Exploring the American Breakfast

What do Americans eat for breakfast? Ask them and they will tell you they eat something very healthy and admirable -- probably never a donut. Survey takers have an explanation for this: when you ask someone what they eat, they will tell you what they think you'll find admirable. You could put it this way: they lie. (Source)

Vintage ad for Sara Lee cakes in foil pans.
Probably still very good for breakfast.

I have a vivid memory of a family whose children I often babysat when I was a teen-ager. They normally ate Sarah Lee cake for breakfast, especially chocolate cake. The children promised faithfully that if asked in school what they had for breakfast they would say eggs, toast, and orange juice. I was impressed, as virtually every day our family actually did eat orange juice, cold cereal with milk, and toast, in that order. Occasionally oatmeal. We never ate Sara Lee cake, not even for dinner. Also, I don't remember any teachers ever asking what we had for breakfast.

The question of what Americans eat for breakfast -- and what they should eat for breakfast -- is still a fraught one, discussed by numerous long articles. The breakfast industrial complex that produces boxed cereal, single-serving yogurt cups, toaster-ready pastries, breakfast bars, frozen breakfast burritos, and similar things for home consumption constantly tries to keep up with changing tastes and changing willingness to prepare or clean up from breakfast. Cereal is losing. Pop tarts and yogurt may be gaining. The fast-food and to-go coffee industry has its own issues with consumer desires -- not to mention the current coronavirus disruptions to any eating out. 

My most recent diner breakfast in Florida last January.

You can eat breakfast out when circumstances are favorable. Trendy cafes serve iconic avocado toast or egg-white omelets -- or whatever is newly trendy. Roadside motel chains present plastic tubes of Fruit Loops or corn flakes, gummy bagels with plastic tubs of cream cheese, a fruit bowl with bananas and flavorless apples, and do-it-yourself waffle makers for the guests to argue over. Wannabe classic diners serve ham-and-eggs or shrimp-and-grits or biscuits-and-gravy or pancakes-and-bacon or even eggs Benedict, all maybe with a side of hash-browns. Fancy hotel dining rooms serve huge buffets with every breakfast item imaginable and some that aren't imaginable. Much has been disrupted by the social distancing necessitated by the coronavirus outbreak, of course.

And who needs to mention McDonald's, Starbucks, or Dunkin'? 

Regional exotic or homey favorites abound: New Jersey's Taylor ham on a roll, Hawaiian Loco Moco, New Orleans beignets, New York bagels and lox, Southwest huevos rancheros, Southern chicken-and-waffles, Pennsylvania Dutch scrapple and many more. For rather comprehensive lists of state and regional favorites see "The Best Breakfast in Every State" and "51 Regional American Breakfasts."

From our cross-country trip in 2014: breakfast at Best Western motels. 

Breakfast offers an opportunity to start each day anew. You can skip breakfast entirely as many Americans do, or you can buy the manufactured-by-advertising idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You can find many hundreds of recipes online for breakfast dishes both simple and elaborate. You can try to choose a healthy breakfast that's right for a need to slim down or at least not gain weight -- a choice that changes with constant new "research" about what's healthy and what isn't. Or you can go to Cheesecake Factory and eat a 2,180 calorie breakfast in the form of French toast with bacon or ham: this is the most caloric of the breakfast menu items listed in "The 17 unhealthiest breakfasts in America," dated Sept. 26, 2020. Runner up: Bob Evans' double meat breakfast with eggs, pancakes, and hash browns, at 2020 calories and "more than a day's worth of fat, saturated fat, and over two full days' worth of sodium."

The other day I was so stressed by the election aftermath that I had ice cream for breakfast. That was unusual. I won't mention any more specifics of my breakfast practices, you would think I was lying. 

Anyway, I miss diners in these days of restricitons.

Blog post © 2020 mae sander.