America's Breakfast Buffet

Good Morning ISA's!

Since no one has touched on the American breakfast yet, I thought I'd give a brief overview. That way, if anyone wants to go into further detail about a specific breakfast option (hint hint, nudge nudge), that wonderful ISA is free to do so.

So, I come from Pennsylvania, the home of scrapple, which Wikipedia describes as "traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then panfried before serving."

But that's not what I want to talk about today.

In America, there are a lot of “classic” breakfast foods. If you go to any diner, you can probably find these “hearty” breakfast options:

French Toast

Belgian Waffles

Pancakes (or flapjacks, as some places call them)

Eggs (omelets, scrambled, over-easy, boiled, etc), usually with some sort of bacon or sausage, and starch/carbohydrate on the side.

Muffins / donuts / breakfast pastries

With most of these options, Maple syrup is a must. That sweet, sugary glaze can be used to top the fluffy dough of the pancakes or add sweetness to the salty crunch of bacon.

Pancakes or Waffles also often come with a dollop of whipped cream and maybe some sliced fruit.

To be honest, my family usually only made big breakfasts on special occasions. Sundays we'd often buy donuts or make cinnabons.

Christmas would be sausage-gravy and biscuits, French-toast casserole, lemon poppy seed bread, mini blueberry muffins, and fruit. Easter was often omelets my dad made to order. When we were younger, we’d often do "breakfast for dinner," and kids don’t complain about chocolate chip pancakes, no matter what time they’re eaten.Otherwise, on a normal morning, a “sit-down” breakfast was cereal, granola, oatmeal or a cup of Greek yogurt.The mornings of my eight-hour soccer practices, it was a bagel with peanut butter. My senior year of high school, I started my day with a chunk of Challah bread that I would dip into some Aztec Hot Chocolate (Spicy hot chocolate).

When I don’t have time to sit and eat, I usually take a breakfast bar or an instant smoothie to go. Even in college, freshman year breakfasts were often Starbucks Vivanno’s or Freshens Acai smoothies that I could take to class.

What I’m trying to say is, American breakfasts are quite varied, as I am sure breakfasts in most other countries are. We have the traditional breakfasts, and the fast food breakfasts (I recall the days of Sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffins), the on-the-go breakfasts, and the leftover dinner breakfasts (cold pizza, anyone?).

And, despite all the options and variations, there are certain foods that, no matter what time you eat them or how you prepare them, will always be considered “Breakfast.”

-Kelly M.