Today’s comedy sample is a stand up bit I wrote but never tested in 2015. Enjoy!
French Toast
written Tony DiGerolamo, Copyright 5/2/2015
I noticed the other day that we, as Americans, have destroyed breakfast. Breakfast used to be the start of your day, the one time you’d eat something healthy. Not anymore.
How many people out there love French Toast? I love it too, but it’s not breakfast. Think about the ingredients. Some French guy took some bread (already fattening) soaked in egg, fried it, added butter and powdered sugar and then you put syrup on it, which is essentially liquid sugar. What part of that is healthy?
It all goes back to cereal commercials. When I was a kid, we had a desert that was called breakfast. It was called Cookie Crisp. It was little cookies in a bowl of milk. And with a straight face, the announcer would say, “Cookie Crisp is part of this balanced breakfast!” So, a balanced breakfast would include a glass of orange juice, some bacon, some eggs, some fruit and a giant bowl of sugary cookies. That’s balance in the U.S. It’s not balance! The eggs and bacon aren’t canceling out the sugar!
You could substitute anything for Cookie Crisp and it would probably be just as healthy. Moreso. “This warm dog turd is part of this balanced breakfast!” “I gotta eat this dog turd to get to the good part, but it’s worth it to have a balanced breakfast.”
So getting back to the French Toast, now that we are older, we have convinced ourselves that French Toast is not a desert. “Well it’s not Cookie Crisp.” No, it’s worse. Cookie Crisp wasn’t fried in egg and slathered in butter before the sugar.
Waffles are just as bad. They are supposed to be for ice cream, but fuck it, let’s start the day with them. We’ll put the whipped cream, a little chocolate syrup and— Get that fucking fruit away from me! I’m trying to have breakfast here! God damned strawberries gonna ruin everything!
And I saw the final move in Ponzio’s Diner the other day. Ponzio’s has weekend breakfast desert: Bananas Foster French Toast. That’s not breakfast! That’s desert! Bananas Foster is a desert! Basically, they just took desert and added some fried bread, that’s it! That would be like shoving two slices of fried bread under a banana split and calling Banana Split French Toast. Don’t get me wrong, it would be awesome, but it wouldn’t be breakfast.
This is a future conversation you will here:
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just so tired. I had a big breakfast, but I’m falling asleep.”
“Well, what did you have?”
“I had some cake with some fried bread underneath. It was German Chocolate Cake French Toast. Part of a balanced breakfast, I don’t understand.”
“That’s so weird.”
“Listen, I gotta hit the doctor’s today. They’re taking my foot cause of diabetes.”