The Breakfast Book
the breakfast book The Breakfast Book Andrew Dalby REAKTION BOOKS Published by Reaktion Books Ltd 33 Great Sutton Street London EC1V 0DX, UK www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2013 Copyright © Andrew Dalby 2013 The right of Andrew Dalby to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Printed and bound in China British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Dalby, Andrew, 1947– The breakfast book. 1. Breakfasts. 2. Breakfasts—History. I. Title 394.1’252-dc23 ISBN 978 1 78023 086 3 contents Foreword 7 Prologue: Four Breakfasts 9 one Breakfast: Origin, Evolution and Name 23 two Breakfast Through Time 49 three Breakfast Across Space 85 four Variables 121 five Feeling for Breakfast 161 Epilogue: Damer’s Muffins 185 recipes 193 sources of quotations 212 bibliography 222 acknowledgements 225 photo acknowledgements 226 index 227 Foreword knew at the age of twelve that I would write a breakfast book one I day, after reading in Isaac Asimov’s Inside the Atom (1956: probably remaindered, like all the other books Uncle Jim gave me as Christmas presents) the claim that scientists would soon split atoms as commonly ‘as you and I eat potatoes for breakfast’. How strange that Asimov should believe his average reader would eat potatoes for breakfast! I had to sort that matter out sooner or later.
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