Symbolic Forest

Ever since I moved back in with The Parents, The Mother has been insistant that I have a Proper Breakfast. Unfortunately for me, her idea of a Proper Breakfast was always a bowl of corn flakes. I’ve never been a fan of breakfast cereal,^* and tried to explain to her that there’s not that much justification for eating it. It was originally invented by an enema-obsessed nutritionist who was very concerned about bowel movements, and believed that masturbation was evil. His brother added salt and sugar to make it more palatable. If you think it doesn’t taste very good now, bear in mind that the current Managing Director of Kelloggs Europe has admitted that “if you take the salt out you might be better off eating the cardboard carton for taste”.

The stick approach doesn’t work with The Mother very easily, though. You can point out how unhealthy something is until you’re blue in the face – and I did, pointing her to articles such as the one that quote is taken from. It wasn’t until my dad told her that the Sunday Times was claiming that new research had worked out the healthiest breakfast of all. A “traditional German breakfast”, apparently, consisting of “cheese, ham, and rye bread”. So, the next day there was two slices of toast, a plate of sliced ham^** and a selection of cheeses on the breakfast table at 6.30.

It was … well, different, at any rate. Better than cornflakes, certainly, and I told her so. The next day it was back onto the corn flakes; but today, a bacon baguette was waiting. Excellent!

I know how my mother’s mind works. She heard that German breakfasts are healthy. She prepared the nearest thing, in her mind, to “ham and rye bread” – a bacon roll. So now, she thinks not only that a bacon roll is a traditional German breakfast, but that they are intrinsically Good For You. This is definitely a good-looking development if you ask me.

* “Pencil shavings,” as at least one Roald Dahl character called it.

** pre-sliced supermarket sandwich ham, I think. Probably far higher in salt than corn flakes, but don’t tell The Mother that.

Keyword noise: bacon, bacon rolls, breakfast, cereal, cheese, Corn Flakes, ham, John Harvey Kellogg, The Mother, toast.