Jonny McCambridge: Confessions of an Ulster fry eater

I inspect the menu. I’ve told myself to be good, concerned that my waistline has recently been expanding faster than boiling milk in a saucepan.

There is porridge, muesli and granola. There are, of course, several dishes featuring the ubiquitous avocado.

My gaze strays. I notice there is a small fry on the menu. I shake my head dismissively.

There is a regular fry. I shrug my shoulders absently.

There is a large fry. I smile modestly.

There is a super fry. I moisten my lips hungrily.

And then I see it. There is a monster fry. I begin to purr appreciatively.

I tell myself off and go back to the healthy options. A waitress comes to take our order and I hear a voice, which very much sounds like my own, coming from an orifice, which seems to be my mouth.

It says: ‘I’ll have the monster fry please.’

My wife raises her eyebrows archly. I wave my hands guiltily.

The waitress moves to the next table. A man who wears grimy clothes and has a labourer’s huge hands orders a regular fry. I laugh scornfully.

My wife stares at me. Ruefully.

‘You know you’re going to regret it afterwards,’ she says.

To be clear, this column is not intended as a paean for the fried breakfast, I’m more than aware how deleterious to my health the consumption of industrial quantities of processed meat and starch and stodge bathed in hot fat is likely to be. Each time I have a cooked breakfast I am forced to consider the uncomfortable truth that it is doing nothing to increase my chances of receiving a telegram from the monarch. But yet I still go ahead, indulging that particularly human trait of doing things that we know to be bad for us.

And it’s not as if there is much in the way of instant gratification. The immediate aftermath of gourmandising on a fry is characterised by a period of discomfort, bloating and incessant moaning that I have overeaten.

Perhaps it’s some ancestral instinct which always drags me back towards the cooked breakfast, a memory of a time when all food seemed to be fried. A time before I knew of the existence of olive or rapeseed oil and when there was lard in the heavy, dark frying pan on the stove. A time when instead of Tesco and Sainsbury’s, we had Stewart’s and Crazy Prices and Jim Megaw did those TV ads where he used to point at the camera. A more naive time when your parents could serve you fried bread without the necessity for involving social services.

Aside from this, I have never been particularly discriminating about the required elements of a fry. Of course sausages, bacon, eggs, soda and fadge are the requisite base components. (I’ve confused countless waiters over the years by referring to potato bread as fadge, but that’s what I grew up calling it.)

Unlike some, I don’t have tantrums about the presence of beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, hash browns or pancakes on the plate. I think black and white pudding are valuable additions, as is haggis, and I make no complaints if toast and chips are on there too. However, I do draw the line at establishments which insist on serving a fry with a leafy green garnish on top. Once I visited a cafe where the chef was so confused that he served a cooked breakfast with a sliced strawberry on the side. No, no, no.

The inherent problem, I believe, is not only content but scale. There would be no huge issue with enjoying an occasional fry if I could just persuade my psyche to allow me to downsize. After all I’m hardly likely to starve or faint from malnutrition if I order the small fry.

It’s my incessant insistence, against all logic and experience, of always having to order the largest thing on the menu. Even then the damage could be contained if I would stop eating when I’ve had enough. In my body the part of the brain which tells when it is time to stop gorging is on permanent vacation. I just keep going and going, long past the point of enjoyment until there is nothing left. (As I write this article I’m working my way through a Wall’s Viennetta, all on my own. It will be long devoured before I get to the last paragraph. It says on the box that it serves seven people.)

Also, I eat at a ferocious speed, a gastronomical equivalent of Hitler’s blitzkrieg tactic, with my knife and fork as the unstoppable Panza tanks sweeping through France towards Paris.

My monster fry arrives at the table. The food is piled high on the plate. I commence the attack. A few minutes later the plate is defeated and empty, save for a few pathetic smears of baked bean juice. I take pity and decide not to lick them.

Then I notice that my son has not eaten his toast, so I help myself to that as well before I sit back and wait for my wife to finish her poached eggs and avocado.

Some minutes later we are outside again and the rain is falling even more steadily now, combined with a fierce wind which whips the fat drops up towards your face. Our car is parked a few minutes away and we have to run to avoid a soaking.

But, as I watch my young son scamper along the pavement, I realise that I’ve eaten too much. He pulls at my hand, dragging me after him.

‘Slow down guys,’ I moan. ‘I can’t go that fast.’

My wife and son exchange knowing glances.

We reach the car and I collapse into the driver’s seat and struggle to get the seatbelt around my waist.

‘That’s it,’ I declare to my wife. ‘It’s healthy eating from now on.’

‘That’s what you say every time.’

I look at my wife, and my son sitting smiling at me in the back seat.

‘No, I mean it this time. I really do.’