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In Blooks #2 I mentioned a blook that had been described as “the cholesterol-busting quest of a man who aims to find a café serving the ultimate full English breakfast.”  I took a trip to Russell Davies’ blog to check out what kind of blook it might be. I was surprised to discover all the photographs of what Davies calls “ebcb” - eggs, bacon, chips and beans.

If any Americans are wondering, I’ll just say this: the beans look like Campbell’s Pork & Beans, the bacon like rough-edged Canadian bacon, the eggs are fried with soft yolks, and the chips are like French fries. Having said that, though, they sometimes look like Texas fries or steak fries. (Why did I think that chips would look like discs, like thick potato chips?)

The photographs are unnerving. I had to limit myself to what I saw on the front page. No wandering through the archives for more and more platters of the combo for this faint-hearted, slightly queasy American lady. When we were in Canada, I got used to breakfast being served with a side of vinegar accompanied by ubiquitous ketchup bottle. Not that I ever used either. And no, I don’t want to hear about those of you who use mustard or grape jelly on your egg sandwiches!

Food wasn’t the only thing that Davies took photographs of. There are pictures of the interiors and exteriors of the diners he visited. There are pictures of menus and clusters of condiments. While that rounds out the blog — who can look at pictures of just ebcb over and over again? — I wonder how many, if any, will have made it into the blook.

Let me share a description of one of the breakfasts that Davies eventually consumed:

“High quality ebcb, nicely cooked and an extra dark brown dollop of sauce which looks slightly like a proto alien from Torchwood, something that’s just an interstellar blob at the moment but which the special effects folk will soon transform into something sinister. The bacon will be its first innocent victim, pale, wan and unsuspecting. I imagine the chips will put up more resistance, there’s quite a lot of them, and the beans’ll be hard to defeat because they’re so slippery. The egg will be its downfall though, the inner eggy core is well known to be kryptonite to blobby sauce monsters.”

Before you fall off your chair laughing, ask yourself how YOU would describe fifty different plates of the same food. Here’s another:

“A very high quality ebcb. Pale chips, afraid of the sun these chips. Not so the beans which have clearly been sweltering in a tanning facility. The egg is vaguely Martian, at least not of this earth in its contours, but delicious. And a splendid amount of excellent bacon with pinks and reds and browns and whites begging you to slam it in your gob. Genius grub.”

And another:

“The chips were sharp shards of crisp specialness, spearing their way into the soft flanks of the beans which were driven into a careering retreat for the side of the plate. The eggs peered imperiously over the battleground like generals directing their troops from afar. The bacon lurked around the corner, ready to strike when the taste buds had grown weary of the fight.”

I’m not saying that it’s genius. What I am saying is that the next time you need a writing exercise, consider Davies’ task. He had to find a way to describe the same thing over and over. Each time trying to make it unique yet still managing to convey a fairly accurate appearance.

The beginning of my discussion of blooks included the winners of Lulu’s Blooker prize. Russell Davies’ book was on the short list for the prize.

Egg, Bacon, Chips and Beans: 50 Great Cafes and the Stuff That Makes Them Great
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins Entertainment (17 Oct 2005)

Excerpt of synopsis at Amazon

“The book is also an indespensible guide to the finest cafes in the UK, and asks the kind of profound, life-changing questions that we have all been too afraid to ask for too long, delving deep beneath the tea-skin to find the steaming truth within. For example, what is it about tea from an urn, as opposed to tea from a kettle? How cheap can sauce get and still be called sauce? And what is Formica anyway? Is it mined or grown? This book also contains the handy bean colour-wheel (also available in egg, bacon, chip and tea) to do away with bean-hue concerns.”

Tag: Blook