vol. 29: breakfast interlude
prélude to wien
And then, one fairy night, May became June. - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Good morning, books & breakfasters!
I’m currently in prep mode for my summer (and fall!) of travelling, after what feels like a three-year hiatus. Next week I head to Austria (followed by a little romantic trip to Croatia 👀) for two months, followed by Canadian stints in Toronto, Montreal and Steinbach, Manitoba (whoo!) and in October I embark on my first-ever Asian trip, singing 9 concerts in different cities in China!
Naturally, I’m thinking about breakfasts as I prepare, and the different variations I’ve enjoyed on my past travels. A few highlights…
Visiting my mum’s cousin Amanda in Jaffa, Israel years ago, she introduced me to the Israeli preference for hummus for breakfast. I’ve since become an obsessive chickpea soaker, mostly making Molly Yeh’s easy hummus recipe ALTHOUGH yesterday I made Michael Solomonov’s recipe from his cookbook Zahav. So delish (but maybe a little rich for my poor stomach 😫). Here’s an adaptation of that recipe, if you’re so inclined.
I’m not traditionally a huge savoury breakfast gal unless I’m with other people, but Amanda introduced me to a really delicious breakfast during that trip: tomato toast. The trick was (of course), lovely bread + a very fresh tomato. Instead of chopping the tomato, you grate it, which really changes its flavour profile. Enjoy the grated tomato over the bread with fresh olive oil and sea salt et voilà, an Israeli breakie.
When I lived in Switzerland, my favourite breakfast was definitely Bircher Müsli. I went through a serious phase after living there, painstakingly grating apples and mixing them with nuts and yogurt every morning for a while. I’ve read that some even have it for dinner? According to the NYTimes, it was invented by Maximilian Bircher-Benner, a Swiss doctor and pioneer nutritionist in the early 1900s.
Anytime I think of Swiss doctors and nutrition, I think of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender is the Night, reminiscent of his wife Zelda’s own recovery from mental illness in Switzerland. Nicole Krauss, one of my favourite authors, also summed up the sanatorium-like feeling of Switzerland in her slightly unsettling short story, To be a man:
“That Switzerland—neutral, alpine, orderly—has the best institute for trauma in the world seems paradoxical. The whole country had, back then, the atmosphere of a sanatorium or an asylum. Instead of padded walls it had the snow, which muffled and softened everything, until after so many centuries the Swiss just went about instinctively muffling themselves. Or that was the point: a country singularly obsessed with controlled reserve and conformity, with engineering watches, with the promptness of trains, would, it follows, have an advantage in the emergency of a body smashed to pieces.”
While Wien is certainly the land of cake, having cake or Strudel for breakfast every morning sounds like a bit much. I MIGHT make my way to my favourite places while I’m there for a little Kaiserschmarrn or my favourite Scheiterhaufen mit Nougat from Joseph Brot. Wish my poor stomach luck!!!
Hope you enjoyed this breakfast-y interlude. Guess I better get back to work… :)
