Kay’s breakfast

Nearly forty years ago, the BBC first showed “The Box of Delights”, a wonderful rendition of John Masefield’s book, set in the days before Christmas. The book was a sequel to “The Midnight Folk” but the earlier book has never been the subject of a film or television adaptation. Both are wonderful and have some vivid descriptions of food. Here, from “The Midnight Folk” is an account of its hero, Kay’s, ideal breakfast.

‘They had for breakfast all the things that Kay was fondest of: very hot, little, round loaves of new white bread baked in the embers of a wood-fire, very salt butter, a sardine with a lot of olive oil, some minced kidneys, a poached egg and frizzled bacon, a very fat sausage all bursting out of its skin, a home-made pork-pie, with cold jelly and yolk of egg beneath the crust, a bowl of strawberries and cream with sifted sugar, a bowl of raspberries and cream with blobs of sugar-candyish brown sugar that you could scrunch, some nice new mushrooms and chicken, part of a honeycomb with cream, a cup of coffee with crystals of white sugar candy for a change, a yellow plum, a greengage and then a ripe blue plum of Pershore to finish off with.”

Less extensive but equally delicious is Kay’s breakfast with his friend, Peter, in “The Box of Delights”:

‘They went down into the larder, and got themselves ham and bread, which they spread with blobs of butter. Then, each had a big mince-pie, and a long drink from a cream pan.’

This is said to be a “foraging” breakfast before Kay and Peter head out for an early morning adventure, before returning for their “real” breakfast.