THE TYRANNY OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19529, 11 July 1925, Page 9

THE TYRANNY OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE.

(By a Rebel, in the Daily Chronicle.) For years past I surveyed the world from outside of a substantial morning meal and found it a melancholy place. I settled down to the daily round, the common task, conscious that the porridge, the egg and rasher, the marmar lade and the toast weighed heavily upon me. Only with the middle day could 1 reflect back any of the sunshine that there might be in the sky. In different countries I varied the menu. In America and Canada it started with grape fruit or a pleasant preparation of bananas; in Italy and Spain I left out the rashers; in Scotland added ;a cutlet or two, in Ftrance the coffee and rolls had no more than an omelette to bear them company; in Germany a plate of sausage and other meat laid solid foundations.

In the Isles of Greece, “ where burning Sappho loved and sung,” I took quaint disnes served in vine leaves to aid the morning repast—rice played no small part in them; in Constantinople conserves made of peaches, apricots, nectarines, and chopped almonds, or rolls of sun-dried fruit that looked, and tasted, rather like leather.

There was one response to all these efforts —an unwillingness to face either the after-breakfast hour or the tasks that lay beyond. At last I found myself staying in a country house with a specialist from the environs of Cavendish square. The morning meal at our host’s is a movable feast; the various dishes stand on a patent heater and the guests help themselves. He and I entered the breakfast room together, and he took a cup of hot water. Yet he is healthy and hearty and a great worker. So I asked him why be turned away from half a dozen tempting plates. “ Oh, that’s quite simple.” he said. “ As a rule I have a very heavy morning, and if I ate I couldn’t work. I had an excellent dinner at 8 o’clock last night, and that is enough to keep any sound body in trim till lunch'time.” “ What do you do if you feel faint about 11 o’clock? ” I asked. ‘‘ Another oup of hot water cures that.” he explained. “ Try my way—slowly, of course.” *•* * * • I did, feeling I had received three guineas’ worth of wisdom, for nothing, and must not waste it. Gradually the process of elimination removed the meat or the fish, the rasher or the egg, the porridge, and then the marmalade. The toast lingered with the coffee, then both went together, and a glass of hot water sipped on rising was followed in the breakfast room by a plate of fruit. Oddly enough my cure cured the world. It became gradually a very decent place to live in, to work in, to lunch in, and to dine in, merely remaining a sphere unlit to breakfast in. It goes without saying that young people, bricklayers, miners, coal heavers, and other very strenuous folk will derive no benefit from my treatment, but they axe the people who don’t know anything about dyspepsia or middle age.