Madam, - Following concerns about childhood obesity, certain fast food chains are receiving complaints that their portions are too generous. Would that it were so with that noble institution, the full Irish breakfast, which seems to be disappearing.
Recently, when staying at a Co Wexford hotel, my cooked breakfast consisted of half a fried green tomato, two slender sausages, one rasher, a thin slice of black pudding, the tag-end of a white pudding, a few slices of mushroom (which Ireland produces by the ton) and a fried egg which, by some curious means, the cook had contrived to be perfectly circular. This materialised on the size of plate which is more usually occupied by a bread roll.
Was the daintiness of this repast a consequence of the genteel Georgian ambience in which it was served? Anxious to test the theory, I paid a visit, the following day, to a café in Wexford town. There, surrounded by road-menders, I was offered an equally sparing (if somewhat less edible) version of the same. It is any wonder civil engineering works take so long if the good men to whom they are entrusted are half-starved? - Yours, etc.,
PAUL GRIFFIN, Cilgerran, Cardigan, Wales.