My husband tells me that, when he was stationed in Lubeck, Germany during the Cold War, he lived on a street named after Jurgen Wullenwever, a former burgomaster of that city. He also tells me that he frequently ate Bauernfruhstuck, or peasant breakfast. For some reason, I found the name of the street easy to remember and the name of the dish difficult to remember, so every so often–today, for example–we have jurgenwullenwever for breakfast.
Peasant breakfast consists of whatever is cheap cut up and fried. We used to have potatoes, onions, ham, mushrooms and eggs. Now, Charlie can’t eat onions and neither of us eats meat (well, I do, sometimes, but not at home), so it’s what my grandpa used to call “same thing, only different”.
Jurgenwullenwever (Bauernfruhstuck or Peasant Breakfast)
- oil
- Potatoes, diced
- mushrooms, cut into chunks
- seasoned salt
- bell peppers, if desired
- butter
- eggs
Heat the oil to medium hot. Add the potatoes and stir until coated. Add seasoned salt and stir again. Reduce heat and cover pan. Let steam for about 15 minutes. Remove lid and turn heat back up to just below medium. Add mushrooms and peppers and cook until potatoes are slightly browned. Drain oil. Push everything to one side. Melt a little butter and fry the eggs. You can cook the eggs and serve them on a bed of the potato stuff, or you can pan-scramble the eggs and then stir them into the rest of the stuff.
Hearty and delicious!
I plan to put this dish into my third Spadena Street book, which I’m going to be working on for NaNoWriMo this year (see sidebar links, if you don’t know what this is!).
WRITING PROMPT: Give a character a particular dish that he/she enjoys in part because of the story that goes with it. Do you have such a dish in your family? I’d love to hear about it!
MA
Patricia Stoltey
August 1, 2010 at 6:51pmI’ve sometimes cooked potatoes, onions, and chunks of ham together, but never of shoving them aside and fixing eggs in the same pan. Sounds yummy.
Leslie R. Lee
July 31, 2010 at 2:02pmSomething similar to that Tennessee Ernie Ford egg sandwich was shown in the movie “V for Vendetta”. My son paused the movie long enough to ask if I could make something like that. I think the movie caused a revival of that particular dish. I like the name, baurnfruhstuck, for eggs with whatever is handy. Sounds more exotic than egg with refrigerator junk.
Marian Allen
July 31, 2010 at 4:40pmYeah, everything tastes better with a fancy name. Caviar sounds sooo much nicer than fish eggs!
Helen Ginger
July 31, 2010 at 1:40pmI don’t have a particular family story to go with it, but when I think of a family recipe, I think Strawberry Cake. My mother, for every birthday of mine, would make her Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Icing. I don’t have the cake recipe, but do have the icing recipe.
I think I signed up with your networked FB blog. Not sure though since my picture’s not there yet. We’ll see.
Straight From Hel
Marian Allen
July 31, 2010 at 4:38pmCare to share the recipe?
Bonnie
July 31, 2010 at 10:54amTennessee Ernie Ford egg sandwich: heat skillet; tear hole in center of bread slice and place bread in skillet; break egg into hole; salt and pepper to taste; fry “to taste” (I like mine with the yolk still a little runny, but have been taught better so…)
This tasty little item resulted from a very funny story told by the aforementioned Mr. Ford in which the hole is created by tossing the bread into the air and shooting it. : ) There was some commentary on how to deal with the piece of bread torn out if you didn’t use the “traditional” method (ie. the shotgun) Also a form of bauernfruhstuck (more correctly farmer’s breakfast, I think) but American “hillbilly” style.
Marian Allen
July 31, 2010 at 4:38pmLOL! I loved Tennessee Ernie Ford! Shotgun…maybe not…. ::grin::