The Festival of MrB

Every year at about this time, just as we've polished off the last of the Christmas cake and got smallest breakfastboy's birthday capers out of the way, there dawns what has become known as 'The Festival of MrB'. Not just a one-day festival this. It lasts at least a week and basically involves everyone being extremely nice to MrB, food and presents.

Now this year's Festival is a bit special. It has a zero on the end. And, falling midweek as it does this year, it allows him to have not one but two whole weekends of fun-filled MrB-centred action. This weekend is half term here, so we're off for a long weekend of fun with some dear friends and a grown-up stay in a swanky hotel. I will obviously be paying very close attention to the breakfast dept and reporting back to you on my findings. Assuming that I actually make it as far as the dining room after a night of karaoke (not my idea dear reader, or indeed MrB's), and the cocktails that will obviously be required to get through that. And me virtually a teetotaller. Should it get messy, expect a very thorough analysis of the room service options. Or a very nice photo of a glass of Berocca. I'm not too optimistic, given that one of the people who will be there once presented me with a carrier bag of chocolate bars and a tub of multivitamins with the words 'there's dinner'.

But the festival is already in full swing and so we had friends up last weekend too. A full English breakfast was commissioned for the morning after. I was interested to see how bacon, sausages, tatty scones and baked beans fitted in with the 'training schedule', but this information was not forthcoming.

But it got me to wondering what exactly constitutes a full English. Not tatty scones, for example, which are a decidedly Celtic thing I think, and I think that many people would be affronted by the baked beans. MrB, meanwhile, objects forcefully to the very notion of black pudding, despite being a committed carnivore. And here in Scotland, there is a thing called a 'full Scottish', which as far as I can gather is exactly the same as a full English, only the sausage is square and the black pudding may be white. To me, the word 'full' suggests that you really ought to include all of the possible options, but I guess the joy of it is that the list is fairly extensive and so it's possible to pick and choose and still have a plate heaving with food. Anyway, here's my list:

sausages
bacon
black pudding
eggs (fried or scrambled)
grilled tomatoes
grilled or fried mushrooms
baked beans
tatty scones or hash browns or saute potatoes or fried bread. Or toast I guess?

Any advances on that list? To be perfectly honest, the very thought of it makes me want to heave. But each to his own. Especially with a birthday in the mix. I nibbled my toast and gazed upon the ravening menfolk as they devoured their meaty breakfasts. He'll need to do a whole heap of turbo training to work that amount of cholesterol off.

And Tea. It has to be tea, doesn't it? MrB would sooner drink dishwater than tea at breakfast. He can't start the day without his cup of full-strength freshly-ground Joe. But it's all wrong. <shakes head>. Even I know that.

Bon weekend tous!

A bowlful of words

You can see from the photo above what I do for my day job. I get paid for being a language nerd. No no, I see your eyes glazing over, but bear with me. In an idle moment yesterday, I started flicking through one of my dictionaries in search of some little breakfasty linguistic nuggets to share with you.Yes, I am that sad. I read dictionaries for fun.

1. Muesli: comes from the German word mus, meaning mush or puree, and the diminutive li. So, in other words it means 'little mush'. I can see why they stuck with the German. I'm not sure that 'Little Mush' would have taken off here in quite the same way. 5 points to the Alpen marketing department.

2. Treacle. In Britain, we now think of treacle as something similar to molasses, a black by-product of the sugar-making process, or as something similar to golden syrup (as in a 'treacle tart'), but there is a much older meaning of this word, which comes from the Greek word therion meaning 'wild beast'. It was once used to describe any liquid that was used by a herbalist or apothecary as an antidote to poisoning, especially venomous bites. Originally, these potions used honey as their base. And in that wonderfully convoluted way that English has, the origins of the word molasses, treacle's first cousin, lie in the Latin word mel, meaning, you guessed it, honey!

Strangely, modern treacle seems to have held on to these medicinal roots - or perhaps it's just me. I seem to remember being encouraged to eat treacle when I was pregnant because it's full of iron. Spike Milligan claimed that his uncle treated himself for some malady (was it baldness? I forget) by 'sitting naked in a darkened room, with a mixture of cow dung, saffron and treacle spread on his head'. I don't remember whether he was cured of whatever it was that ailed him. 

The truly nerdy among you may be interested to note that the 12th century St Margaret's Church at Binsey in Oxfordshire has a 'treacle well' in its grounds, which was believed in the past to have healing powers, and is mentioned in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It is not, I understand, a well full of treacle (sadly), but a well full of healing waters.

'Treacle', as Eastenders fans will remember from the days of Pete Beale and Dirty Den, is also used in Cockney rhyming slang to mean 'sweetheart', ('treacle tart').

3. Did you know that the words toast and thirst are related to each other? The Latin verb torrere, from which both words derive, means 'to dry with heat' so if you're thirsty, you've been dried with heat, like a piece of toast. And incidentally, the word torrid, which you might perhaps use as you choke on 50 Shades of Grey over your cornflakes, has the same root. Scorching!

4. In France, you can cast spells, play the drums, and eat Chinese food with baguettes, as well as eating one for breakfast. A baguette is familiar to us Brits as a long French loaf, but the word in French simply means 'stick', and pops up in all sorts of non-bready places.

5. Finally, let's hop back to Germany, to a word whose origins are a little more dubious, the word pumpernickel, that dark, dense rye bread that is so good with cheese and gherkin pickles. My large Collins dictionary glosses over this one with a swift 'of uncertain origin'. My Oxford Dictionary offers 'lout, bumpkin, of uncertain origin'. But Merriam-Webster offers us the much finer 'German, from pumpern to break wind + Nickel goblin; from its reputed indigestibility'. In other words, it's so indigestible that it'll make you fart like a devil ('Old Nick').

I'm not sure if it's true, but if it's good enough for Merriam-Webster, it's good enough for me.

Bon weekend!