Porridge, Yarmouth bloaters, potatoes, American hash, grilled mutton, bread and butter, tea or coffee.
An American breakfast is as variegated (and I fear I must add, as indigestible) as a Scotch one; and included in the bill of fare are as many, or more, varieties of bread and cake as are to be found in the land o’ shortbread. The writer has, in New York, started the morning meal with oysters, run the gamut of fish, flesh, and fowl, and wound up with buckwheat cakes, which are brought on in relays, buttered and smoking hot, and can be eaten with or without golden syrup. But, as business begins early in New York and other large cities, scant attention is paid to the first meal by the merchant and the speculator, who are wont to “gallop” through breakfast and luncheon, and to put in their “best work” at dinner.
A Mediterranean Breakfast
is not lacking in poetry; and the jaded denizen of Malta can enjoy red mullet (the “woodcock of the sea”) freshly taken from the tideless ocean, and strawberries in perfection, at his first meal, whilst seated, maybe, next to some dreamy-eyed houri, who coos soft nothings into his ear, at intervals. The wines of Italy go best with this sort of repast, which is generally eaten with “spoons.”
In fair France, breakfast, or the déjeûner à la fourchette, is not served until noon, or thereabouts. Coffee or chocolate, with fancy bread and butter, is on hand as soon as you wake; and I have heard that for the roisterer and the p’tit crevé there be such liquors as cognac, curaçoa, and chartreuse verte provided at the first meal, so that nerves can be strung together and headaches alleviated before the “associated” breakfast at midday. In the country, at the château of Monsieur et Madame, the groom-of-the-chambers, or maître d’hôtel, as he is designated, knocks at your bedroom door at about 8.30.
“Who’s there?”
“Good-morning, M’sieu. Will M’sieu partake of the chocolat, or of the café-au-lait, or of the tea?”
Upon ordinary occasions, M’sieu will partake of the chocolat—if he be of French extraction; whilst the English visitor will partake of the café-au-lait—tea-making in France being still in its infancy. And if M’sieu has gazed too long on the wine of the country, overnight, he will occasionally—reprobate that he is—partake instead of the vieux cognac, diluted from the syphon. And M’sieu never sees his host or hostess till the “assembly” sounds for the midday meal.
I have alluded, just above, to French tea-making. There was a time when tea, with our lively neighbours, was as scarce a commodity as snakes in Iceland or rum punch in Holloway Castle. Then the thin end of the wedge was introduced, and the English visitor was invited to partake of a cup of what was called (by courtesy) thé, which had been concocted expressly for her or him. And tea à la Française used to be made somewhat after this fashion. The cup was half-filled with milk, sugar à discrétion being added. A little silver sieve was next placed over the cup, and from a jug sufficient hot water, in which had been previously left to soak some half-dozen leaf-fragments of green tea, to fill the cup, was poured forth. In fact the visitor was invited to drink a very nasty compound indeed, something like the “wish” tea with which the school-mistress used to regale her victims—milk and water, and “wish-you-may-get” tea! But they have changed all that across the Channel, and five o’clock tea is one of the most fashionable functions of the day, with the beau monde; a favourite invitation of the society belle of the fin de siècle being: “Voulex-vous fivoclocquer avec moi?”