Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figures 2 and 3 illustrate the confusion around the origins of breakfast sausages. Is one factory near Brandon Manitoba producing Canada’s supply? We hope to get a Canadian Research Council grant to explore this question.  In the mean time we will continue with our own privately funded data collection in Winnipeg restaurants.

(N.B. Sexy breakfast intern needed for note taking and sausage testing. Must have scientific mind and filthy sense of humour. Must also have own note pad and be a girl.)

Figure 1 illustrates our scientific theory about why most coffee served in Winnipeg tastes similar, i.e. bad. 

We believe there exists natural coffee deposits beneath Winnipeg from which most restaurants get their coffee. In the “wet” season of spring and summer the water naturally mixes with the subterranean coffee, or mud beans, deep below the city and is easily pumped out and piped to restaurants just as drinking water is supplied by the city. 

The restaurant need only heat it up and serve it as their own. The pain and bother of “brewing” coffee in the hundreds of individual establishments is thus avoided.

During the winter months it is necessary to actively pump hot water down to the mud beans to extract the flavour as the underground “lake” recedes; the pipes would be bunged up with coffee slush even if the lake was still extant.

Figure 4

Figure 4 illustrates the strange behaviour elicited from the internet when you ask for an image of

“very weak coffee”

Figure 5

Figure 6

In order to explain the mud bean weakosity encountered in our travels a test was devised. In honour of the place it was developed it is called the Campsie Test.  The test is as follows; a full carafe of coffee is held up to a test pattern, the Saturday newspaper for example, and the test pattern is attempted to be seen through the coffee. If you can read through the carafe of full coffee then it passes the Campsie Test and the whole table cries “Huzzah!” and orders tea instead. Figure 5 indicates very very weak coffee (well water) and figure 6 indicates a carafe full of black paint. Proper strong coffee lies somewhere in between.

The Campsie Test

Not every restaurant takes advantage of the municipality’s offer of endless brown water and some rare locations choose to actually use their own machines, water and coffee beans purchased from mysterious sounding lands such as “Mexico” “Eeth ee oh pee ah” and “French Roast” where ever that is.  As most Winnipeggers can not tell the difference, according to restaurant owners, between mud bean hole pumpings and actual coffee we assume this activity will slowly die out.

Mud Bean “nest”

Figure 7

Figure 7 illustrates the typical hot sauces that are unavailable at most restaurants. We like hot sauce on our eggs and bacon. Some of us like hot sauce on our waffles. Soy sauce and Sweet and Low may be considered “hot” by some but they are not invited to brek. Frank’s Red Hot sauce is nummy. Tabasco sauce is kind of icky. (Hot and vinegary with little flavour) Sambal Olek in both the seedy (red top) and non-seedy (green top) are both particularly nummy. Hot sauce on waffles is called the devil’s checkerboard. Thus endeth the lesson.

Cock Sauce

Brekkie-Related Terms

Ramekin - A small dish in which food can be baked and served.

Kerning - The setting of type – the space between letters.

Most noticable when the “kerning” is particularly bad on a menu.

Aspic – Gelatin made from meat or fish stock. Eww.

Jell-o should be fruit flavoured even if it is made from boiled bones and cartilage.

Crufting – Classy dumpster diving; or not classy. You could come out of that dumpster covered in coffee grounds and old bacon grease and still call yourself a crufter.

Cannikin – small cup

Demitasse - a small cup for serving strong black coffee after dinner.

Invented terms

Ganky – dry-out-your-mouth feeling (a la Polonez coffee)

Slurge – grease stain on your plate that pools against the side, suitable for dipping

Scromlette – omelette without the flip, done the lazy way

Feltic- Fake Celtic

Fub – Fake Pub

Disputed spellings

Brek, brekkie (break, breaky)

Hashbrowns - Instead of hash browns. Controversy!

Multi-grain, multigrain

Garlic Sausage

-Kielbasa

-Koubasa

-Kubi

-Kolbasa

-Koubasa

-Kulbassa

-Kubasa

-Kubassa

Standards

Underground Coffee Reservoir

Universal Sausage Factory

The Campsie Test

The Spaghetti Factory Effect

Shaved Kitten Belly

Nook style hashbrowns

Breakfast music mix

Bacon & Eggs – The Lovett Sisters

Nickelbacking: People recommending places because they confuse popular with good

(i.e. the Eye Opener or McDonald’s)

Starbucks and Tim’s could fall into this as well. They are popular because they are plentiful.

Corollary: Because they have so many locations, they are popular.

Styles

Diner-teria – Like Soups, Sandwiches & More

Noveau Hotel – Blaze, Current