James Bond food

One of the big differences between the James Bond books and the movies is that while 007 is barely seen eating in the film series, yet is well known for drinking, the books often feature exquisitely described foods that are a highlight of Ian Fleming’s writing. .

However, Bond is not an absolute snob and while he enjoys good food served in fine dining restaurants, his favorite food by far is scrambled eggs on bacon toast. This can be eaten morning, noon, and evening and Fleming even featured a scrambled egg recipe in his story, 007 in New York.

Bond also finds fine dining quite pretentious at times and Fleming claims that when he is in England he lives on a diet of grilled sole, egg cocotte and cold roast beef with potato salad; Bond himself claims to prefer the normal and ordinary food of the country when he is abroad.

Bond’s favorite meal of the day is breakfast, which we know because Ian Fleming told us. It was also time for Fleming’s favorite meal: his view that we all crave simple, childish meals and breakfast provided exactly that.

While Bond sometimes orders scrambled eggs for breakfast from the books, his routine while in London is much simpler; sip two cups of De Bry’s coffee on New Oxford Street (sadly no longer in existence) brewed in a glass Chemex coffeepot while reading the Times.

They then serve him an egg that has been boiled for exactly three minutes and a third by May, his elderly Scottish maid, served in a dark blue egg cup adorned with a gold ring on top. The egg comes from French Marans hens and is supplied by a friend of May’s. After the egg, you have toast and butter served with Tiptree’s Little Scarlet Strawberry Jam, Fortnum and Mason’s Norwegian Heather Honey, and Cooper’s Vintage Oxford Jam, all served on Minton Blue Porcelain.

However, when you are abroad, your breakfast may vary. In New York, what he calls for room service is ordering orange juice, three scrambled eggs with bacon, toast and jam along with a double espresso with cream, which hardly varies from his breakfast at home. But while on a mission in Istanbul, he orders a very different breakfast; yogurt and green figs with Turkish coffee.

Where we do see evidence that James Bond loves “simple country food” when he lunches on ham sandwiches with a lot of mustard (in an English pub) or bread and sausages (while following Goldfinger through France), he also eats very well. ; One of the most memorable descriptions of a meal occurs when he dines with M at his club, Blades.

After the Riga vodka, Bond orders Champagne to accompany his asparagus sauce and hollandaise sauce, lamb chops with buttered peas and new potatoes, and a pineapple slice for dessert. This episode appears in Moonraker, written shortly after rationing in the UK ended, and while it may not seem particularly exotic to modern readers, the books provided the wish-fulfillment for the reader of the day.

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