The Breaking of the Fast

To be a successful breakfast chef, you need three starting ingredients. First of all, you need a lazy Sunday or other holiday. It's never been possible for a man with a briefcase in one hand and a timetable in the other to do justice to grilled buttered salt mackerel or glossy soft scrambled eggs.

(Even on a lazy Sunday, though, we'd like to urge you to come to the breakfast table physically and mentally ready for this most important occasion. Thus, even on a hangover morning, we urge that you shave and shower before sitting down to the table. This will freshen your spirits and stimulate your appetite. If you're one of those slow starters in the morning, or if last night's revelry has left its mark on you, the morale-building shave and shower will help. You may want to precede them, of course, with an ice-cold glass of juice -- if the night before has been a spiritous as well as a spirited one, we recommend tomato juice liberally enlivened with Worcestershire sauce and a dash of Tabasco or that Deep South delight, Louisiana Hot Sauce. In any case, on a fine, bright June day you'll be a better breakfast companion all neatened up and in fresh PJs and crisp robe.)

Then, you need a woman. Not just any woman. She must be that pleasure-loving sort of pagan who wakes up hungry. And she must understand that the one thing you do not do in bed is eat breakfast. It's not only affected -- it's impractical.

Hypercriticism is the third pre-requisite in learning the art of breakfast cookery. You've simply got to be a congenital autocrat, determined that when you sit down at the morning table the cream will be sweeter, the eggs fresher and the coffee coffee-er than they've ever been before.

Take, for instance, the problem of getting a glass of cold, freshly-squeezed orange juice. Too often it's not a glassful, it's a thimbleful. It's not cold, it's as tepid as the glass of beer left on the terrace table from last night's party. It's not fresh, it's canned or frozen. Even if the oranges are fresh, there are things to watch out for: at this time of year, the Florida crop is petering out and the California navels are giving way to the new valencias. If the valencias are still watery and vinegary, by all means avoid them. Later on, in the full bloom of summer, they'll be sweet and rich. A few of the luscious, green-skinned Floridas from late-bearing trees may be around and their flavor is simply wonderful if you can get them. Tell your fruit vendor you'll take the California navels even if they're somewhat arid and expensive.

Assuming you get the right oranges, you must learn the gentle art of squeezing. Cut the oranges in half with a fruit knife made of ceramic, silver or stainless steel (kitchen knives of ordinary steel will react chemically to the acid in the fruit and affect the flavor). Press the halves, don't gouge them. Don't force them against the reamer until the bitter oil of the orange rind seeps into the juice. Don't force the juice through a strainer so fine that the liquid comes out looking like something that belongs in a specimen bottle. Use a wire or metal strainer of medium mesh so that the little golden shreds of goodness remain floating in the nectar. Avoid the older, too-fast electric juicers which aerated the juice and ground the pits, making the result bitter and unpleasantly foamy.

To appreciate the possibilities of a fruit tableau in the morning, a man must go to Jamaica, British West Indies, for his breakfast. The Jamaicans will set up your breakfast table on a veranda overlooking the smoothest and bluest part of the Caribbean. Before you begin to talk about eggs or oatmeal or fish, a waiter will bring you a 10-ounce goblet of orange juice, squeezed from native fruit delivered fresh each morning. And then, as you taste the juice with its faint bouquet, and as your sleep-blurred eyes gradually come into focus, you'll behold a big platter filled with sliced papaya melon and wedges of lime, fleshy ripe mangoes smoother and livelier than any fruit you've ever tasted, slices of pineapple so sweet you'd never dream of offending them with sugar and those green-skinned bananas that are a kind of liqueur in solid form.

The trouble with so many fruit bowls, and platters in this country is that they look like dusty still lifes. You don't want to reach out for an orange because you simply don't want to go through the labor of peeling it. You avoid the grapes because you don't want to destroy the untouched cluster. You shun the big Georgia Belle peach because there's no place to dump the pit.

