Warm breakfast all over the world

Breakfast is a synonym for familiarity, belonging.

Compared to other daily meals breakfast is the one which shows our belonging to a particular culture or area. Why is it like that?  Maybe because in the morning we are still sleepy, eager for pats and safety, unprotected and without a shield which accompanies us during the day so we reach out for something that is the closest, simplest, most familiar, something which quickly brings us into balance with outside world.

Breakfast...favourite meal for majority of people. Its attraction lies right in its simplicity. Breakfast is not a matter of big chefs or modern cuisines. Everyone knows how to make coffee, fry eggs or toast. 

Breakfast appeal lies in its simplicity

New York. An American woman is preparing breakfast for her family. From a maxi-fridge she is taking out butter, eggs, bacon, milk, cheese, orange juice, then bagel buns, corn flakes, fruit. After that she turns on a filter coffee slot. In a few minutes the kitchen will smell after breakfast and her sleepy family will soon be on their feet. In fifteen-twenty minutes the breakfast will be served on the table, fried eggs with bacon, bagel buns with cream cheese, pancakes with fruit and maple syrup. Of course big cups with filter coffee as well. For the end, children will eat up a bowl of cornflakes with milk. 

Similar smell will soften a family in Liverpool and all along England, too.  Their breakfast also consists of eggs with bacon. But, slightly north, in Scotland, the breakfast might contain salmon, smoked or fresh. Besides, in Scotland as well as in Ireland, on the breakfast menu you will find porridge - oatmeal cooked in water or in milk and seasoned by choice with salt, brown sugar, raisins, cinnamon, sour cream.

Spoon will be used for eating breakfast in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, but their porridge will mostly be buckwheat enhanced with added sour cream.

Rome. Bars are full with still sleepy Italians who are fighting to catch their morning dose of caffeine. Depending on the amount of milk they want in their coffee cup they are choosing espresso, coffee macchiato, latte macchiato, but above all - cappuccino. While sipping cappuccino what they eat is usually a little sweet puff pastry bun, simple or filled with honey, jam or chocolate, called brioches in the northern, and cornetto in southern Italy. One should be well trained and careful when eating them because powdered sugar on these buns rises up like morning mist and could easily end up on the tie or suit of some gentleman, just like the bun crust could stick to some lady's lipstick.

French breakfast also consists of a warm drink and a sweet bun or cake. On week days in family houses the French will prefer to have a slice of bread, to be more precise baguette, with butter and marmalade, and on weekends a puff pastry bun, known as croissant, is a must.

Beijing. A couple is getting out of their apartment, with an empty stomach. On their way to work they are stopping at their favourite kiosk, which works from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. and offers only breakfast, and there they are buying dumplings (stuffed pasta, like ravioli) cooked by steaming and stuffed with pork and vegetables. Or they are taking salty pancakes with onion. While waiting for public transport, they are skilfully using their chopsticks for eating their breakfast.

More to the east, in Tokyo, the first breakfast meal is asagohan or morning rice. Rice is a morning breakfast also in Thailand, Korea and in most far-east countries.

Mexico City. Colourful, fragrant and spicy el desayuno in Mexico is most of all tortilla, or, how it is usually called "Mexican bread" with added meat, beans, cheese, vegetables. What the Mexicans also love having for breakfast is huevos rancheros, fried eggs laid on tortilla with added spicy tomato sauce, and of course, with lots of colourful fruit and vegetables: pepper, bananas, avocado, mango, pineapple.

In Maghreb's Africa breakfast is tea and bread made of various wheat with legumes, fish or yogurt. In the southern parts of the "black continent" breakfast can consist of different kinds of porridges, rice or corn, served with varied types of fruits such as coconut and banana.

Breakfast is a synonym for familiarity, belonging. We can live in country without using native language, we can change our behaviour and manners and dressing style, we can addopt to different climates and environments, but breakfast...Only then when we replace "our" breakfast for a "foreign" one, we can say for ourselves that we are not foreigners any more.