DON’T BAG BRUNCH
Critics have taken a crack at the smashed avo phenomenon — but they’re all missing the point
Have you heard of shakshuka? I’m eating it as a I write and feel compelled to share it with you because (so far) it’s my discovery of the year. Hipsters, I can hear your superior groans but go back to picking buckwheat out of your beards because, yes, I too have been eating this Middle Eastern deliciousness for a couple of years.
It’s only recently, however, I decided to make it after being served a particularly good version in a cafe and prising the recipe from the chef on the promise I wouldn’t share it.
Every few weeks I make a batch of the tomatoey, capsicumy sauce and come the weekend I spoon some into a small terracotta dish, crack two eggs on top, pop it in the oven for the eggs to cook and sprinkle the finished dish with parsley, rocket or sliced avocado.
My late morning feast delivers two protein and four to five vegetable serves before midday, keeps me going until dinner and, should it matter to you, meets Instagrammable standards. Yet my shakshuka and its mates Eggs Benny, Smashed Avo and Bacon Roll are being hammered by brunch bashers who claim this most joyous of meals is boring, bank account draining and lacks booze.
“Brunch is the world’s most platitudinous non-meal, a ghastly portmanteau fused out of the two other tedious non-events of the eating day,” moans Hannah Betts in The Times. She whinges on about how it “symbolises the worst elements of American ‘cuisine’: lazy, infantilising, ultra-calorific crap yet with overriding Puritan leanings.” Then she rails against those of us who enjoy brunch, claiming it’s a meal for people who “get up and do things” like going to the gym or driving children.
Oh that Betts - who likely considers a Bloody Mary a serving of vegetables - was not the only one. Our own Bernard Salt has had a crack at brunch, provoking Millennials by saying they’d have the deposit for a house if they gave up eating cafe brunches of smashed avocado and crumbled feta on toast.
Likewise the New York Times has described brunch as “conspicuous consumption disguised as urbanity” and “a virus” that has “spread from Sunday to Saturday”.
Well, they’re wrong: brunch is the best meal of the day; a fusion superior to all those hideous cross-cultural permutations like cronuts and tandoori pizzas; and the greatest cost-cutting addition to dining since Dominos offered six large cheese-injected supremes and 10 litres of Sprite for 20 bucks or thereabouts.
Critically, brunch assembles all the most agreeable ingredients and presents them in every-varying mutations right at that moment of the day when you are most hungry. Unlike dinner, which requires excessive effort and results in overeating at the wrong end of the day, and lunch, which veers between bready and uninspiring or salady and unsatisfying, brunch sits at the happy axis of need and want. Exercise first and it offers replenishment; indulge on a third coffee or extra sourdough and there’s still time to mitigate your excesses.
Betts paints brunch eaters as virtuous bores bereft of intrigue and the necessary tipple that lubricates a meal and leads to good sex. How predictably British. Since Henry VIII they’ve spent afternoons and evenings shoving down gravy and custard-laden nursery food and soaking it up with ale and cheap Rioja. Sated, and emboldened by inhibition and delusion, they’ve then attempted to get their rocks off resulting in an unsatisfactory experience for both parties and an international reputation as poor lovers but excellent pudding makers, notably spotted dick.
Imagine if they’d embraced brunch. All those cheery eggs, compote-layered mueslis and balsamic-drizzled mushrooms offer nourishment and just the right amount of energy to power you through an afternoon bonk which everyone knows is the best time of day.
Equally, brunch, contrary to Salt’s theory, will actually save you money. By eating substantially around 11am you’ll only need two meals a day.
If you’re eating at home you’ll save both time and money on having to make and consume both breakfast and lunch. If you’re eating out - as Millennials now do since they don’t have to mow lawns - you’re saving on eating dinner in a restaurant which with alcohol, several courses and the current obsession with shared plates will cost significantly more than a $20 brunch.
I’ve only once had a bad brunch - a miserable serve of avocado toast in Caloundra. It’s hard to bugger up smoked salmon omelettes or waffles or those delicious breakfast bowls which come with sauerkraut, halloumi, zucchini spirals and a poached egg. Last weekend I had chia pudding layered with poached rhubarb and had to be stopped from licking out the jar. Again, I’ll be making it at home. Brunch is for all seasons and all moods. It’s a hangover cure and a post-yoga refuel. It can be eaten alone or with others. It’s as pretty and optimistic as an acai bowl or as timeless and reliable as a bacon and egg roll. As for shakshuka, I may or may not add celery, chilli, cumin seeds and sweet - not smoky - paprika.