old English banger. A big comforting hug to help nurse your Pina Colada hangover and to get rid of the last few painfully anxious memories you have from the night before. Instead you get something that would almost put you 6 feet under back home but the smokey, bouncy, strange flavoured sausage, cut into little roundels is everything you need. Is it pork? Best just to assume so…….
The sliced cheese at these buffets hovers across a no man’s land between the real and fake cheeses that we are used to and successfully walks an impossible tight rope of being the perfect level of plastic. The supermarket brie laid out in little squares tastes endlessly better than the equivalent we get ‘back home’. Even the rigmarole of operating the little cheese cloche/compartment thing with the worlds most frustrating tongs seems worth it!
The eggs! They have to be overcooked, underseasoned, bouncy and dry and they must be an unnaturally bright yellow! Kept warm in a little warming unit/cloche with spring loaded door to ensure they maintain maximum dryness. You can’t be sure how long they’ve sat there for and the spoon is contaminated from a different buffet section, you can’t work out which section it’s previously been used in and quite frankly, you don’t care! You lift the little compartment door, whose spring loaded mechanism offers just the right amount of resistance before snatching itself out of your grip. Revealing the Mysterious Cities of Gold within and adding both unnecessary trepidation and excitement to your morning!
There is no better moisture to balance out the dryness of the eggs than a glass (or for a better term, promise) of ‘wellness’ in the form of a ‘general’ fruit and vegetable flavoured ‘multi-vitamin’ juice drink in a tumbler far too small for how much you are going to need to drink. Who knows how far down the chain that is from when it was actually a fruit and/or vegetable? Or even what fruit or vegetable it ever was? Again, who cares……...it’s sweet and comes with a whole list of great, positive promises! It’s just pure holiday positivity!
It’s a fair assumption that the average person would describe their ideal toast as toasted, warm and buttered fairly evenly? (Or at least warm up until the butter has been spread and at the very least, softened)…..well not during a continental breakfast. The only way to ensure ‘toastual’ pleasure is through the excitement of a conveyor belt machine. A machine that is fundamentally designed to ‘toast’ bread but acts more like a dehumidifier, simply removing any moisture, a bread staler rather than a bread toaster. This machine’s aim is to guarantee that your toast will not be warm enough to survive the walk across a dining room on a cold side plate. Leading to a battle of wits when you have to cross this bread formally known as toast, with fridge cold butter……a rage inducing situation at home.….but not here, not during your continental breakfast. You shrug it off without a care in the world and accept that you will eat 9/10ths of your toast dry as a bone, likely topped with some dry eggs and 1/10th will be pure, heartburn inducing butter.
You even shy away from the perfect croissant or pastry on a continental breakfast. Why would you choose a beautiful, freshly baked, flaky, almost crumbly pastry held together with a truck load of butter? Buttery, rich and smothered with delicious jam and even more butter. Why choose that? When you could have something soft, malleable, ideally smelling of the little plastic wrapper its been living in for an indeterminant length of time and with a Best Before Date somewhere in the next decade. A synonymous lack of flavour that makes it the most tasty pastry you’ve ever tried. Smothered with jam that is clinging on to it’s fruity condiment classification by the skin of it’s plums. It’s really just purple sugar and of course, round 2 of the battle with the fridge cold butter is imminent……..
It’s on the way to your table that you cross the random section. The ‘also ran’ part of the buffet. The cherry tomato, cucumber, condiment, bread and whole fruit basket displays……you’ve already assembled a pretty mental plate of food, but what’s missing?….a mini par cooked baguette/roll (now just cooked and cold), a couple of unnecessary sachets of ‘El Ketchup’, a whole banana and large orange to stick in your bag for later and an arrangement of berries and yoghurt that you’ll eventually decide need to go in a separate bowl….you now have 2 trays and you’re on your 4th trip around the buffet……at home, this would present a level of stress…….
Coffee is always something that has high expectations on holiday. But nothing will beat the underwhelming satisfaction of an over roasted, glorified instant coffee pumped directly from the Wetherspoon’s refill machine main frame that must run under the entirety of Europe into every single coffee machine across this great continent….I imagine the real reason for the Channel Tunnel…..The thick, black, horrendously bitter good stuff to perfectly compliment the already wild and outrageous food combinations you’ve put on your plate. And of course, the mugs are never the right size for the coffee that’s dispensed or on the other hand, the machine never dishes out a sufficient dose. You’ll just have to do 2 trips to the coffee machine!
I don’t know about you guys, but for me breakfast on holiday and in particular a continental breakfast is the absolute highlight. A highlight that, for all the reasons above makes absolutely no sense. It’s a simple mish-mash of whatever average food is available, put together with very little thought and hardly any skill. But it is something to look forward to, something to discuss on holiday, something to update family and friends about during the holiday. It’s even something to base a hotel recommendation on…..there was a strange smell in our rooms, the toilet didn’t work, the doors didn’t lock and the wardrobe fell apart, but the breakfast was sensational! You should book, we’re going back next year……
But why is this meal so special? It is without question, not the food! It’s a world away from a meticulously crafted meal but why is this such a firm favourite? Why is it as delicious as a meticulously crafted meal?and why do we enjoy it so much? Why is this the only time and place that almost all of this style of eating is acceptable? It’s because the entire meal is seasoned with hope. It’s peppered with a stress free outlook. A day of positivity. You’re hungover but it doesn’t matter. You have minimal responsibilities, so for a change, absolutely nothing matters!
On holiday you’re living in a state where you aren’t dragging yourself through til bed time, each day is about a different, more fun style of survival, no longer about counting down to the weekend. It’s the opposite, every day is hopeful. You want everyday to go on as long as possible, packed with as many positive experiences as possible. You don’t want it to end. It’s exciting!
You might have already had days of this joyous mood, a true happy state and you’re riding the wave. All you’re talking about is everything positive that’s happened so far. Laughing at just about everything and anything and in particular laughing at anything that’s negative! You’re untouchable!
…………this has genuinely made me think that I need to be holiday Steve more often when I am not on holiday somewhere………
Alternatively, it’s your first day on your jollies and you can hardly contain your excitement. Conversations are flowing about what you are going to do or maybe even more importantly, what you’re not going to do.
Multiply this by an entire dining room of people in the same state and it’s a seriously positive place to be!
It’s the smell of sun cream that triggers your happy holiday memories of past, it’s the painful and awkward sitting position you have to find to offer some sort of light relief from your t-shirt rubbing against the sun burn, praying for a chance to slather yourself in another coat of gloriously cold after sun and making promises that you’re falling asleep on your back today!
For however long you are on holiday, you’re largely living your very best life, in your dream way. You’re forging memories and the happiest ones. Whatever you eat will become part of those happy memories and will soon become the most delicious meal you eat. This is entirely because all the enjoyment is really coming from the circumstance you’re in, not the food itself.
I wanted to suggest that you see for yourself, head to Aldi/Lidl/Netto and buy everything you need to recreate the ultimate and authentic continental breakfast but I feel like that is dancing with the devil a little and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone to kill this dream meal!
Instead, next time you are going out to eat, try to take in your surroundings, your outlook, your mood and where you’re at in that particular moment and see how it correlates to your interpretation of the meal. Look backwards at other meals you’ve enjoyed or not enjoyed - how did it all correlate there. This is what creating a connection with food is. This is what will start a whole new part of your food journey and you can start ignoring your friends mid conversation while you wonder about how you’re going to use create the perfect eating environment for your next dinner party…….
I’m off to book some flights…………..
