LOST IN TOASTLATION

The other day, I made what I believed to be a casual, innocent comment to my wife. You know, one of those soft suggestions disguised as idle musings. I merely said, "It's been a while since we had a proper full English breakfast."

Translation: My soul is dying inside, please send bacon.

I wasn't demanding. I wasn't even requesting. It was just a subtle cry for help – a whisper, really – in the general direction of cholesterol.

Thankfully, my wife heard the bacon distress signal. Like a culinary superhero, she brought home local Kamakura bacon and sausages. Because in Japan, you don't just grab any bacon – oh no. You seek out the best.

No, a full English is nothing – NOTHING – without baked beans. And not just any beans. As any Brit will tell you, "It has to be Heinz". That's not negotiable. That's law. British law.

Unfortunately, Heinz beans are about as common in Japan as a fondue fountain at a Japanese tea ceremony. So, we always keep a strategic stockpile in our cupboard, thanks to the modern miracle that is Amazon.

But then, we arrive at the most controversial, emotionally charged element of the entire breakfast: toast.

Let me be clear: British toast is a structural achievement. It's firm. It's crunchy. It's thinly sliced (10–12mm) and toasted to a golden crunch.

Japanese toast, on the other hand, is a different species entirely. It’s soft, pillowy, and unapologetically thick, like a mattress designed exclusively for your jam. Standard slices in stores come in four, six, or eight-slice packs, with thickness variations that all lean dangerously toward excessive. Even the thinnest option (eight-slice pack) still feels like it could last you through breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Finding the right toast bread in Japan can be a quest of epic proportions.

It wasn’t until recently that we discovered a bakery called Andersen (yes, Danish – just to keep things interesting), which sells something called "British toast". And as we discovered, it truly deserves the name. But of course, since our ideal slice thickness isn't a recognised standard here, we have to request custom slicing. It’s a hassle, yes – but it's a sacrifice worth making.

Now, Japanese friends often ask what Swiss people eat for breakfast, expecting tales of mountain cheeses and alpenhorn-fueled fondue ceremonies. I tell them the truth: "Bread. Butter. Jam. Sometimes croissants if we're feeling fancy, or rebellious." This disappoints them. Deeply.

Then I try to explain the full English breakfast. I might as well be describing an elaborate medieval feast. Compared to the traditional Japanese breakfast of rice, miso soup, grilled fish, and an assortment of pickled or cooked vegetables, a full English seems like absolute madness.

There is no contest about which one is healthier, of course. But while I fell head over heels for the mighty full English breakfast on my first trip to Britain forty years ago, I never quite warmed up to the Japanese morning meal. I guess it feels a tad bit "too healthy" for me.

There's one more item worth mentioning for the breakfast table: Marmite!

In England, there’s a saying: you either love it, or you hate it. If you’ve never heard of it, I encourage you to Google it immediately to find out why. Or just follow this link: Home | Marmite UK.

Strangely enough, while my Japanese wife became a Marmite enthusiast while living in Britain, I remained a staunch non-believer for many years – until quite recently, that is. Now Marmite sits proudly on our breakfast table next to butter and jam and is – with a few jars extra in the cupboard (right next to the beans, of course!).

It reminds me of natto, another deeply polarising food in Japan – the fermented soybeans that, to some people, smell like a science experiment gone terribly wrong. It took me five years to convert from hater to lover (which is actually much quicker than my Marmite transformation).

But that's a story for another day.