When you assemble your own fruit platter for breakfast, it should be so set up that you can't resist wading into it. The ripe honeydew melon should be cut into wedges that can be eaten either with fork or fingers. The Thompson seedless grapes should be cut into small clusters that fit easily into the palm of your hand. The pineapple should be like wine in its ripeness, just this side of overripeness, and should be sliced with every trace of skin and eye removed. Or it may be cut into chunks with hors d'oeuvre toothpicks jabbed into each morsel. Mangoes -- if you can get them in your neighborhood -- should be peeled flower fashion, just waiting for the spoon. Fruits like peaches, nectarines or Bartlett pears should be peeled with pits and core removed and cut into large wedges. To keep such fruits from turning brown on the platter, steep them in orange juice or pineapple juice until they are served. Any ripe fruit in season goes. Make the platter really lavish and overflowing. Have a bowl of superfine granulated sugar nearby. Oversize napkins and finger bowls should be provided for cleaning up after the feast.

The best thing about eggs for breakfast is their friendly, come-hither look. You may not be the kind of man who shoots out of bed like a comet. But when you see a plate of superbly fried eggs, what the Germans so aptly call spiegeleier or mirror eggs, you see one of the loveliest visions man's eyes have ever beheld. But the vision doesn't just happen. Again, you must be an unreconstructed culinary crank to do well by this ordinary egg dish.

A serious egg chef will positively refuse to go to work unless he has the right frying pan. If he's old fashioned, he'll use a thin iron frying pan which is reserved exclusively for eggs and never washed but merely wiped dry after each use. To squeamish souls who think the pan may not be sanitary, it must be pointed out that the heat of the fat in the frying pan is way above that of boiling water and will kill any possible bacteria present. Unfortunately, you can't buy these pans in the ordinary household store these days. A restaurant supply house will have them, but you'll have to heat them, half filled with oil and salt, over a very hot flame or in a very hot oven until they're properly "seasoned," that is, until they turn black.

Of other egg pans, the best type is the cast aluminum with a satin finish. If eggs should tend to stick to this pan, put a few tablespoons of vegetable fat into it. Heat the pan until the fat smokes. Throw off the fat. Wipe the pan clean without washing. Then add butter and fry your eggs over a low flame. Remember: long cooking or too high a flame toughens eggs prepared in any form. If you're making fried eggs, and the bottom of the eggs tends to get done before the top is set, you might add a teaspoon or two of water to the pan and then cover it with a lid. The gold of the yolks, however, will tend to become glazed when you do this. If you want the tops of the eggs to cook quickly, you can place the eggs under a broiler flame. But the truly fastidious egg fryer will insist on using the lowest possible flame and wait for the top and bottom to be finished simultaneously, thus avoiding the leathery undercrust.

The great big secret about scrambled eggs is not to use any secret ingredient. Any alleged breakfast gourmet who adds milk or cream or grated cheese to scrambled eggs before they go into the pan should study his elementary cooking over again. Nature never intended that man should add anything but butter, salt and pepper. Add the butter in two stages. One lump before the two beaten eggs go into the pan (a lump means two measuring teaspoons) -- then stir and don't stop stirring until the eggs are done -- and, just as the eggs coagulate, with your free hand add the second lump of butter. This will make the eggs glossy. Take them off the fire while they're still soft but not soupy. On the plate you may place such honorable bystanders as broiled sweet smoky bacon, grilled ham, thinly sliced smoked salmon or Yarmouth bloaters.

If by any chance you're a Scotsman or the son of a Scot, you'll probably be as passionate about your morning bowl of porridge as you were about last night's (continued on page 72)Breaking of the Fast(continued from page 30) Haig & Haig. You may still want the kind of old-fashioned oatmeal that was started cooking the evening before and was then left to stand in the pot all night long to be reheated in the morning. If you live in a castle, you may want your oatmeal this way. Some people, as the rhyme tells us, like it nine days old. But do remember that we live in the age of one-minute oatmeal. You might try, however, the Scot's method of eating it, dipping his spoon first into the porridge bowl and then lowering it into another bowl of sweet cream before raising it to the mouth. The sensation of cold sweet cream and hot porridge is a classic among pleasures.

