The phrase is said to have originated in post-civil-war Spain; the rationing system was harsh, and the little sustenance available would go to the breadwinner. The father’s position, as much in Spain as my adopted Wales, was not gluttonous, but in many ways necessary. The children and the mother needed less because they didn’t work, and gave back less. But it’s an obscene idea now that a father would sit at the head of the table, eating eggs and bacon, whilst the rest of the family made do with simple broth and bread.
My dad only ever said this with a smile. At the dinner table, he never ate more than us, and he was never favoured. Though he was a chef, running his own place, and working hard, his needs never came before ours.
Then I became a father, and the eggs I ate were my equal share; my children ate like me because I was the breadwinner. The whole point of working hard was for them, and so we all ate together, enjoyed the whole meal together.
We have always eaten at the same time, despite the boys growing up and wanting to pull away and do their own thing, they know that every evening, whether they show up or not, the food will be on the table. To eat together is to digest the day together, we reunite over the food we eat and for that period, we exist as a unit.
‘Cuando seas padre, comerás huevos’ is a response to a child asking for more; a miniature moment of Oliver Twist’s hunger, rejected in favour of the breadwinner tingles with a horrible injustice. My view of food is that its enjoyment should be far removed from its cost –like opening a present, you don’t look for the price-tag. The value of food is the moment you put it in your mouth, and taste something new, or something nostalgic, real, beyond what we need to sustain ourselves. It’s only after eating a lot of food, over a long time, that you really get to know what’s good and what’s bad.
And that’s what we do.
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