Such as fried eggs, sausage and/or bacon, biscuits and gravy, hash browns, pancakes and syrup, and other such healthy entrees.
For a long time, I associated all that with southern cooking…but I now know people up north eat more or less the same traditional breakfast food. Maybe less emphasis on gravy as you go further north. But in most countries in Europe, such as France or Italy, a light meal of toast, rolls, jam, and so on is more common. So where did the concept of eating the unhealthiest possible food in the morning originate? England? Germany? Or is it purely a North American?
Well, an English breakfast of a banger sausage, a rasher of bacon, some mash (cooked potatoes) with an egg and a broiled tomato on the side most closely approximates the modern US morning meal. Britain’s colder climate probably made having so many calories under your belt more fun than not.
Until relatively recently, having some fat on you was an excellent way to survive a winter and the odd famine. In newly colonized America, you faced a grueling day of backbreaking work beginning at sunrise. A large, protien laden meal gave you enough energy to perform the strenuous amount of work involved.
This is a WAG, but eggs, sausage, pancakes, etc. take less time to cook than many traditional “dinner” foods. Would you like to get up extra, extra early to cook a pot roast for breakfast? Didn’t think so. Easier to fry up some eggs or cook up some oatmeal (which isn’t that unhealthy, really) and save the slower-cooking foods for later in the day.
Well, you can go out in the morning and gather the eggs laid last night, so there’s the eggs. Then you break out the preserved meat you’ve got stored…there’s your ham, bacon and sausage. You don’t want to wait for bread to rise, so you make some hotcakes that don’t need use yeast.
In my opinion, breakfast food is sort of convenience food at the old farmhouse.
But, in most of the world breakfast is simply last night’s leftovers.