"Room service? I'd like to order breakfast.
Half a pint of orange juice, three eggs, lightly scrambled,
with bacon, a double portion of café Espresso with
cream. Toast. Marmalade. Got it?"
Although enjoying Beluga caviar served with
chilled vodka,
James Bond claims to prefer "the ordinary plain food
of the country" when abroad. However, the
definitive James Bond meal is scrambled eggs with bacon
and/or sausages.
James Bond will eat them any time, day or night, with vodka
and tonic or Champagne. In the story 007 in New York
published in the US version of Fleming's non-fiction travellogue
Thrilling
Cities
and added to recent editions of Octopussy
and The Living Daylights, the Ian Fleming gives
a recipe for "Scrambled
eggs James Bond".
Breakfast
When in London, Bond maintains a simple routine. Sitting
down to The Times, he breakfasts on two large cups
of "very strong coffee, from De Bry in New Oxford Street,
brewed in an American
Chemex" and an egg served in a dark blue egg cup
with a gold ring round the top, boiled for three and a third
minutes. There is also wholewheat toast, Jersey butter and
a choice of Tiptree 'Little Scarlet' strawberry jam, Cooper's
Vintage Oxford marmalade and Norwegen Heather Honey from
Fortnum and Mason, served on blue Minton china. Breakfast
is prepared by May, his Scottish housekeeper, whose friend
supplies the speckled brown eggs from French Marans hens.
However, Bond's diet
can vary according to where he is in the world. Although
a typical hotel breakfast would normally consist of coffee
and eggs, Bond's first breakfast in
Istanbul in From
Russia, With Love is
quite different: "The yoghourt, in a blue china bowl, was
deep yellow and with the consistency of thick cream. The
green figs, ready peeled, were bursting with ripeness, and
the Turkish coffee was jet black and with the burned taste
that showed it had been freshly ground".
Lunch
While at headquarters Bond routinely eats in the staff
canteen. However, he sometimes goes to "Scott's" with best
friend in the service, Chief of Staff, Bill Tanner, or with
his secretary, Mary Goodnight.
Located in Coventry Street when the books
were written, he typically orders dressed crab and Black
Velvet or roast grouse and pink Champagne. Scott's moved
to Mount Street in Mayfair in the 1970s and celebrated its
150th anniversary in 2001.
Once again in Istanbul,
Bond has lunch with the Head of Station T, Kerim Bey. For
a starter Kerim recommends a sardine dish that to Bond "tasted
like any other fried sardines", followed by a choice that
demonstrates that anyone can eat like 007; the Doner Kebab
is described to him as "very young lamb broiled over charcoal
with savoury rice. Lots of onions in it".
Dinner
James Bond's staple diet seems to consist of grilled
sole, veal, steak and French fries or cold roast beef with
potato salad. In Moonraker
we find Bond dining in London with M at his private club,
Blades.
Bond starts with asparagus and hollandaise
sauce, followed by Scottish lamb cutlets with buttered peas
and new potatoes and finishes with a slice of pineapple.
On
assignment James Bond will eat langouste in France,
tagliatelle verdi in Italy or stone crabs and melted
butter in the US, but contemptuous of the cream and wine
sauces of French cuisine which are designed to hide the
poor quality of the meat.
In Live
And Let Die he visits Harlem with Felix Leiter,
dining on Little Neck Clams and Fried Chicken Maryland at
Ma Frazier's on Seventh Avenue. Diamonds
Are Forever sees 007 back in New York and making
the most of the food; lunch at Sardi's after meeting Leiter,
where he has Brizzola, dinner at the 21 Club with Tiffany
Case, where they eat caviar followed by cutlets with asparagus
and mousseline sauce, and the following night Bond dines
alone at Voisin's for "two Vodka Martinis, Oeufs Benedict
and strawberries".
