Tag: brunch

In Defense of Breakfast

I wish I could remember the first time I watched “The Wizard of Oz”. I was probably six or seven, and so many scenes in the movie would’ve been magical at that age.  Black-and-white turning to brilliant color as Dorothy opens the door post-tornado. Glinda the Good Witch descending in a giant soap bubble. The Emerald City gleaming green beyond endless poppies. But one scene disappoints at any age: when (The Great and Powerful) Oz is exposed as a mere mortal (“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”)  It’s the same disappointment I have with Mehmet Oz right now.

If you know Oprah Winfrey you probably know Dr. Oz.  A cardiothoracic surgeon and Columbia University professor, Oz added “television personality” to his resume when he appeared on Oprah’s show more than sixty times.  Later he launched the daily “Dr. Oz Show”, addressing medical issues and personal health in front of a studio audience.  He also authored the best-selling YOU: On A Diet series of books.

I’ve listened to Dr. Oz a handful of times and his medicine seems credible enough, especially with his attention to homeopathy and alternatives.  But earlier this year he made a statement I simply couldn’t digest.  Oz said (and I quote): “Breakfast should be banned”.  WOOF.  To me and a whole lot of other aficionados, that’s a truly harsh statement.

I’ve written about breakfast before, and my unabashed affection for its foods (ex. see Dream Puffs and The Meal of Champions).  For me, “it’s the most important meal of the day”.  However, those in the know – Dr. Oz included – say I’m victim to a powerful long-ago marketing campaign.  In the 1940’s General Foods decreed breakfast as “most important” based on the claims of anonymous nutritionists, when in fact GF simply wanted to sell more of its breakfast cereal.  Seventy years later many of us still buy into the idea of most important.  We just don’t have the data to back it up.

Now, let’s clarify a couple of points here, especially for those of you who are take-it-or-leave-it about the morning meal.  First, breakfast on my table is usually healthy and/or whole-food.  I like steel-cut oats with fruit, soft-boiled eggs with pepper, and yogurt with granola.  I adore traditional unhealthy breakfast champs like pancakes and waffles, omelets with the works, and bacon/ham/sausage, but those are for occasional Sundays after church or special occasions with family.  My weekday breakfasts are simple and small, designed as much to fuel as to fill.

Second, I have to cut Dr. Oz a little slack with his breakfast ban.  To add context, Oz goes on to say, “instead of eating breakfast first thing every morning, eat your first meal of the day when you are really hungry”.  In other words, Oz isn’t attacking breakfast so much as the timing of breakfast.  Have breakfast for lunch, for all he cares.  In fact Oz says, “Have brunch every day of the week!”

Intermittent fasting (IF) is a popular approach to diet these days, where meals are timed to create periods of fasting and non-fasting.  If you subscribe to IF it’s difficult to have an early-morning breakfast, else you’ll have dinner for lunch and nothing for the remainder of the day.  I like the concept of IF; I just don’t have the discipline (nor the inclination).  Morning breakfast works best for me – every day at the same time.  I look forward to the foods and I like the fact I’m fueling my mind and body before putting either through its paces.  But you may be different.  You may wake up and not be hungry.  You may venture several hours into the day before even thinking about food.  Your travel mug of coffee may be “breakfast” all by itself.  Different strokes for different folks.

Even if the entire camp isn’t eating breakfast first thing in the morning (or at all), I must stand fast on this: Breakfast is a morning meal. 4am, 7am, 11am – I don’t care, as long as it’s before noon.  None of this “breakfast for dinner” nonsense.  Wait, let me grant one exception: Sunday brunch (where I never partake of the “lunch” items).  Otherwise, I think even Dr. Oz would agree with the old adage, “Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper”.  If we could all learn to eat like that, we’d be “great and powerful” every waking hour of the day.

Some content sourced from Somag News, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

The Meal of Champions

Last weekend my family and I had breakfast at a small place in downtown Denver called “Syrup”. Syrup’s menu includes breakfast and lunch, but make no mistake; breakfast is king here. I chose the Eggs Benedict with corned beef hash, and all of us shared the Cinnamon Roll Waffle flight – a delight to the senses.  It was a breakfast to savor.

28- breakfast

Breakfast has always been my favorite meal, or should I say breakfast “out”.  People always say “really?”, but I never hear them go on to say whether lunch or dinner is their favorite.  Lunch is the neglected and oft overlooked meal of the three – perhaps a topic of its own for a future blog.  Dinner represents 95% of what people mean when they recommend a restaurant.  Maybe that’s what makes breakfast so endearing to me.  It’s the most compact of the meals.  Breakfast has its essentials and therefore creativity can only go so far.  Dinner has no boundaries, but breakfast can go very wrong if you stray from the expected.

I’ve sampled several of the more exotic approaches to breakfast.  I’ve been to the Cafe du Monde in New Orleans for the famous coffee au lait and French-style beignets (fried dough topped with enough powdered sugar to sneeze at).  I’ve been to the little Danish town of Solvang, California for aebleskivers (pancake balls with fruit in the middle).  I’ve even toured the Kellogg’s factory in Michigan, and to this day I still can resurrect the smell of cooked corn flakes.  Put all that aside though, because breakfast for me comes down to just a few essentials on the plate.  Eggs any style.  Bacon or sausage (the requisite “protein”).  And toast or some other form of carb load.  At breakfast “out” the eggs may become an omelet or a skillet or a scramble.  The bacon may be applewood-smoked and the sausage will have a hint of sage.  The toast usually runs a distant second to a freshly-made waffle or fruit-topped pancake.  But dress it down and the plate looks pretty much the same as what I prepare for myself at home.

I like breakfast because I’m a morning person (though not one of those restless souls who make it to 5am yoga).  I also like breakfast because virtually everything on the menu appeals to me.  Except bananas.  If I ever opened a breakfast place you’d have to bring your own bananas.

Sunday brunch is not only a favorite meal but a favorite activity.  I associate Sunday brunch with family and with special occasions like Easter and Mother’s Day.  I love dressing up for church and going to brunch after the service.  I love the serve-yourself aspect of brunch – the more options to savor the better.  But the “unch” in brunch gets no love from me.  As my family will attest to, my plate is always 100% breakfast.

I never understood the term “American breakfast” until college, when I spent a year abroad in Rome.  I love the Italians and their “dolce vita” way of life.  They perfected the coffee bar concept long before it became a staple in America.  But they never gave breakfast it’s proper due.  Indeed, “breakfast” in Italy is a small cup of espresso and a hard, barely-sweet roll, downed hastily at the counter before rushing off to wherever it is one is going.  No eggs or bacon or pancakes.  What’s the fun in that?

In Ireland breakfast essentials include tomatoes and blood sausage.  I can’t come to terms with vegetables for breakfast, and blood sausage shouldn’t even be mentioned in a post about breakfast.  Again, no fun on that plate.

Here’s an example of breakfast fun.  In the classic movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang my favorite scene is with the breakfast machine.  Dick Van Dyke’s character creates the magical car of course, but he also creates a contraption that cooks and distributes eggs, sausage, and toast, all while the breakfast plate moves along a heated track, eventually rolling down to the table ready to eat.  Genius.

Breakfast places – at least in Colorado – are a born-again trend these days.  Rather than Denny’s or Waffle House we now choose from “Over Easy” or “Snooze” or “The Egg & I”.  And in the ultimate nod to my favorite meal, McDonald’s recently changed their menu to include All Day Breakfast.  I think McDonald’s gets my drift.  Breakfast is not just “the most important meal of the day”.  It’s the one that should be on the menu morning, noon, and night.