Thanks to the electric thermostat, a man can now become a griddle cake graduate in no time at all. The problem with griddle cakes since the time of King Alfred has been the temperature of the griddle. It's either too hot or too cold. One section may reach a temperature of 500° while another is 200°. If the griddle cakes are on the fire too long, they will become tough. If they are baked too little, they will be raw inside. If they are cooked too fast, the outsides will burn while the insides are still fluid. The old fashioned griddle iron with all of its eccentricities is now superseded by the new, thermostatically controlled, even-heating electric skillet. The same skillet is a perfect utensil for a wide variety of things from French toast to kidney stew. As a matter of fact, the modern breakfast chef's best helpmeet is the electric outlet with such confreres as the automatic coffeemaker, toaster, table broiler, juicer and waffle iron all ready and able at the cock-crowing hour.

Finally, we come to that all-important concomitant of the American breakfast, coffee. Details will be found in The Cordial Cup of Coffee (Playboy, June 1955), but right here are some handy rules of thumb. Need we point out that weak coffee is an abomination? So, for that matter, is the brew which is overcooked, undercooked, served less than piping hot, or made with an inferior grade of coffee. There are fine coffeemakers on the market, thermostatically controlled for drip or percolator cookery, but do them the honor of correctly measuring grounds and water, starting with cold water (hot tap water is often tainted by the taste of metal pipes) and keeping the pots spotlessly clean between uses. Apropos that, the slightest trace of soap or detergent contaminates coffee and renders it unpotable, so treat your coffeemaker to several rinsings after each washing. If you live in an area where the water is hard, use distilled water for brewing. Some purists insist on it in any case.

Coffee cups, of course, should be preheated by dousing or dunking with hot water before being brought to the table. If you're going to decant the coffee from the cooker to a serving pot, preheat that with hot water, too. And if there's company for breakfast, have the consideration to serve separately rich cream and milk along with the coffee (the milk heated) so that everyone can blend them as preferred. (We ourselves think diluting fresh country cream with milk infra dig.)

Caveat for gourmets: the death of the best-prepared breakfast lurks in improper service. Toast on a cold plate is sweaty and luke warm; milk for drinking should be ice cold; griddle goodies brought to the table uncovered can't be consumed before they cool and should be served on pre-heated plates.

Playboy's breakfast dishes, which follow, will help create your own good gustatory memories whether you eat at dawn, at nine A.M., or at noontime.

[recipe_title]French Toast, Mocha Sauce[/recipe_title]

(2 Portions)

The usual French toast is a rather limp affair sautéd in a griddle or shallow frying pan. Our version is crisper, lighter and browner because it's deep fried. Don't use the usual thin sliced white loaf in this recipe. Buy an unsliced loaf, at least a day old, and cut it into slices 3/4-inch thick, after which carefully trim off the crust.

[recipe]Deep fat for frying[/recipe]

[recipe]4 slices white bread[/recipe]

[recipe]2 eggs[/recipe]

[recipe]Heavy cream[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons cold water[/recipe]

[recipe]1/8 teaspoon salt[/recipe]

[recipe]1/3 cup white table syrup (such as Karo or Staley)[/recipe]

[recipe]1 teaspoon instant powdered coffee[/recipe]

Heat the deep fat to 370°. If deep fat isn't available, melt fat to depth of one inch in a heavy skillet or in an electric skillet heated to 370° or until the first wisp of smoke appears in the fat. While the fat is heating, cut the slices of bread in half diagonally. Beat the eggs well. Combine beaten eggs with the 1/4 cup heavy cream, cold water and salt. Mix well. Dip the bread in the egg mixture only long enough to moisten it through but not soaked to the breaking point. Lower the slices slowly into the hot fat. Turn to brown on both sides. It will brown quickly. In a small saucepan combine the white syrup, instant coffee and 2 tablespoons heavy cream. Heat over a moderate flame until bubbles appear around edge of saucepan. Pour sauce over the toast on serving plates.

