a traditional all-american breakfast
That title is not intended to dis the good people of Canada. The All-Canadian breakfast is similar with some regional differences, to be sure.
The traditional breakfast in the USA and Canada can trace its roots back to the full English breakfast and, since we are melting-pot countries, other European breakfast traditions. Our traditional breakfasts feature sweet and mild-flavored foods. Some typical items include oatmeal porridge, grits (particularly in the South), and other hot grain meals. You will also find eggs, bacon, ham, steak, sausage, fried potatoes, biscuits, toast, pancakes, waffles, French toast, cornbread, English muffins, donuts and pastries, and fresh or even cooked fruit. What a menu!
That is the sort of thing you will find in restaurants and in homes on weekends and holidays. Not all of it on one table, but some things from that list will be found on most breakfast tables. For the day to day breakfast, we tend to keep it simpler. Cold cereals, instant versions of hot grains (oatmeal, grits), scrambled eggs, pre-cooked microwavable sausages, yogurt and fresh fruit. It’s part of our hurry-up society.
Another part of our hurry-up society is the fast food breakfast. Egg McMuffins ®, Croissan’wich ®, hash browns, and breakfast burritos all served up from a window into your car. Have that with a cup of coffee and a cup of OJ and you are set … just please don’t eat the sandwich, talk on the cell phone, read the paper, all while changing lanes at 70 MPH. Put the paper down OK?
And the most popular drink for breakfast is coffee. Unfortunately, some people have only coffee for breakfast. That is just not good enough. Coffee is not food.
The traditional breakfast in America and Canada have some regional differences. You may be used to grits on your plate if you’re from Raleigh, but by the time you get to Baltimore, you’ll find people turning their noses up at the very idea of that white corn mush on their plate.
-
In the South, homemade biscuits served with country-style gravy (also called sawmill gravy), country ham and red eye gravy, and grits are one traditional breakfast menu.
-
In the Southwest you will find huevos rancheros and spicy breakfast burritos.
-
In the Mid Atlantic, scrapple, a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and buckwheat flour and spices, is a favorite breakfast food.
-
In the Northwest, salmon bagels are popular.
-
In New England, fried salt-pork and pie may be on the breakfast menu.
-
In parts of New York, a breakfast sandwich of fried eggs with bacon or sausage and American cheese on a seeded kaiser roll is popular for breakfast.
-
Many Soul food breakfast menus across the country include fried chicken wings, catfish, pork chops and salmon croquettes.
- In some regions of Canada especially Quebec, New Brunswick and Parts of Eastern Ontario breakfast will commonly include maple syrup with crêpes, French toast, pancakes, or waffles.
What about cereals? Where did we get that tradition? The earliest breakfast cereal was popcorn. Colonists mixed ground popcorn with milk and ate it as a breakfast food. The first modern cereal was invented by vegetarians in the 1860′s in Michigan to improve the diet of hospital patients. After this invention it was spread across the U.S. The first cereal trademark was created in 1877 and it was the Quaker Oats man. We actually will have an entire post about breakfast cereal.
The goal of breakfast for us should be to make it healthy, low in wasted calories from fat and sugar, and filling enough to get us through to lunch without a visit to that office vending machine.
