Comment

Save
Print
License article

Australian salmon crisis - cream cheese or scrambled eggs with yours?

Show comments

I don't know why we fund the ABC.

A whole Four Corners report given over to investigating the salmon industry and not one minute of airtime devoted to the question to which we actually needed an answer. Cream cheese or scrambled eggs?

Specifically, if you're going to have your salmon on a bagel, the natural end to which all salmon swim upstream, is that bagel best schmeared with thick, white cream cheese?

Or should it be buttered and all but buried under a deliciously wobbly mountain of properly scrambled eggs? (The atrocities committed against the vast majority of eggs by the hapless lackwits who don't know how to scramble them properly is a topic for another day).

Initial research – a question thrown out on Twitter – ran strongly in favour of the New York schmear, a generous troweling of Philly's finest on a toasted bagel.

Now, I have no issue with this as a passable snack. Add some jalapeño peppers and you have a Mexican revolution in your mouth.

Advertisement

With a cup of strong black coffee it is a quick tummy filler than anyone can enjoy. Toasted and plated up with a generous serve of Atlantic salmon, a bagel with a schmear is a convenient and grown up start to any day.

But come on, people. Scrambled eggs and salmon is the neglected superhero of the metropolitan diner. With two eggs in the mix, it is a hugely powerful protein bomb to blast you into the day. With three eggs and upwards it could be all you need to eat until dinner.

It is at eventide that the salmon and scrambled egg combo really comes into its own. It is a breakfast that you can eat for dinner.

I mean no offence to bacon and eggs, or even to sausage and eggs, but these hardy yeomen are meant to do their work of a morning. They are the yard dogs of the menu. They are not meant to escape their confines, and if they do, terrible things can happen.

But you can whip up a serve of salmon and scrambled cackleberries at any time, after any activity, and not feel as though you have committed some crime against propriety. Against civilisation itself. Piled high upon a toasted bagel, or thick cut white toast if you are some sort of bogan, this duet sings beautifully together at eight in the morning, or eleven at night.

I understand your love of salmon and cream cheese. It's cute. Almost childlike. But I think you should grow up and put childish things behind you.

0 comments