The Guardian just asked an interesting question: "Breakfast: too
early for culinary innovation?" Apparently in Britain an
organization is running a contest asking for the best breakfast
recipe, and one of the categories is for the most innovative
breakfast. Of course, this leads to the first problem - defining
innovation. Apparently it's being defined in the contest as
"Something a bit different - a dish with unusual ingredients
or flavour combinations or ingredients sourced from local
suppliers," which, as the Guardian points out, keeps the
bar pretty low.
However, that doesn't take away from an intriguing
speculation - whether the world can be divided into
breakfast traditionalists or breakfast innovators. We'd describe
the difference as someone who eats only from a limited menu every
morning (cereal perhaps occasionally broken up by eggs or panakes)
or someone who varies the routine and eagerly tries something
new.
But, as The Guardian points out, people may make
different choices at different times. They prefer to look at it as
a question of what kind of morning you're having. They describe the
usual day as "Day to day, most of us rise reluctantly.
We're sleep-deprived carcasses stumbling blearily into a cold and
hostile world. For the first hour, at least, you are simmering with
resentment at actually being out of bed. Even if you're not already
running late, it is painful to do anything more than pour milk on
to cereal, pop bread in a toaster, or maybe boil an egg. The last
thing you want is to be faced with complex flavours that require
you to think."
But then there's the occasional morning when you wake up
hale and hearty and "you're definitely open to more
adventurous suggestions." Or, in sharp contrast, it's a truly awful
morning, "when all breakfast bets are off, and that's
when you're mortally hungover. In such desperate times, you need
sugar, you need carbs, you need help. And you need it now. Over
Christmas, particularly, this is when a can of full-fat Coke and
the remnants of last night's trifle or Sara Lee double chocolate
gateau come into their own. Cold from the fridge, they are balm for
a broken soul."
They end the article with a variety of questions, which we
think would be good not only to ask yourself but also your family
members. These questions may provide some very good
self-reflection, or at least dredge up some fun
memories:
"Do you crave more variety at breakfast? Is it time
we looked beyond cereal and toast, and broke the back of that
powerful boiled and scrambled heggemony? Which country has
breakfast nailed? And what's the strangest thing that you've ever
eaten first thing?"
We'd love to hear your answers. And, if you decide to
change the pace a bit, take a look at the over 6,000 online
recipes we have at the EYB library that can be categorized as
appropriate for breakfast. One of the most popular will take you
out of any rut, Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe for
Shakshuka (North African skillet and eggs), which comes with a
video.
Photo of Shakshuka courtesy of the
Guardian