Most of us look forward to our buffet breakfast after first arriving on vacation. You anticipate all your favorite, scrumptious breakfast foods that you don’t have time to cook while at home. Then, you go to a country that is completely different and you browse through the buffet at least twice before choosing your meal. After all, you want to make good choices to start your day of adventure.
You come across what looks like an overcooked mini-muffin and think it must be some sort of a bran muffin. Well, that certainly seems safe enough to put on your plate. The little boy next to you loads his plate up with them. But then, he also puts a mound of baked beans next to his runny scrambled eggs. Ugh! This can’t be so. So I return to my seat with eggs, some kind of boiled tomatoes and these tiny dark muffins.
In Ireland, you ask someone who is a native before indulging in any new food. My husband shrieked, ‘so you are going to try the blood pudding?’ I honestly don’t know what he is referring to until he points out that this little muffin is in fact what the Irish refer to as “blood pudding”. Oh no, not me. For those of you who are unclear as to what this blood pudding is, I hope you are reading this way after breakfast. Blood pudding is a blood sausage made from pork blood and a high proportion of oatmeal. Hence that’s how it looks like a muffin.
So for 10 days I ate Irish soda bread and lots of eggs. I knew that my American stomach could never digest blood pudding and baked beans for breakfast. Now I am prepared to visit Ireland again, one of the most beautiful, diverse places on Earth. I will just not look forward to breakfast.
