What is your breakfast today ?!?

Sunday morning start late and lazy !  -  mothers are concerned about what to offer for their children !?! -  some of us take Idly, Pongal, vada, some have aloo-paratha, some take cereals with hot or cold milk, it is bread toast or plain for some,  some simply take fruits – it is breakfast ! -  and the parrots were seen eating part of the tree itself ! 

Breakfast as we know it didn't exist for large parts of history. The Romans didn't really eat it, usually consuming only one meal a day around noon, says a  food historian.     

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.  Various "typical" or "traditional" breakfast menus exist, with food choices varying by regions and traditions worldwide. In Old English, a regular morning meal was called morgenmete,  and the word dinner, which originated from Gallo-Romance desjunare ("to break one's fast"), referred to a meal after fasting.  Around mid-13 century, that meaning of dinner faded away, and around 15th century "breakfast" came into use in written English to describe a morning meal. 

Romans called breakfast ientaculum. It was usually composed of everyday staples like bread, cheese, olives, salad, nuts, raisins, and cold meat left over from the night before. They also drank wine-based drinks such as mulsum, a mixture of wine, honey, and aromatic spices.  1st century Latin poet Martial said that ientaculum was eaten at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, while 16th century scholar Claudius Saumaise wrote that it was typically eaten at 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. It seems unlikely that any fixed time was truly assigned for this meal. 

In UK in the early 16th century, some physicians warned against eating breakfast, because they said it was not healthy to eat before a prior meal was digested.  By the 1550s, however, there were multiple sources that claimed breakfast was an important meal.  In 1589, Thomas Cogan stated that it was unhealthy to miss breakfast in the morning.   

The Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th Century regularised working hours, with labourers needing an early meal to sustain them at work. All classes started to eat a meal before going to work.   By the 1920s and 1930s the governments in Europe were  promoting breakfast as the most important meal of the day, but then World War II made the usual breakfast fare hard to get. But as Britain emerged from the post-war years into the economically liberated 1950s, things like American toasters, sliced bread, instant coffee and pre-sugared cereals invaded the home. Breakfast as we now know it. 

What did you have for breakfast this morning as you read this - for most south Indians a cup of chai or a tumbler of Coffee is as good as a breakfast! 

With regards – S Sampathkumar

14.7.2o24