Comments on food

Within the context of the Jakarta Food Festival presently adding a sparkle to restaurants in the metropolis, your readers might find the following comments of interest.

I am one of the very few expatriates who has never had a sakit perut (stomach-ache) in all the time I've been in this city. I'm going to let you into my little secret for free: I put it all down to a healthy diet of bacon and eggs for breakfast. Oh yes I do! There's never been any of this food faddism stuff in the Ripper household. None of this muesli or fruit juices or nibbling bits of carrot for us. No. What was good enough for my parents is good enough for me. I'm as fit as a butcher's dog -- I never get sick.

I'll let you into another little secret of mine: I don't need an alarm clock either. All I need to wake me in the morning is the whiff of breakfast sizzling in the pan as Mrs. R gets to her most important task: the main meal of the day, breakfast. Ask any dietitian and they'll tell you the same thing. Breakfast is the most important meal you'll have. The lovely smell of the fat spluttering in the pan has me out of the bed and under a cold shower in no time. I bring home the bacon and she cooks it.

It always comes served with fried potatoes mixed with juicy onions, the greasier the better. Add baked beans for a bit of variety and HP sauce to balance the powerful flavors. The kids wolf it down. The table groans under the weight of hot buttered toast thickly spread with marmalade, preferably homemade. And can she make it! All this is washed down with lashings of hot milky tea served in half pint mugs. The literal volume of this glorious nosh sees me through till dinner time. My stomach is having so much fun that the germs don't get a look in.

I recommend everyone eat the food that their parents fed them, wherever they come from. Forget about fast foods and food fads. Follow the gastronomic traditions of your ancestors -- it got them through hard times. It'll do the same for you. Let the Swiss have their muesli, let the Americans eat their pancakes with tree syrup, let the Thais eat their noodles, let the Indonesians have their fried rice and let the Germans enjoy their fresh rolls and coffee. But I'm a Brit and I'm an unabashed bacon and eggs man.

D. RIPPER

Jakarta