Breakfast is the first meal of the day usually eaten in the morning. The word in English refers to breaking the fasting period of the previous night, “to break one’s fast”.
Everyone has breakfast. At least most of them. Well, I rarely had breakfast when I was still at work, which is nothing to brag about. Someone once said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
And then we have what is called a continental breakfast in European hotels. A slice or two of bread, a slice of salami, a slice of cheese, a cup of coffee or tea.
Then there is the English breakfast, where they serve you Heinz beans with tomato sauce early in the morning. Which is an American invention anyway. And blood sausage.
And as Supertramp say in their song Breakfast in America released on March 29, 1979.
Could we have kippers for breakfast
Mummy dear, Mummy dear?
Kippers, an iconic British breakfast dish consisting of herring that has been cured via kippering—split open, cleaned, salted, and smoked—and then usually grilled, broiled, or sautéed.
Or a Swedish buffet, where we have self service. Which we always overfill and the excess food goes in the trash. Or into women’s handbags for an afternoon snack.
And what exactly is a typical American breakfast?
A typical American breakfast often includes eggs, bacon, and toast, but variations like pancakes with syrup, cereal with milk, or breakfast sandwiches are also common. Coffee is a very popular beverage.
I remember going to a Polish restaurant on 1st Avenue in NY for breakfast almost a quarter of a century ago. They had a breakfast special from 9 to 11 a.m. You got orange juice, two eggs any style, fried bacon or sausage, a hush brown, two slices of toast, butter, honey, jam. Served with white coffee. All that for 3.50 bucks at the time. Unfortunately, that restaurant no longer exists today.
At least I can say that I didn’t see any juice this time. But the fact is that you have to order almost everything, except the basic plate, and also pay for it separately. Even coffee, juice, extra egg, toast …
I remember going to Lefty O’Douls Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge for breakfast years ago in San Francisco. A younger man with a cowboy hat on his head sits down at my table. He ordered breakfast and said he wanted a dozen scrambled eggs. Well, that’s what he got, although the waitress at first thought he was kidding. It was definitely the most generous American breakfast I’ve ever seen. But the guy said he was a truck driver and didn’t know when he would be able to eat again.
And so on Sunday morning, Tadej and I went for breakfast. Just around the corner to the Ukrainian restaurant Veselka. It was drizzling lightly, the wind was blowing around the corner, and considering the early hour, the restaurant was almost empty. A friendly waitress led us to a table and sat us down.
Ukrainian folklore motifs and flags on the walls. By the way, веселка (veselka) means rainbow in Ukrainian.
After a short exchange of opinions, we ordered the usual breakfast, eggs and buckwheat kasha. Now, watch out, the trick is how you order eggs. You have to say two eggs sunny side up. OK, maybe they really do resemble the sun. By the way, we also say, at least for foreigners, unusually – eggs on the eye. Another option is to order scrambled eggs. But such a name is more or less the same everywhere.
Toast, jam and butter. We also treated ourselves to coffee.
Various sandwiches are also popular for breakfast. A few days later I treated myself to one at Phebe’s on the corner of Bowery and East 4th. The sandwich had bacon, scrambled eggs, cheddar on seeded sourdough. With a side dish of fresh vegetables, mustard and ketchup.
However, despite everything, breakfast should still be the most important meal of the day. Whatever you can afford.