English breakfast recipe

As a new arrival to the UK, I was naturally delighted to try my hand at making an English breakfast. I was particularly excited to find out that everything in the classic combination might include microplastics, and I could be ingesting as much as a credit card per day! In fact, my kitchen apron is a cotton-polyester blend, so if I wash it it would shed microfibers into the water supply that then go into animals and agricultural soil. Did you know synthetic fabrics shed up to 500,000 tons of microplastics into the ocean every year? Those plastics then end up on our dinner plates and in our bloodstreams. It’s so cool to find out where my food comes from!

I’m sure you guys want to get right to the good stuff, so here’s my take on a recipe for a classic English breakfast, which includes buttered toast, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, and an apple for a healthy snack. And of course, no English breakfast would be complete without a cup of tea (since teabags are one of the biggest contributors to microplastics in hot drinks). I hope you enjoy!

Hot tip: Synthetic fabrics are made by melting down plastics, extruding them into fibers, and knitting them together. So by shredding and weaving your ingredients, it’s just like the traditional way to make a microplastic meal — and it’s so much easier to do at home!

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Cooking time: 5 hours (1.5 hour drying time) • Serves 1–2 people

Ingredients

• Kitchen debris:
  • 1x Tesco receipt
  • 1x orange juice label
  • 1x cotton/spandex blend jeans
  • 1x can of Illy brand coffee (or store brand is fine)
  • 1x piece of vinyl “wood” veneer
  • Other assorted debris, to taste
• 1x string
• 1x roll of masking tape
• 1x pot of white glue
• At least 10 sheets of A3 paper
• 1 box Cass Art’s cheapest watercolor paints
• 1 set of Cass Art’s cheapest watercolor brushes

Full nutritional information here

Preparation

1. Photocopy all kitchen debris onto the A3 paper
2. Use a slide cutter to cut paper into long strips, roughly 1cm wide
3. Put on a podcast
4. Weave the paper strips into large sheets, roughly 20cm x 40cm
5. Use white glue and tape to bind the sheets together, then let dry for about 1 hour
6. Use a pair of scissors to cut the sheets into the shapes of the following:
   • 1x slice of toast
   • 1x pat of butter
   • 3x strips of bacon
   • 2x sausages
   • 3x mushroom slices
   • 1x apple, stem, and leaf
   • 1x teabag and tag
7. Assemble items, using tape and string to bind as needed
8. Use the watercolor and brush to paint the items as needed, then let dry for about 30 minutes
9. Assemble food items on a plate and put the teabag in a cup
10. Enjoy!