What About Breakfast When You Travel
What about breakfast? Travelers may plan whole trips around culinary experiences…. dining at Michelin starred restaurants, eating a favorite dish in an exotic land, but most people don’t really give too much thought about food beyond dinner and lunch.
Breakfast is your first meal of the day. It gets you going in the morning. The word derives from breaking the fast after a long night of sleep. What you eat depends on where you are… and if you’re a traveler in exotic lands, what you’re offered might be too much of a wake up call. So what do you need to know about breakfast?
Travelers are familiar with that “full English breakfast” of juice, cereal, eggs, tomatoes, beans, sausages, toast and marmalade. You’ll get similar versions of this in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and even in the U.S. and Canada. In Scotland they’re apt to add hagis or kippers.
Or how about “Continental Breakfast”? In “hotel talk” this usually means croissants, rolls or bread, some butter, jam and marmalade and coffee or tea. Sometimes juice. Sometimes cereal and yogurt… but not usually cooked dishes. The term comes from the thinking that most “continental Europeans” have this type of breakfast.
Of course, what you really get for that first meal of the morning depends on what country you’re in. Breakfasts tend to follow this lighter style in the southern part of Europe.
In Turkey you’ll probably add olives, cucumbers, fresh tomatoes and feta cheese.
In the northern countries in Europe, you’ll also find salamis and cold cuts of meat, cheese, yogurt, prepared fruits and boiled eggs. Specific items will vary from country to country and hotel to hotel.
In Scandinavia you’re apt to find open faced sandwiches(smorbrod) topped with fish like herring for breakfast.
In Germany and Poland, look for sausages along with the cold cuts and cheeses. In Germany… at least in Munich you might be lucky enough to get Weisswurst (white sausages) and in Poland, Kilbasa.
Spaniards love coffee or chocolate and churros (donut like fritters).
Head to Latin America, and you may find more tortillas than bread… and look for fried plantains and black beans.
In the Middle East you may get flat breads (pita or naan) with hummus or yogurt or olive oil and za’atar.
In much of Southeast Asia you can expect to get some sort of noodle soup with Asian vegetables added as condiments of your choice. Maybe spring rolls on the side. In China, at least around Bejing, it’s apt to be hot soup (like congee) and steamed pork buns (bao zi).
Or how about Indonesia where you might get chile-and-garlic fried rice and left over curries.
In Japan a traditional breakfast will have rice, seafood and pickled vegetables and natto, a kind of pungent fermented soybean condiment.
Whew, you didn’t realize there was so much to know about breakfast, did you?
That first meal of the morning may come too early for you to be feeling like a culinary adventure. You can generally find simple breakfast foods to meet your morning palate almost anywhere in the world… so don’t worry about going hungry until lunch.
But if you’re adventurous even early in the day, just ask what’s for breakfast and go with something local. Nothing gets a trip going like jumping right in to a culture from the start of your day.
