50 Fun Facts About Breakfast Food

The word 'breakfast' literally refers to what?

It came into written English around the 15th century; before that a morning meal was 'morgenmete' and 'dinner' itself meant to break one's fast.

In Britain, pancakes are traditionally eaten on which day, historically to use up ingredients before Lent?

The pancake race at Olney supposedly began in 1445 when a housewife heard the church bells and ran to the service still holding her frying pan.

A crêpe is a thin pancake originating in which region of France?

Buckwheat versions like blini and kaletez form a whole family of pancakes; buttermilk gives American and Scottish pancakes their tang.

The word 'waffle' entered English in 1725 from which language?

Belgium alone has more than a dozen regional waffle varieties.

'Bel-Gem' waffles took hold in America at which event?

A Belgian had tried at the 1962 Seattle fair first; the Flushing Meadows version came topped with strawberries and cream.

Eggs Benedict tops a poached egg and ham on an English muffin with which sauce?

One story credits stockbroker Lemuel Benedict, who ordered toast, poached eggs, bacon and 'a hooker of hollandaise' at the Waldorf in 1894 to cure a hangover.

Which Manhattan restaurant claims eggs Benedict was 'first created in our ovens in 1860'?

The competing Waldorf story is dated 1894, and there are several other origin tales besides.

Bagels are traditionally boiled before baking. In which country's Jewish communities did they originate?

They are first mentioned in 1610 in community ordinances in Kraków; the hole lets them be strung on a dowel for sale.

Unlike the New York style, a Montreal-style bagel is boiled in water sweetened with what?

It contains malt and sugar but no salt, and is baked in a wood-fired oven.

The croissant's crescent shape was inspired by which Austrian pastry?

The modern croissant only dates from the early 20th century, when French bakers swapped the kipferl's brioche dough for yeast-leavened laminated dough.

Which Austrian artillery officer opened a Viennese bakery in Paris around 1838, bringing Vienna's pastries to France?

'Viennoiserie' is still the French term for the whole family of yeasted, laminated pastries, and the Danes call their pastry 'wienerbrød', Viennese bread.

Which of these is a traditional component of a full English breakfast, rather than a modern addition?

Bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried bread are the classics; beans, hash browns and coffee are common but newer.

The full breakfast variant of Northern Ireland is known as what?

Fried breakfasts took off in the Victorian era; Mrs Beeton's 1861 Book of Household Management has 'fried ham and eggs'.

'Granula', the ancestor of granola, was invented in 1863 at a sanitarium in which state?

The Jackson Sanitarium was a health spa in Dansville; John Harvey Kellogg later made a similar cereal in Michigan.

How does muesli traditionally differ from granola?

Granola is baked with oil and honey until crisp; muesli's oats were originally just soaked overnight.

Muesli was developed around 1900 by a physician for hospital patients in which country?

Maximilian Bircher-Benner's original was oats soaked overnight with apple, nuts, lemon juice and condensed milk, essentially the first overnight oats.

Steel-cut oats are also known by which name?

'Pinhead oats' is another name; ground oats are the ones called white oats, and rolled oats are the classic old-fashioned kind.

What is the usual French name for French toast?

It means 'lost bread', because it rescues stale loaves; in Britain it's eggy bread, and a Roman recipe in Apicius comes close.

Which of these is a genuine alternative name for French toast?

'Bombay toast' and 'gypsy toast' are others; the savoury version is fried with salt and served with ketchup.

Pop-Tarts were launched in 1964. In which year did the first frosted ones appear?

Kellogg's first had to develop a frosting that could survive the toaster; the pastries are the company's most popular US brand.

Under what name did Post announce its 1964 toaster pastry, prompting Kellogg's to rush out Pop-Tarts?

Post's product eventually went to market as 'Toast'em Pop-Ups', but Kellogg's had already won the shelf.

The Eggo brand name was derived from inventor Frank Dorsa's first product, which was what?

Dorsa worked out how to cook, freeze and package waffles in 1953; Kellogg bought the company in 1968, and Stranger Things made the brand global in 2016.

McDonald's Egg McMuffin, invented in 1972, was designed by which McDonald's franchisee?

He built it to mimic eggs Benedict: English muffin, Canadian bacon and egg, with a slice of cheese standing in for the hollandaise.

Hash browns are made from potatoes prepared how?

They're a diner staple in North America, usually cooked on the same big flat-top as everything else.

Grits are a porridge made from which grain?

