The Full English

The full English is the meal that taught me England is a mood before it is a country. You order it on a morning where the light never quite arrives, in a café with laminated menus and a tea that comes without asking, and for twenty minutes the weather is somebody else’s problem. Beans on one side so they don’t run into the toast. Eggs soft enough to break over everything. The grilled tomato that nobody claims to like and everybody eats.

I hung it in Frames next to the plate of jollof on purpose. Two plates, two homes, the exact same argument about which one is done properly — smoke and pepper on one side of the corridor, beans and grey light on the other. The museum isn’t taking a side. It’s just noting, for the record, that I was fed well in two places and remember both by the plate.