Breakfast

“ After this unwelcome progress through my stifling ward, I go to breakfast with what appetite I may; find the uninvitable fried beef, salt butter, husky bread, and washy coffee; listen to the clack of eight women and a dozen men,–the first silly, stupid, or possessed of one idea; the last absorbed with their breakfast and themselves to a degree that is both ludicrous and provoking, for all the dishes are ordered down the table full and returned empty ”

“ There are few things bought with money that are more delightful than a French breakfast. If you take it at your room, it appears in the shape of two small vessels, one of coffee and one of hot milk, two kinds of bread, with a thin, printed slice of butter, and one or two of some thirty dishes from which you choose, the latter flavored exquisitely enough to make one wish to be always at breakfast, but cooked and composed I know not how or of what. ”

“ Thus we go on absolving in great style, till it is time for the matutinal meal—vulgarly called breakfast; when the whiskey, eggs, toast, and tea as strong as Hercules, with ham, fowl, beef-steaks, or mutton-chops, all pour in upon us in the full tide of hospitality. ”

“ An excellent breakfast at nine o'clock, a sumptuous dinner at two, tea and punch in the afternoon, and an elegant little supper, divided the day most happily for those whose stomachs were never unprepared. ”

“ I shall make it all up to you for this mistreatment at breakfast to-morrow morning. We shall rise early—you and I—and with loud gurgling cries we shall leap headlong into one of those regular breakfasts in which the people of this city and nation specialise so delightfully. Food regulators may work their ruthless will upon the dinner trimmings, but none would dare to put so much as the weight of one impious finger upon an Englishman's breakfast table to curtail its plenitude. Why, next to Magna Charta, an Englishman's breakfast is his most sacred right. ”

“ Man dines, he would contend, as dogs or horses feed, because his body needs replenishment. Breakfast, with its delicate light dishes, fine wine, fruits and coffee,—breakfast succeeded by a prime cigar, morning sunshine, and morning talk—is, essentially, a refined, a human repast. ”

“ The cloud was still there when he came down to breakfast next morning, and did not lighten even at the sight of the well-appointed breakfast-table, and the two pretty girls who were seated thereat. Some meals may be more attractive abroad than at home. A French dinner, for example, has certain points above an English dinner; but we give way to none as regards our breakfast—that most delightful of meals to the strong and healthy, especially in springtime, when the sunshine pours in at the open window, and the scent of flowers mingles with the aroma of freshly made coffee. ”

“ But what rule governs all this? Why is breakfast different from all other things, so that the Greeks called it the best thing in the world, and so that each of us in a vague way knows that he would eat at breakfast nothing but one special kind of food, and that he could not imagine breakfast at any other hour in the day?
The provocation to this inquiry (which I have here no time to pursue) lies in the extraordinary distaste that I conceived that morning for Brule wine. My ham and bread and chocolate I had consumed overnight. ”

“ Breakfast is ready!” And with the delay prone to over-indulged youth, we still lay abed until the aroma of buckwheat cakes and coffee stealing to our bedrooms developed an appetite and induced us to rise. ”

“ Breakfast means many things to many men. Ask the American, and he will give as definition: "Shad, beefsteak, hash, fried potatoes, omelet, coffee, buckwheat cakes, waffles, corn bread, and (if he be a Virginian) batter pudding, at 8 o'clock a.m. sharp." Ask the Englishman, and he will affirm stoutly: "Tea, a rasher of bacon, dry toast, and marmalade as the clock strikes nine, or the half after." ”

“ I open door and windows wider for the blowing-through of breezes. And I wander down-stairs. It is half-after nine or half-after ten. I go into the clean empty clock-ticking kitchen and cook my breakfast. It is a task full of hungry plaisance and pleasantness. I make a British-feeling breakfast of tea and marmalade and little squares of toast and pink-and-tan rashers of bacon and two delightful eggs. Up to the moment of broaching the eggs the morning has an ancient sameness with other mornings. ”

