ROBERT TANNER has moved on to smaller and better breakfasts. That doesn't mean eggs, toast and fried potatoes have lost their appeal.
(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)
Bob Tanner, asap's curator of "American Stomach." (AP Photo/Bernadette Tuazon)
I miss the breakfast special.
There was only one for me. Not pancakes, not omelettes, just two eggs over easy, fried potatoes, toast and a side of bacon. A bottle of ketchup at hand. On the side, coffee, always hot, and more often than not spilled on delivery into the saucer.
The special is still there, calling my name most mornings. But like so many others around me, my one sacrifice to health and age has been a breakfast that's more about whole grains and fruits. It's virtuous, and some days I do enjoy it.
But it's not a joy. Not the same as a door opening to a breakfast joint's blast of smells and sounds.
Hot and fast, no time to waste. The aromas of salty potatoes, melting butter on toast, the unmistakable, ineffable porkiness of the bacon, all of it unceremoniously slid onto the worn formica of a truck stop or a diner.
The bustle while you eat outcharms any delicate eatery. A crowd going every which way, here a landscaping crew already stained with dirt, there a lady with a PDA and a suit off to a work, at the counter a trucker looking like he worked the night shift. The place buzzes with the shouting of the orders and the radio and the chitchat of the regulars.
Turning food into words is always a bit of a parlor trick, but somehow that egg breakfast is even trickier. But special is the operative word.
In the culinary contest between your tastebuds and your mind -- between what the meal tastes like this very moment and what it brings back from all the times you've eaten this very same meal in years past -- the breakfast special comes out a draw.
The be-here-now wondrousness is hard to beat. Toast alone I could write an entire column about (rye vs. wheat, bagels or english muffins, butter or jam or even both together). Eggs! And I'm only exaggerating slightly when I acknowledge preserved pork as one of the high points of civilization, and it becomes near-religious when you get to the breakfast trinity of bacon, sausage and ham. And don't get me started on fried potatoes.
But the memories are no slouch.
I didn't start out with any appreciation of the virtues of my breakfast special -- No. 2 out of ten offerings on the diner around the corner from my house -- until I was nearly out of high school. Before then, I'd been a kid drawn to pancakes, or french toast.
The special came as a combo package with skipping class. Me and one marginally bad influence would light out after homeroom and run down the hill toward a diner (Greek, I believe) and join a table full of other kids. It was as much about laughing and goofing around as eating. But the eating was good, too.
The years brought other breakfast specials, during summer jobs house-painting or driving a cab, on rough weekend mornings, others breaking up long road trips. Down south, grits replaced the hash browns, and sometimes you could get a side of red-eye gravy. The essentials were, yes, unchangeable.
Something about specials mean talking and jokes and arguments. It might be the convivial nature of a booth at a diner, but not only. A special eaten solo has its own charm, too. Reading the paper, listening in on a conversation, chatting with the waitress -- it's a meal that brings its own magic.
Now I started out this morning giving myself the green light to break my usual routine. And the diner was just as crowded as I remember, just as enticing, the eggs just as greasy and satisfying. (I did spy a few customers with bowls of oatmeal instead of plates of eggs).
It's nice to know that some things haven't changed. I still miss the special, but at least it's there, waiting for me.
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asap columnist Robert Tanner has eaten his way around the world as a national writer for The Associated Press. Hear him introduce himself here.
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Read some of Tanner's previous columns here:
On a 'secret Italian deli': http://asap.ap.org/stories/1786124.s
On a Middle East tour: http://asap.ap.org/stories/1752907.s
On food friends: http://asap.ap.org/stories/1683351.s
On lobster: http://asap.ap.org/stories/1653587.s
On pie: http://asap.ap.org/stories/1625617.s
On doughnuts: http://asap.ap.org/stories/1591867.s
On 'Swiss bliss': http://asap.ap.org/stories/1560812.s
On cliff cuisine: http://asap.ap.org/stories/1528428.s
On Asian street food: http://asap.ap.org/stories/1494151.s
On delicacies money can't buy: http://asap.ap.org/stories/1479613.s
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