There are still many people who think we ‘Brits’ eat a full English breakfast every day. I wish!! For most of us it’s a rare treat… but a treat nevertheless. It’s a couple of rashers of bacon, a sausage or two, an egg fried “over easy”, half a grilled tomato, a few mushrooms, perhaps a generous spoon of baked beans, some fried bread (never brown bread and fry it in lard, dripping or bacon fat); there could be some fried potatoes and even a nice round of black pudding. Well, put like that, yes, it is a bit much!
My earliest memories of breakfast are not of me actually eating breakfast but the sound of breakfast. How does breakfast sound? Like burnt toast being scraped over the sink. Not very appetising, you might think, but to me it was pure comfort as it meant that my Dad was home from night shift and all was well.
I am lucky as I am one of those people who can eat almost anything for that first meal of the day… apart from the very popular French breakfast of bread, jam, chocolate spread and honey. I just don’t do sweet things in the morning. I am quite content with last night’s curry, fish, Marmite, paté or even noodles. I have never quite got the hang of dipping bread into a bowl of coffee; nor, even worse, buttered bread, leaving oily globules on top of that hot beverage – YUCK.
A bowl of muesli, a slice of dark bread
The breakfast that would be my absolute favourite would be the Swedish buffet at any decent hotel. In Stockholm I have munched my way through huge amounts of food between the hours of 7 and 9am. A bowl of muesli, a slice of dark bread, a little ham and some thin shavings of cheese, a wedge or two of tomato with a boiled egg, some fish roe and a bit of smoked salmon, a couple of pieces of crisp bread, a Danish pastry (the one with the custard 
filling) and some grapes and yoghurt because I don’t want to look like a pig. The reason for the aforementioned menu is pure economics: the price of everything in Scandinavia is so high that it might be necessary to skip lunch altogether.
A Mexican breakfast is a good start to the day – a crisp corn tortilla topped with a fried egg and some cooked salsa. There might even be a bean-filled flour tortilla with some grated cheese and fresh salsa, and some fruit to finish. There is always drinking chocolate but that’s not for me. Too sweet.
The typical New York diner is a great place to start your Big Apple day. An absolute passion of mine is Eggs Benedict. Two wonderfully runny poached eggs atop a toasted ‘English Muffin’ (in quotes because it’s nothing like an English muffin but it’s like an English crumpet unless you are from Yorkshire and then it’s a pikelet …I think!) with some ham and a silky Hollandaise sauce.
If you travel a bit further south in the USA you can find biscuits and gravy (no, not the British biscuit with chocolate on one side. These are like fluffy scones). It can be delicious if done well. Fry some good-quality crumbled sausage meat (not whole sausages) until brown. Remove the sausage from the pan but leave the fat. Add some flour to make a roux and when it’s just cooked add milk to make a creamy sauce. Return the sausage meat to the pan to reheat. The scone-like biscuits go very well with the rich ‘gravy’.
When we lived in Montreal we had a weekend ritual of buying bagels, cream cheese and smoked salmon. To be honest I am not keen on ‘Montreal’ bagels as I find them a bit dry and small. I’ll stick to the regular chubby New York kind.
In Israel breakfast is often the biggest meal of the day. These huge spreads consist of cheeses, olives and oils, lots of different breads and pitas, omelettes and hard-boiled eggs, and a list of salads.
It’s more to do with geography than gastronomic correctness
A comforting winter breakfast might include some stuffed paratha, plain yoghurt and some chutney. I could even fancy a little dhal. It might sound strange but if it’s good enough for millions of Indians then it can’t be bad.
I once stayed in a hotel in Queensland, Australia, that had fish and chips on the breakfast menu! In Russia and Poland they might have cheeses, pancakes and jam. In the Balkans they prefer cheeses, bread, tomatoes, salami. Bulgarians sometimes have soup for breakfast, even chicken soup or porridge served plain or with fruit, drizzled with honey or chunks of feta cheese.
Japan has an array of interesting breakfast goodies. Decent hotels offer the guests all the usual Western suspects of bacon, eggs and toast, but the traditional breakfast is 
somewhat more colourful. Miso soup is ubiquitous, along with rice (over which many people break a raw egg, although I’ve never seen a non-Japanese do that). One can find natto – fermented beans – in small tubs, but even some Japanese find this rather pungent preparation unpleasant. My personal favourite Japanese breakfast would be soup, rice, steamed salmon, and pickled vegetables to add a hint of zesty flavour.
There isn’t a wrong or right breakfast food, unless it’s just unhealthy. It’s said to be the most important meal of the day. It’s more to do with geography than gastronomic correctness, so have a good breakfast wherever you are.
Article by Chrissie Walker © 2018