[recipe_title]Griddle Cakes, Maple Pecan Syrup[/recipe_title]

(2 Portions)

[recipe]1 egg, well beaten[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon sugar[/recipe]

[recipe]2/3 cup milk[/recipe]

[recipe]1/4 cup salad oil[/recipe]

[recipe]1 teaspoon grated lemon rind[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup sifted self-rising cake flour[/recipe]

[recipe]1/4 cup maple syrup[/recipe]

[recipe]3 tablespoons pecans, coarsely chopped[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons butter[/recipe]

Set the griddle or the electric skillet to 400°. If you don't have a thermostatically controlled griddle, you should preheat the griddle iron and then test it for temperature before pouring the batter. The iron will be hot enough when a few drops of cold water sprinkled on it bounce around for a second or two and then disappear. Don't overgrease the griddle. Use a crumpled piece of paper towel to spread the fat in a light film on the griddle or use a piece of larding pork.

In a mixing bowl combine the beaten egg and sugar. Mix well. Add the milk, salad oil and lemon rind, mixing well. Gradually add the self-rising cake flour. Beat with a rotary egg beater or wire whisk until the batter is smooth. Pour the batter onto the pre-heated griddle iron, using a pitcher or ladle. Pour enough to make cakes about 4 inches in diameter. Turn to brown on both sides. But don't turn them until they are dull around the edge and bubbly in the center. Once turned, don't turn them again. In a small saucepan combine the maple syrup, pecans and butter. Heat over a slow flame until the butter melts. Reheat just before serving. Stack the griddle cakes on warm serving plates. Pour the hot syrup over the cakes.

[recipe_title]Baked Kippered Herring in Cream[/recipe_title]

(2 Portions)

In America, the kippered herring put in cans are generally more tender and less salty than those sold individually at the fish counter. A 15-ounce tin will provide approximately four portions. Bake them, if possible, in a shallow earthen casserole or in a glass pie plate. Serve them at the table in the same container in order to keep them bubbly hot. Kippered herring may be served as a breakfast main course or as an accompaniment with scrambled eggs. In the latter case, the following two-portion recipe would be sufficient for four.

[recipe]1 medium size onion[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon butter[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 cup light sweet cream[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon bread crumbs[/recipe]

[recipe]2 kippered herring (4 half pieces of the split fish)[/recipe]

[recipe]Paprika[/recipe]

Preheat oven to 450°. Cut the peeled onion in half lengthwise. Then cut crosswise into the thinnest possible slices. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Add the onion. Sauté only until the onion turns light yellow. Add the cream and bring to a boil. Remove from the flame. Stir in the bread crumbs. Place the kippered herring, flesh side up, in a shallow casserole. Pour the hot sauce over the herring. Sprinkle lightly with paprika. Bake 10 minutes.

[recipe_title]Prosciutto, Pineapple and Fried Farina[/recipe_title]

(4 Portions)

You needn't be an Italian to appreciate the subtle and rich flavor of the ham called prosciutto. If you can't obtain prosciutto, you may substitute sliced boiled ham cut extremely thin on the slicing machine. Fried farina is similar to fried corn meal mush but the flavor is more bland. Maple syrup, honey or jelly should be served with the fried farina which must be cooked the night before it is served.

[recipe]3 cups water[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 teaspoon salt[/recipe]

[recipe]2/3 cup farina[/recipe]

[recipe]Butter[/recipe]

[recipe]No. 2 can pineapple spears or fingers[/recipe]

[recipe]1/4 lb. prosciutto sliced very thin[/recipe]

[recipe]Flour[/recipe]

In a heavy saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add the salt. Slowly add the farina, stirring constantly while it is added. Bring to a boil. Reduce flame very low and simmer 5 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons butter and stir until butter is melted. Grease a shallow 9-inch pie plate or any shallow container of similar size, and pour the hot farina into it. Let it cool to room temperature. Place it in the refrigerator overnight. Drain the pineapple well. Wrap a slice of prosciutto around each pineapple spear. Use two slices of ham if the slices are very small. Turn the pie plate upside down to unmold the farina. Cut the farina into finger shaped pieces. In a large skillet melt two tablespoons butter. Dip the farina into the flour. Sauté the farina and the ham-wrapped pineapple until brown. The farina may take slightly longer to brown than the ham. Add more butter to the pan if necessary to keep the farina from sticking. Serve at once while very hot. Sing one chorus of Oh, What a Beautiful Morning and sit down.