Breakfast is our kids favorite meal of the day.
Partly because its the only time we allow them to eat bread and also because its are family’s biggest meal of the day, when we spend the most time at the table. Our breakfast usually involves (no lie); several types of bread (the kids eat at least 2 croissants each), fried eggs, some type of meat (bacon or ham), jam, nutella, butter, honey, juice, coffee, tea, milk and fruits. We normally spend at least an hour enjoying our meal before beginning our day.
However, after traveling through France, Spain and now Italy we’ve learned that breakfast isn’t as important as much as lunch and dinner. Italians don’t normally eat heavy breakfasts, but instead have late dinners (after 9pm).
We also learned that in Italy, breakfast or “colazione” is a much smaller affair than their neighbors France in Spain. Italian children are often fed “the sweet stuff”, as Jaf calls it, such as biscotti, fagottino’s or cornetto that are filled with either nutella, jam, chocolate or cream.
Cereal, yogurt, fruit salad (macedonia) and fruit juices (sugo di frutta) are also very common breakfast items. It’s rare you’ll see Italians having fried eggs and bacon for breakfast, you’ll probably only find that in a hotel being served to tourists.
Eggs are also not a popular breakfast item with adults but you will find that children eat boiled eggs for breakfast along with sliced meats or sausages.
We’ve began to adopt this new habit and quite frankly, all lost some weight in the process. 🙂
Instead of our usual “large” breakfasts, hubby and I now have a cup of coffee/latte or cappuccino with a small pastry for breakfast and the kids have a breakfast bread with either a cup of milk or juice.
That breakfast “hour” still exists, but now we spend it talking instead of eating!
