What to Have for Breakfast

I'm reading a reprint of a Victorian book about what to have for breakfast.  I am not a morning person.  I have never been a morning person.  My body can start moving at all sorts of early hours but don't expect much from me before 10am. 

When it comes to breakfast I usually have plain oatcakes, but bear has toast, cereal, fruit or something entirely inappropriate in desperation to get something in him before school.  I've made him egg muffins in the past, and I'd be willing to do more, but while bear is very happy getting up at the first cough of the sparrow, his stomach doesn't wake up until lunchtime, so I take cereal as a win. 

I was actually looking for lunch ideas.  Lunch time happens every day but when it's not just me having scrambled eggs or beans I panic.  I have absolutely no idea.  I also have to cater for a variety of tastes, tolerances and appetites as sometimes bear has pals around. 

This book, the Dictionary of Dainty Breakfasts, has a very different view of breakfast.  Apparently breakfast should include a fundamental dish which will sustain someome through the morning, like prawn curry (yes, it includes prawn curry for breakfast), but should also include something dainty, like a poached egg, fruit, toast and a drink such as tea, coffee or cocoa.  Some of these dishes are very sustaining indeed! 

Of course, a hundred and fifty years ago people needed a lot more fuel.  Just basic living needed a lot more moving around and more people worked heavy, manual labour.  The recipes are detailed, though, and worth a look.

One recipe, for a breakfast dish on a table that should also include fruit, extra bits like bacon, toast, coffee etc, was for chicken with eggs.  You reheat cold, minced or finely chopped chicken in a thick white sauce made half milk and half stock and serve it over toast with a poached egg per person on the side.  I may try something similar for dinner, soon, as I've done a lot of 'diced chicken with tomato and veggies served with pasta' type dishes recently but I imagine if you make the white sauce with minced mushrooms instead and serve with something like toast or hash browns underneath, it would make a nice change.  Just not for breakfast.