Breakfast is the first meal of a day. The word ‘breakfast’ is derived from the phrase ‘breaking the fast’. We fast while we sleep and breaking that fast should make breakfast the most joyful meal of the day, as we have lived through the night and are beginning a new day.
People all over across the world have been brought up on the idea of three meals a day as a normal eating pattern, but it wasn’t always like that. Breakfast is our first meal of a day and the most important one for our well-being and health.
Breakfast didn’t exist for large parts of history. The Romans didn’t really eat it, they usually took only one meal a day around noon. The food historians say that Romans believed it was healthier to eat only one meal a day, they were concerned with digestion and eating more than one meal was considered a form of gluttony. This thinking had an impact on the way people ate for a very long time. In the Middle Ages nothing could be eaten before morning Mass and meat could only be eaten for half the days of the year. It’s considered that the word breakfast entered the English language during this time and it derives from the expression “breaking the fast”.
It is believed that most of the people started eating breakfast around the seventeenth century. Coffee, tea and dishes like scrambled eggs started to appear on the tables of the wealthy classes. The rich had the special breakfast rooms in the mid of 18th century.
This morning meal changed in aristocratic circles in the 19th Century, with the fashion for hunting parties that lasted days, even weeks. There could be up to 24 dishes served for breakfast. The Industrial revolution in the mid-19th Century changed working hours, with labourers needing an early meal to sustain them at work. All classes started to eat a meal before going to work.
Variety of breakfast dishes differs from country to country. For example, the Iranian style of breakfast is truly king-sized: Fried eggs with fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, flavourful vegetables, creamy yogurt and filing bread. In China a regular breakfast includes Chinese crullers or oil sticks served along with warm soy milk, fried turnip cakes and sesame balls. No matter how rich is the breakfast, it still stays the most important meal of a day to start with.
Breakfast can be served in different ways: you could serve it as in a bed and breakfast or arrange a small buffet and let your guests fend for themselves. Read more about breakfast serving techniques in the School of Table art section.