The Food of James Bond

One of the enormous differences between the James Bond books and the films are that while 007 is not exactly seen to eat in the movie series – he's well known for drinking however – the books often feature exquisitely described meals that are a highlight of Ian Fleming’s writing.

Nonetheless Bond isn’t an out and out snob, and while he does enjoy good food served in fancy restaurants, his favorite meal by far is scrambled eggs on toast with bacon. This he'll eat morning, noon and night and Fleming went so far as featuring a recipe for scrambled eggs in his short story, 007 in NY.

Bond also finds fine dining infrequently rather pretentious and Fleming claims that when in Britain he exists on a diet composed of griddled sole, oeufs cocotte and cold roast meat with potato salad; Bond himself claims to prefer the ordinary plain food of the country when abroad.

Bond’s favorite meal of the day is breakfast, which we all know because Ian Fleming told us. It was also Fleming’s own favourite meal time – his view that we all hankered after simple, childish foods and breakfast provided exactly that.

While Bond sometimes does order scrambled eggs for breakfast in the books, his routine while in London is rather simpler; he drinks two cups of coffee from De Bry in New Oxford Street (unhappily it no longer exists) brewed in a glass Chemex coffee maker while reading the Times.

He is then served an egg which has been boiled for exactly three and a third minutes by May, his elderly Scottish girl, which is served in a dark blue egg cup embellished with a gold ring round the top. The egg comes from French Marans hens and is supplied by a chum of May. Following the egg, he has toast and butter served with Tiptree’s Small Scarlet strawberry jam, Norwegian Heather Honey from Fortnum and Mason and Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade – all is served on blue Minton china.

Nevertheless when abroad his breakfast can change. In New York he phones maid service is order juice, 3 lightly scrambled eggs with bacon, toast and jam together with a double espresso with cream, which hardly varies from his home breakfast. But while on assignment in Istanbul he orders a very dissimilar breakfast; yoghurt and green figs with Turkish coffee.

Where we do see proof of James Bond loving the “plain food of the country” when he lunches on ham sandwiches with lots of mustard (in an English bar) or bread and sausage (while tailing Goldfinger thru France), James Bond’s food can be much more lavish too; one of the most notable descriptions of a meal occurs when he dines with M at his club, Blades.

After vodka from Riga, Bond orders Poo to go with his asparagus and hollandaise sauce, lamb cutlets with buttered peas and new potatoes, and a piece of pineapple for pudding. This episode features in Moonraker, written right after rationing had ended in England and while it may not appear to be particularly exotic to modern readers, the books provided wish fulfilment for the reader of the day.

For more in-depth information on James Bond’s world, including information on the Chemex coffee maker owned and owned by 007 see The James Bond Dossier.

Vintage HAM Radios

Tags: vintage hamilton beach mixer, vintage hamilton watches, vintage hamilton watches for sale, vintage hammers, vintage hammond organ

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 at 8:12 am and is filed under Vintage Electronics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.