Breakfast of champions

It has to be Indian all the way...

 

One of the things I enjoy most about travelling abroad is the opportunity to try new cuisines, enjoy exotic flavours, and immerse myself in an unfamiliar food culture. There is something magical about eating sushi sitting at a small counter in a Kyoto restaurant, slurping up a gelato in a tiny Italian town, gorging on bangers and mash in a British pub, or even having my sinuses opened up by a fiery Thai curry in a Bangkok food court. 

 

I say all this to establish that I am not one of those unadventurous eaters who arrives in a foreign city only to search for the nearest Indian restaurant so that I have some dal makhani and butter chicken for dinner. I am happy to eat the local cuisine, wherever I may find myself, for both lunch and dinner. It’s only first thing in the morning, when I head down to the hotel breakfast buffet, that I miss the food of India. 

 

Don’t get me wrong. There is much to enjoy about a great breakfast spread in a good hotel. And for a couple of days I do just that, filling my plate with local pastries and cakes, and then getting my protein fix with a couple of fried eggs accompanied by bacon and hash browns. But by the third day, ennui sets in. And that’s when I begin to long for the infinite variety of Indian breakfasts.

 

Even as I eat my almond croissant, my taste buds are craving for a pillowy soft idli which I could dunk into a spicy green chutney or gunpowder. The scrambled eggs on the buffet are no substitute for the fiery railway-style masala omelette that we get back home. And while I like a good sourdough as much as the next person, it really can’t stand up to a aloo paratha, eaten with a dab of achar and lashings of dahi. It’s only at the breakfast buffet do I begin to understand why some Indians travel with home-made theplas and achar to give their tastebuds a respite from the bland fare that most Western hotels serve up for the first meal of the day.

 

And it is only the West that is guilty as charged, given that it seems unable to think beyond pastries, eggs, sausages and cold cuts for breakfast, with some cut fruit thrown in for the healthy eaters. If you are travelling East, though, breakfast will generally include a variety of dimsum and congees, all of them served with spicy sauces and condiments to kickstart your palate for the day. 

 

But there is no denying that it is Indian hotels that do us proud when it comes to breakfast. You can order anything from a puri-bhaji to poha, upma or luchi served with channa dal or aloo dum. Most good hotels will have a live station, where you can order a dosa to your specifications. And I have fond memories of a stay at the Grand Chola in Chennai, where they actually have a sambhar buffet, featuring varieties from every part of the south.

 

Which may explain why I find myself increasingly choosing to stay in Indian hotel chains (if possible) when I am abroad. That way, even if I am in London or Marrakesh, I can start the day with a taste of India.

 

Sunny side up

Who is to say that breakfast should only be eaten in the morning?

There is nothing I love more about hotels than a room-service breakfast. It seems so wonderfully decadent to lie in bed, with a plate of French toast (or eggs and bacon; waffles; aloo parathas; medhu vadas; you can choose your own poison) balanced precariously on your pristine white sheets, a cup of coffee with easy reach, and the newspaper crinkling crisply as you turn the pages. I can’t think of a better way to start the day.

Or, indeed, to end it. Because, seeing that they are on to a good thing, some hotels have started to serve breakfast around the clock. So now, if you are so inclined, you can both start the day with a hearty breakfast and then end it with yet another slap-up breakfast. (And yes, I often do.)

Hoteliers will tell you that the round-the-clock breakfast menu is meant for jet-lagged travellers who have flown across time zones and have such screwed-up body clocks that they want the comfort eating epitomized by a good breakfast no matter what time they check in. But I know better. The truth is that they have put breakfast on the round-the-clock menu because it has such scrumptious options that it seems a shame to restrict them to just one meal of the day.

And who made up these stupid rules anyway? About how you can only eat certain things for breakfast and others for lunch and dinner? If you ask me, it makes no sense. Anything that tastes good first thing in the morning will taste just as good last thing at night. To misquote Shakespeare, a blueberry pancake would taste just as sweet if you ate it at 8 am or 8 pm. So, who’s to say that it is best served with your morning tea or coffee? For that matter, why can’t you have a bowl of crunchy muesli with milk for dinner rather than breakfast without being seen as a bit of an eccentric? Or even a full English fry up of eggs, baked beans, sausages, hash browns and toast?

It’s not just breakfast options, though. How about tea-time treats? Why should they only be reserved for the evening? A couple of crisp samosas or a plateful of pakoras (or bhajias or whatever you call them in your part of the world) with some spicy chutneys on the side would make for a delightful lunch or even dinner. So why do we always eat them as snacks or ‘naashta’ rather than at meal times?

Part of it, of course, is down to social conditioning. More often than not what you eat and when you eat it is a cultural thing. For instance, in Italy, salad is served at the end of the meal rather than at the beginning. So instead of stuffing yourself full of greens at the start of the meal and feeling too full to enjoy your main course, you relish your main dish, and then cleanse your palate with a salad dressed with olive oil and a dash of balsamico so that you can truly appreciate the cheese and dessert to follow.

Makes much more sense, doesn’t it? And yet, for some reason, when you eat out in India, you are always served the salad first and then the main. Result: by the time the dessert is served, you are far too sated to really enjoy it. (Now don’t be a spoilsport and say that that’s just as well; you know as well as I do that it’s the high point of the meal.)

Talking of dessert, why is it taken as a given that it will be served at the end of the meal rather than at the beginning? Why is ice-cream presented to us as a reward if we are good little children and finish our greens first? Why does chocolate cake have to wait until the cheese has been cleared to make an appearance? Yes, I know that delayed gratification is supposed to be good for you, but you are talking about chocolate cake here!

Some people have the right idea though. Some years ago, I ate at a restaurant called Ente Keralam in Chennai and was surprised to be offered a sweet as the beginning of the meal. Chef Reji Mathew explained that in his Syrian Christian community, it was usual to start a feast with a sweet rather than a savoury dish to prepare the palate for the treats to come. And I have to say that it worked like a charm.

So now, after many decades of following the dictates of of

od fascists, I have decided that when it comes to eating there is only one rule: that there are no rules. Or better still, that you get to make your own rules as you go along.

If you feel like having a bread and butter pudding for breakfast, go right ahead (nutritionists will tell you that this is the best time to have high-calorie sweet treats, anyway). If you fancy an almond croissant and not much else for dinner, that’s fine too. And if you want to have breakfast at all three meals of the day, dig in. Bon appetit!