Putting the conserve into conservative and other breakfast conundrums

IWENT to bed not knowing quite what to expect in the morning. Waiting for sleep to come, the boy in me hankered after tradition. Boys have body building appetites and no fear of the fat on their rashers. Then a more mature inner voice counselled moderation and natural yoghurt...

A recent stay in a B&B north of the border proved to be a joy as the proprietors provided relaxed hospitality of the highest class. The unspoken question on the first night was whether or not they would be serving their guests that most lethal of culinary treats, an Ulster fry.

All other breakfast fries are as cold collations compared to roast ox when set beside the gastronomic commando course which is the Ulster fry. We who overnighted at Ballydrumkillane may have been expecting the old school, cholesterol laden, out-size ration of pudding, bacon and sausages with added potato cake and token grilled tomato. Instead we were greeted with bran flakes, toast, a choice of fruit and as much orange juice as we could drink – along with the yoghurt, natural and unsweetened.

This coolly cosmopolitan fare provided a perfect launch pad for the day ahead and I was grateful for it. My stomach and my heart were well served by a breakfast which primed me for activity rather than weighing me down with a consignment of lard. Nevertheless the boy in my head continued to whisper longingly in the background about the plate-load of processed pigmeat with all the high fat, high salt, highly refined trimmings we never saw.

The other thing we never saw was marmalade, the conserve which is an automatic feature of the morning menu at home in Medders Manor. Instead of a jar of Seville orange thick cut, the folk at Ballydrumkillane offered a squeezy plastic dispenser containing strawberry jam. Not the same thing. Coincidentally, all this occurred around the same time that a headline appeared along these worrying lines: ‘Marmalade is a preserve of old people’ over details of a survey of retail trends suggesting that no one under the age of 40 buys marmalade. And no one under the age of 20 eats the stuff. This cannot be true, I harrumphed.

Without marmalade how could there be toast? Without toast how could there be breakfast? Without breakfast, how could there be civilisation? Our household of four at Mededers Manor consumes any amount of marmalade. Over the cornflakes, I read sections of the offending article out loud to wife and children.

‘Rejected by young shoppers’, ‘increasingly unfashionable’, ‘shift to chocolate spread’, and so depressingly on. And it grieves me to record that nobody shared my concern.

‘I don’t usually have time for toast in the mornings,’ commented my darling, sweet peel Hermione, ‘so I miss out on the marmalade.’

‘I haven’t eaten marmalade in years, Da,’ declared Eldrick as though this were a matter of pride.

‘Could someone pass the peanut butter?’ This was young Persephone. She didn’t even say please.

In short, marmalade may be on the Manor menu but I am the only one selecting it from the a la carte. The household may be consuming any amount of marmalade but I am the one doing the consuming, all on my lonesome.

What I don’t eat, Hermione gives away. She has created a special own brand Medders Manor label for the jars of our home-made. No doubt the old age pensioners who receive such gifts gratefully scoff the contents while the younger couples still have dusty examples of the 2010 vintage maturing unopened at the back of store cupboards.

The only possible explanation offered by the researchers for the trend has nothing to do with taste. The suggestion is that modern youth distrust ‘ bits’ and marmalade is full of bits. This bleak hypothesis all too plausible. When Hermione makes soup, she puts it through the blender to give it bit-free child appeal.

There’s no way that she will put marmalade through the blender. Marmalade is supposed to be lumpy.