CHANGES NOTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27276, 30 December 1949, Page 2

CHANGES NOTED

The British Breakfast

For years, the British breakfast was famous as a large and satisfying meal, peculiar to British people. But chiefly because of the war and consequent shortages, and partly perhaps because of changing tastes, many British people now begin the day with only a light meal. Philip Harben, the BBC’s television cook, has launched a broadside against the sparrow-sized breakfast, and said that the urge for eggs and bacon or some equally satisfying dish to start the day was a right and proper one, for how could a man or woman do a full day’s wbrk on a scrappy breakfast? Good food must be eaten to provide energy. Besides asserting that a good breakfast was a necessary preliminary to the day, Harben made a more revolutionary statement, that fathers should cook it. Harassed housewives, he said, were too busy with odd jobs and getting children ready for school to give the requisite care to cooking a good and appetising breakfast Harben practises what he preaches, and has cooked the breakfast himself for many years, finding the necessary extra minutes by growing a beard and so saving the time formerly spent on shaving Six persons, asked for their views on large or small breakfasts, had divided opinions. The head of BBC television, Norman Collins, does his arduous job and also writes best-selling novels on the same breakfast every day—a light one of toast, marmalade and hot coffee. But Mr Churchill will have, none of this, and likes a large and late breakfast, preferably containing underdone meat.