“ The zest of a fine morning in London, the deliberation of a gentleman taking his ease in his club and fortifying himself against the day’s events with a satisfying breakfast, are communicated to the reader in a manner that at once inspires confidence and arouses the liveliest expectations. I shall not go the length of saying that all novels should begin with breakfast, but where the disclosures are to be of moment, and we are to be urged upon adventures calculated to tax our emotions or our staying powers, a breakfast table serves admirably as a point of departure. ”

“ The giving of a breakfast need not be a matter of dread to the hostess who has confidence in her cook and waitress. The menu suggested may be so modified or increased as to make it as simple or as elaborate as preference may dictate. A breakfast is a pleasant style of entertainment, for, while both sexes are admitted, as at dinner, there is not the formality of dress essential at that meal, the men appearing in morning coats, and the women in handsome high-necked and long-sleeved house or calling costumes. ”

“ More than one beginner in housekeeping wonders whether a light breakfast of little but a roll and coffee is more healthful than one of several courses. It is an old American idea that luncheon or supper may be light, dinner varied and heavier, but breakfast must be wholesome and nourishing. ”

“ If he will read the morning paper over his coffee, his cakes growing cold meanwhile, and thereby obliges the cook to bake twice as many as would be necessary for the meal were all to partake of it at the same time, restrain the censure that trembles on your tongue, and chat merrily with the children. A silent, hasty breakfast is one of the worst things imaginable for their digestion and tempers. ”

“ This noonday breakfast very much resembles the morning breakfast of the French country-house in the variety of foods. This repast always is most attractive to an American because of its informality, and the viands are enticing. This morning breakfast of the Parisian is really like a little dinner, and that is what we wish to serve to meet all the varied obligations that are to be wiped out by an artistic and choice return entertainment, whether it be called luncheon or noonday breakfast. ”

“ Breakfast is a pleasant meal at any time if the operator be hungry, but who shall describe the delights of breakfast when eaten in company with several thousand wild-fowl, in a romantic wilderness with fresh air laden with the perfumes of the vegetable kingdom encircling the person ”

“ There are eight or ten boarders, two or three of them ladies—two servants. For breakfast we had excellent flavored coffee, hot and strong, not too clear and no great deal of cream; veal cutlets, elegant ham-and-eggs and nice bread and butter. I never sat down to a more plentiful or a nicer breakfast. ”

“ Sunrise breakfast, sun high dinner, Sundown sup, makes a saint of a sinner-- and especially shun the 9 A.M. breakfast, which leads to a heavy tiffin at 1 P.M., the hottest and most trying section of the day. ”

“ But the coffee must be of the best, no chicory as you hope for salvation; the rolls must be crisp and light and fresh, as they always are in Paris and Vienna; the butter must be pure and sweet. And if you possess a fragment of self-respect, enjoy this petit déjeuner alone, in the solitude of your chamber. Upon the early family breakfast many and many a happy marriage has been wrecked; and so be warned in time.
At noon once more is man fit to meet his fellow-man and woman. Appetite has revived. The day is at its prime. ”

“ Breakfast as a social medium has never flourished in America, chiefly because of our lack of leisure. Where recognized at all it is [85] thrown into the middle of the day where it becomes an anomaly, an impudent intrusion. A breakfast that is a luncheon is not a breakfast, but a concession to the Philistines. Once, with considerable difficulty, I persuaded a lady of my acquaintance to undertake to popularize breakfast by asking a company, few and fit, for eight o’clock. ”

“ Breakfast immediately followed chapel; tea and coffee and different cold meats were placed on the side-tables, and the girls helped themselves to what they pleased.
The great event at breakfast was the post. Each student, when she entered the breakfast-hall, would make an eager rush to the side-table where the letters were neatly placed. During breakfast these were read and chatted over. The whole meal was most informal and seldom lasted more than a quarter of an hour. ”

