My mother has always maintained that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. When we all lived together, I made fun of her conviction as I helped her set the table from the night before, so that the awakening of our family was welcomed by the comfortable warmth of the kitchen. We took time to talk, drinking coffee, milk, you, eating bread butter and jam. Even today, when I think about the days that start well, I see a cup of steaming tea accompanied by a slice of apple and raisin cake or a bowl of milk and crunchy cereals with honey, hazelnuts and chocolate. A slow breakfast, on a well-laid table, perhaps accompanied by reading.
The time dedicated to family breakfast is increasing because it is increasingly considered a fundamental moment for the family sociability and for the balance of body and mind, also thanks to the wide variety of foods that can be put on the table: from biscuits to croissants, from smoothies to croissants. But there are also those who love this daily ritual at the bar, where the offer is increasingly wide and of quality.
A millennial habit
Breakfast is the result of a wisdom that comes from afar. The bread dipped in wine before starting the day accompanied the awakening of the Mediterranean populations for millennia. In Latin collatio-onis means "to put together" and from the 4th century onwards, with the spread of monasticism, the late Latin term collationem indicates the conversation that took place in the monasteries late at night and, by extension, the food that was consumed during this common moment. Only from the sixth century, with the Benedictine reform, this moment was moved after the morning laudi and designated the first meal of the day.
After the economic boom
For centuries, breakfast in Western Europe was the first meal, but in the middle of the morning, after many hours of work: it was made up of leftovers in the evening previous (stale bread, polenta, soup). Only during the First World War was the use of milk, coffee, chocolate and biscuits, which until the 1960s were not, however, a constant presence on the tables of the Italians. Cookies and i bakery products packaged make their appearance already in the 50s, but cakes and jams continue to be prepared at home and only after the economic boom does breakfast take a turn that makes it look like the current one: not only does coffee become the drink for excellence, accompanied by milk enriched with soluble products such as barley and cocoa, for ever more sweet awakenings. Perhaps even too sweet since i have appeared on the tables since the 1970s light products, with less sugar, rusks and yogurt; the latter millennial protagonist of food from the Balkans to India, arrives in Italy thanks to Anglo-Saxon customs.
Who starts well …
The curiosity about breakfasts that are not ours pervades all the eighties: the return from study holidays in the British archipelago always coincided with tragic stories of eggs, bacon and bacon and soaking beans in an unidentified sauce. From the 90s onwards health, genuineness and the short chain become the themes par excellence of our diet: the flours are less and less refined and with more fibers. They decrease sugars and fats. Today breakfast is confirmed as a good growing habit among Italians, who mostly prepare it and eat it at home. Starting the day with milk and dairy products, cereals and fruit improves cardio-metabolic parameters and cognitive performance. And then assuming an adequate supply of energy in the morning makes it possible to arrive at lunchtime without having swallowed anything to appease hunger. I mean, I have to recognize that my mother was right.
Petunia Ollister
Publish #bookbreakfast on Instagram. Thus was born the volume Author's breakfasts, published by Slow Food Editore. He deals with publishing and writes for the newspaper La Stampa
from Sale & Pepe Magazine April 2020
OUR BREAKFAST IN NUMBERS: WHAT ITALIANS EAT
BREAKFAST HAS BECOME A HABIT FOR 86% OF ITALIANS, WHO DEDICATE YOU AT LEAST 10 MINUTES IN THE MORNING. AMONG THESE, 85% CONSUME THE FIRST MEAL OF THE DAY AT HOME AND 40% DO IT WITH CALM, ALSO USING 30 MINUTES. THE FOODS THAT GO FOR THE MAJOR ARE THE COOKIES, PREFERRED BY 58% OF THE ITALIAN. THOSE WHO DO BREAKFAST AT HOME, ALSO LOVE BREAD AND COOKED SLICES (19%), WHICH CONSUMES OFTEN WITH JAM, HONEY OR SPREADABLE CREAMS. MILK ALWAYS PREVIOUS AMONG DRINKS (35%) AND COFFEE (33%) AND COFFEE (30%) FOLLOW; TEA IS CONSTANTLY GROWING, WHICH HAS ARRIVED AT 14%. ABOUT NON BREAKFAST SUPPORTS ABOVE ALL TO HAVE THE STOMACH CLOSED (50%) OR NOT TO HAVE TIME (37%).
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