The Best Part of Waking Up?
BY MOLLY SELTZER — MEDILL NEWS SERVICE
Tonight, I’m having scrambled eggs for dinner. If I feel indulgent, I might make some French toast too. Big glass of orange juice. Bit of syrup. I like the sweet, sticky tines of the fork. What a lovely way to end the day.
Wait. Breakfast is supposed to start the day, not end it.
It’s now acceptable to consume biscuits, cereal or fruit smoothies any old time. In fact, there’s a regular epidemic of breakfast eating across America – at all hours.
Why?
Breakfast is cheap and easy. (That poptart.) It’s beginning to be offered at more restaurants, either at all hours or highlighted by places that only serve breakfast or brunch.
“Breakfast accounts for 21 percent of all visits to the restaurant industry… in 2007, it’s grown 5 percent for quick-service restaurants,” said Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst with The NPD Group.
“Breakfast has really held the industry in a positive position,” she added. “ The industry’s not doing very well, especially at lunch and dinner, so the bright spots have been the morning meal and snacks.”
This diagram, provided by The NPD Group/CREST, shows when breakfast foods were consumed in family-style chain restaurants in 2006.
Making your own breakfast also has its benefits. It’s less time consuming and often requires less skill. Imagine preparing toast versus mashed potatoes. The former requires less time, money and culinary skill. (The one exception might be eggs – any chef or foodie will tell you that cooking eggs is something attempted by many and mastered by few.)
Furthermore, breakfast can be really fun. (See Sesame Street’s Madonna parody, “Cereal Girl” here) Breakfast is often sweet, whether you’re eating chocolate-chip pancakes or a classic French pastry. What other time of the day do parents draw syrup smiley faces on food? The best kinds of breakfasts are long, drawn-out affairs with lots of sitting around the table and plenty of putting off the day.
And that’s the real point to be made – I think the breakfast boom comes back to nostalgia. The pleasures of eating sushi or steak do not compare with a big bowl of cereal. Though most of today’s breakfast cereals are marketed at children, they often find traction with adults. The popularity of cereal box collection, fanzines and books like Scott Bruce and Bill Crawford’s “Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal” support the notion that many adults are interested in finding comfort by eating their way back to childhood.
And here’s where I get to be a blogger and not a reporter – I think there’s one more aspect of breakfast that Americans love.
The spoon.
I have a hunch that there’s something more soothing about eating from a spoon than a fork. Forks are pointy, sharp and were featured prominently in medieval torture techniques.
Spoons, on the other hand, are for ice cream and soup and what we use to feed babies. They’re comforting, which is what eating breakfast – whenever you do it – is all about.
Chicago restaurants only open for brunch hours
- Toast (746 W. Webster Ave.; multiple locations)
- Orange (75 W. Harrison St.; multiple locations)
- Lou Mitchell’s (565 W. Jackson Blvd.)
Chicago restaurants serving breakfast all day
- Clarke’s (930 W. Belmont Ave.)
- The Golden Nugget (2720 N. Clark St.; multiple locations)
- Sweet Maple Cafe (1339 W. Taylor St.)
Breakfast in the media
- “Breakfast for Dinner” episode on 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray
- Top Chef Season 2 contestant Elia Aboumrad’s winning recipe for waffles with ham, cheese and fried eggs
- The Breakfast Club
Tags: breakfast, Chicago, food industry, Restaurants, retail sales, spoons