“ I have ordered a capital dinner at eight this evening, and there is a cold pheasant, and a bottle of Duff Gordon’s gold sherry in the well of the dog-cart, to say nothing of anchovy sandwiches. You must hold on till two o’clock, and then make up for lost time at luncheon. Next time you’ll be punctual.”
“The devil take it, man,” responded I; “I can no more walk thirty miles without my breakfast, than I can leap a thirty foot fen ditch without a pole. Breakfast—by George! I must have some breakfast, or no snipe to-day. ”

“ Conformity to a foolish or hurtful fashion is always weak, if not positively wicked.
Serve your fruit, then, as the first or last course at your family breakfast as may seem right to yourself, but, by all means, have it whenever you can procure it comfortably and without much expense. In warm weather, you had better banish meat from the morning bill of fare, three days in the week, than have the children go without berries and other fresh fruits. Make a pretty glass dish, or silver or wicker basket of peaches, pears or plums, an institution of the summer breakfast. ”

“ Breakfast in England is a confidential and unceremonious hour, and servants are generally dispensed with. This is to me, I confess, an advantage over every other meal. I detest eating with twenty tall fellows standing opposite, whose business it is to watch me. The coffee and tea were on the table, with toast, muffins, oat-cakes, marmalade, jellies, fish, and all the paraphernalia of a Scotch breakfast ”

“ After a good night’s rest my mother’s nerves seemed all right again, and by 7 o’clock we had finished our breakfast, which consisted of bread and butter and coffee—the latter luxurious beverage being furnished by one whose heart was in touch with humanity. ”

“ The servants get their breakfast at the same time as we do, as we require hardly any or no waiting upon, everything being ready on the table. In a former letter I told you what was our breakfast some years since when in business, now we have placed on the table some brown bread, rolls and dry toast; the butter is in a glass butter-dish, and the eggs are brought up when we have sat down to table. ”

“ He comes in pre-engrossed, and there is seldom any morning salutation. At breakfast I sit (he wills it so) at the end of the table, pour out his excessively weak tea, and put the heavy buttered buns which he loves within his easy reach. When we are alone, I eat my own bread and butter in silence; but if undergraduates breakfast with us, it is my duty, if I know anything about it, so to turn the conversation that he may learn what their 'lines' are, and converse accordingly. ”

“ The English breakfast is an institution growing in favor here, and rightfully, too; for a party of fresh, good-natured, well-dressed people, assembled at breakfast on a summer morning, is as nearly perfect a form of reunion as can be devised. ”

“ For her own breakfast she'll project a scheme,
Nor take her tea without a stratagem; ”

“ The wherewithal for breakfast is, of course, their first consideration, and this they find along the strand and around the edge of the woods, though more sparingly than in their search yesterday. Only enough is obtained to afford them a stinted repast—a mere luncheon. ”

“ Breakfast is equally simple,—and the "simple life" at close range is apt to lose many of its charms. In the corner of the one windowless room that serves for all domestic purposes stands the earthen pot of black gruel. ”

“ It is not always easy to appear even moderately cheerful at breakfast-time. An eminent physician told me once, as the result of many years’ study and observation, that no woman should be up in the morning more than an hour before breaking her fast. My own experience has so far corroborated the wisdom of the advice that I always strive to impress upon my domestics, especially the not strong ones, the expediency of eating a slice of bread and drinking a cup of tea during the interval that must elapse between their rising-hour and the kitchen breakfast. ”

“ Breakfast had already been served to the now busy workers; and from the wagons, on which were the big stoves, there arose appetizing odors, as a second meal was being gotten ready—a breakfast for the performers who did not have to get up as early as did the laborers. ”

“ Milk and cream are splendid articles of diet. Let her then make a hearty breakfast, and let there be no mistake about it. There is no meal in the day so wretchedly managed, so poor and miserable, and so devoid of nourishment, as an English breakfast. Let every young wife, therefore, 51look well to the breakfast, that it be good and varied and substantial, or ill health will almost certainly ensue. [18]
82. A meager unsubstantial breakfast causes a sinking sensation of the stomach and bowels, and for the remainder of the day a miserable depression of spirits. ”