BreakfastA History

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“Heather Arndt Anderson gives us an entertaining and lucid account of the world’s most important meal! We’ve been waiting for an expert like her to shed light on the ways that people around the world break their fast.”
— Andrea Broomfield

“I started reading Heather Arndt Anderson’s Breakfast: A History while sipping my morning coffee and chewing on a bagel schmeared with cream cheese. I couldn’t put the book down. It is well researched and brims with surprising facts placed into a broader historical and global context. It’s a must-read for culinary historians as well as for breakfast lovers.”

— Andrew F. Smith, editor-in-chief, Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America

“Breakfast: A History is at once sweet and savory as well as witty and well informed. It’s enough to make this confirmed night-owl think about rising earlier each morning.”
— Gary Allen

Modern nutritionists proclaim breakfast the day’s most important meal, yet many Americans eat it on the run, if at all, and they exhibit little consistency in the foods they consume. In that, they’re much like people the world over. Arndt-Anderson surveys the history of breakfast, finding that over the centuries ideas about breakfast foods have run the gamut from simple cereals to elaborate repasts of meat, eggs, cheese, fruits, and vegetables. She recounts the story of the Kelloggs, whose unintended invention of cornflakes made dry cereal a staple in Western culture. The Chinese have always exhibited a fondness for rice gruel as their source of morning energy. Where people consume breakfast has evolved over the years, yielding a twentieth-century architectural innovation: the breakfast nook. Today people often dine out for breakfast, so the author catalogs various breakfast settings from fast-food restaurants to elegant venues for power breakfasts. She even details breakfasts in space and on death row.

— Booklist