breakfast from america 10/8/06

Suggested cocktail to enjoy with this weeks musing.

CROSS HEAD SCREWDRIVER

Whilst enjoying fine weather in the garden try something a little bright and interesting to make yourself as vivid as the jolly sunshine.

1oz gin
1oz tequila
Ruby grapefruit juice
Fresh orange juice

Pour the gin and tequila into a tall glass full of ice and top with half and half of the orange and grapefruit juices. Pause for a moment to enjoy the pretty color you have created and down with gay abandon.

Hello chums,

Gideon is here once again with more breakfast frivolity.

Whilst indulging in my culinary adventures here in the US of A, I have come to notice subtle differences to be enjoyed in the wide variety of comestibles one finds oneself exposed to.

Since the earliest tender probing into the new world, a certain item has thrust itself into European culture with a great, starchy, "huzzah!"

Legend has it that Sir Walter Raleigh introduced it to our fair isle, although Sir Frances Drake may have something to say about that, and although popular in Britain as a breakfast treat, here it is positively a necessity.

I speak of the potato.

I could not possible nay say the full English with chips, cultural icon that it is, but I often found them the only form of potato on offer, apart from a mysterious orange triangle of deep fried potato like by product, onion style flavoring and economy grease known as the hash brown.

Every cooked breakfast since my arrival has been offered with some form of potato, often utilizing the name of hash brown. Yet every one has been different as if the chef were an artist, signing each meal in his own, unique, potato fashion.

Recently, I dined upon some sublime pancakes (more of which in a later episode) at the Original Pancake House, (7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland 20814: Tel 301 986 0285,) which were offered with the alternative of hash browns or home fries. With trepidation I plumped for the hash brown but was delighted to receive crisp, golden cakes of potato and onion, more resembling a European rosti than what I had become used to.

I would bump into home fries again at the delightfully quaint and traditional Tastee Diner (7731 Woodmont Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland 20814: Tel 301 652 3970) It proved to be a mountainous mish mash of hotplate fried chopped potato, onion and indeterminate spices. I asked the bojangles-esqe character behind the counter if he would impart his recipe to me. He replied with nothing more than a toothless grin and a tap on the nose. The secret would remain with him to his grave.

Likewise at Clyde’s, (5541 Wisconsin Avenue, Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815: Tel 301 951 9600,) a happy go lucky art deco establishment, I was presented with an amalgam of small, wizened yet tender, red potatoes with my eggs benedict. The hollandaise was watery for my tastes but the potatoes yet another scrumptious and this time surprisingly rich, variation on a theme.

I am beginning to realize just how important the breakfast potato is to our American cousins. And not an orange triangle in sight!

Until next week,

I have the distinct honor to remain your host humble servant and breakfast correspondent,

Gideon F Farquharson, Esq.