Cooking with my ancestors: Breakfast dish

If you missed my first post of this series, I have recently acquired a hand-written recipe notebook, circa 1901, written by my great great grandfather William Kerrisk. I have started a family tree and hope to be able to piece together more information of my family history, experiment with these recipes and cook my way through history.

The first recipe I chose to test from the book was titles 'Breakfast dish'. Of the 92 pages of recipes, I chose this one to begin with because it was simple, and I had all the ingredients on hand. I'll post William's instructions first and then add my own notes.

Breakfast dish
W. Kerrisk

Take 3 tomatoes, slice them and put them in a stovepan with a little butter a little finely chopped ham* pepper and salt and let them cook for a few minutes; Then add 2 raw eggs and stir all together for a few minutes till the eggs set, then serve on buttered toast with a little finely chopped parsely sprinkled on the top.

*I ommitted the ham.

For me, this recipe resonates quite closely to scrambled eggs, just using a slightly different technique to the way I was taught to prepare this favourite brekkie dish.

My variation on the breakfast dish (tomato scrambled eggs)

• 3 tomatoes
• 2 organic free range eggs
• large handfull of chopped parsely
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• salt & pepper
• Thick slice of rye sourdough bread to serve

Thinly slice the tomatoes into rounds. Heat a non-stick saucepan over medium heat, add the olive oil and tomatoes and cook for two minutes until the tomatoes are quite soft.

Break the eggs into saucepan and stir with a spoon to combine. Once the eggs go white remove the pan from the heat. Meanwhile toast the bread. Stir through the salt & pepper and parsley and spoon the mixture over the toast and serve warm.

As you can see, a common 'breakfast dish' in the early 1900s wasn't a great deal different to what we like to eat now. Only back then they relied on simple cooking and fresh flavours, minus the fried bacon, sausages and cheese...