global breakfasts

This trip has reminded me that, in a world that is often accused (to some extent rightly) of a uniformizing globalization, breakfast food often remains a bastion of the most idiosyncratic localisms. The standards of what food is appropriate to eat early in the morning vary wildly from one country to another.

In Egypt, for instance, I was initially shocked to find that it’s common to eat taamiya (felaffel made of fava beans rather than chick peas) and fuul (fava bean paste) first thing in the morning. Who would ever expect oily, bean-based food to be a good choice right after you roll out of bed? But now I’m addicted to that routine, and do it on any day possible.

We Americans tend to like sweet things as a major element of breakfast. A Facebook friend was just telling me that her former Norwegian roommate in the U.S. scorned this tendency, since he guzzled fish oil in the mornings instead.