Hominy grits use corn treated with alkali (nixtamalization); Georgia declared grits its official prepared food in 2002.

Which US state declared grits its official prepared food in 2002?

Around Charleston, cooked hominy grits were simply called 'hominy' until the 1980s.

The word 'bacon' comes from a Proto-Germanic root meaning what?

The world's first commercial bacon processing plant was opened by John Harris in Calne, Wiltshire, in the 1770s.

Which Canadian province alone produces about 72% of the world's maple syrup?

Indigenous peoples of the Northeast made it first; the trees are tapped in late winter when stored starch turns to sugar in the rising sap.

Hanson Gregory claimed to have invented the ring-shaped doughnut in 1847 while working where?

He was 16 at the time, and the tale of how the hole got there has been embellished ever since.

National Doughnut Day, the first Friday of June, grew from a 1938 event by which organisation?

It honoured the volunteers who served doughnuts to soldiers in the First World War.

Dunkin' Donuts was founded in 1948 in Quincy, Massachusetts, under what original name?

It became Dunkin' Donuts in 1950 and dropped the second word altogether in 2019.

Since 1999, which country has celebrated Cinnamon Roll Day (Kanelbullens dag) on 4 October?

In Denmark the roll is a kanelsnegl, a 'cinnamon snail'.

Who first used the word 'brunch', in an 1895 essay called 'Brunch: A Plea'?

He proposed it as a sociable alternative to heavy Sunday meals; in the US it appeared in New Orleans in the 1890s before conquering 1920s New York.

Charles Strite patented which kitchen device in 1921?

Toast browns because of the Maillard reaction, and the heating elements are usually nichrome wire.

Corn flakes were created in 1894 by Will Kellogg for patients at a sanitarium in which Michigan city?

The cereal was meant to counter indigestion; a legal battle with his brother John preceded the 1896 patent.

Huevos rancheros, 'ranch-style eggs', is a breakfast dish from which country?

It began as the large mid-morning meal on rural farms; fried eggs, tortillas and salsa are the core.

Shakshouka, eggs poached in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce, comes from which region?

Cumin, paprika and cayenne do the seasoning; it is now a brunch-menu fixture far beyond North Africa.

Congee, the savoury breakfast porridge, is made by boiling which grain in a large amount of water?

The English word comes from the Tamil kanji; it's also the classic food for the sick because it's so easy to digest.

Kedgeree, the Anglo-Indian breakfast of rice, curry powder and eggs, traditionally uses which fish?

Scots often substitute kippers; sultanas are an occasional and controversial addition.

Scrapple, a fried loaf of pork scraps and cornmeal, is a traditional food of which American community?

Its Pennsylvania Dutch name is Pannhaas; it exists so nothing from butchering day went to waste.

The breakfast burrito is most notably said to originate in which regional American cuisine?

Eggs, potatoes, beans and cheese wrapped in a flour tortilla; it's now on fast-food menus from McDonald's to Taco Bell.

In Danish, a Danish pastry is called 'wienerbrød'. What does that mean?

Austrian bakers are thought to have brought the techniques to Denmark, though the Danish recipe went its own way.

Which company held about 73% of the US frozen waffle market in 2009?

The waffles were long made at a plant on Eggo Way in San Jose, California.

What is added back to long-life commercial OJ after pasteurisation strips its flavour?

The juice is pasteurised and stripped of oxygen so it keeps, which is why 'not from concentrate' juice still tastes engineered.

Under what name did Samuel Bath Thomas market his English muffins in 1880s New York?

The English immigrant pitched them as a more elegant alternative to toast for fine hotels.

Which baseball star was the first athlete pictured on a Wheaties box, in 1934?

The cereal had been created by accident in 1921 when a bran mixture spilled onto a hot stove.

Which rival's trademark complaint forced General Mills to rename Cheerioats as Cheerios in 1945?

The oat rings had launched under the original name on May 1, 1941.

Cream of Wheat was first manufactured in 1893 by millers in which city?

The Diamond Milling Company's Scottish-born chief miller proposed it during the Panic of 1893, and it debuted at the Chicago World's Fair.

Who developed Vegemite in Melbourne in 1922?

Made from leftover brewers' yeast, it went on sale on 25 October 1923 and returned to Australian ownership under Bega in 2017.

Which food company owned the Vegemite brand from after 1935 until it returned to Australian hands in 2017?

The Bega Group bought the brand from Mondelez International, Kraft's successor.