2

Eggs are great.

You see eggs in lots of dishes in American cuisine. Egg salad made from hard-boiled eggs is an American cookout standard. Fried eggs often go on burgers; poached eggs frequently find themselves atop sandwiches and salads. Scotch eggs are a frequent side dish or appetizer. But in American cuisine, eggs are almost never the focal point of a dish.

Except at breakfast.

Omelettes, scrambled eggs, and quiches abound at breakfast and brunch.

At what point in history did eggs become a "breakfast-only" main dish?

hairboat
  • 1,039
  • 5
  • 16
  • 25
  • Where are you drawing the line between eggs as an ingredient and eggs as a focal point? Is quiche an egg-focused dish while egg-thickened casseroles are not? – Shog9 Aug 08 '14 at 01:26
  • @Shog9: Yes. You can't have a quiche without eggs. You can easily have a casserole without eggs. – hairboat Aug 08 '14 at 01:27
  • 2
    When you say "Western", do you mean "US American"? From my European perspective, quiche is for lunch (not breakfast) and omelette is for dinner. The bar where I will probably have lunch today will almost certainly have scrambled eggs with something (often jamón serrano, but not always) as a main course; eggs are also the protagonist of a number of tapas; I've had dinner in a restaurant in Paris which pretty much only sold omelettes. – Peter Taylor Aug 08 '14 at 08:53
  • 1
    @PeterTaylor, I guess I do mean the U.S., then. I didn't know that, but I'm certainly jealous of your lunch. – hairboat Aug 08 '14 at 13:53
  • There's a similar thing with bacon and sausage. American cuisine has a fairly distinct division between breakfast foods and non-breakfast foods. – john3103 Aug 08 '14 at 21:03
  • As an American, I wouldn't consider quiche to be a breakfast/brunch food, but a lunch/dinner food. Similarly for egg-based casseroles in general. Egg salad is a main dish where egg is the focus, and it's a lunch/dinner dish. Deviled eggs are not for breakfast, but they're just eggs. Basically, omelettes and fried/scrambled eggs are about the only preparation I can think of that's consumed predominantly at breakfast. Maybe re-examine your premise? – Patrick87 Aug 08 '14 at 22:19
  • @john3103 I would argue it's less the foods and more the preparations. Maybe that's where the disconnect is occurring; sausage is a normal thing to cut into rounds and fry for breakfast, for instance, but it's also perfectly natural to grill it and throw it on a bun for lunch, or boil it and serve it with mashed potatoes for dinner. Eggs are fried or scrambled for breakfast, made into salad or deviled for lunch, and maybe baked into a casserole or quiche for dinner. Oatmeal and other cereals might be more of a breakfast phenomenon. – Patrick87 Aug 08 '14 at 22:24
  • 1
    More generally, I'd suggest that simple preparation is what defines what we think of as breakfast foods... not combining things into complicated dishes. This is why quiche and egg salad are for lunch and fried/scrambled eggs are for breakfast, IMHO. – Patrick87 Aug 08 '14 at 22:27
  • 1
    @Patrick87 I disagree with you about quiche. Maybe that's a regional thing, but to me it's a breakfast food. Deviled eggs are an appetizer or a side, and rarely if ever a main course unto themselves. Likewise egg salad: it's mashed up with other stuff and served in a sandwich or salad or as a side. The egg is not a main course unto itself. – hairboat Aug 08 '14 at 23:45
  • @abbyhairboat Interesting about regional differences... I can only speak for the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest. I've never heard of quiche as a breakfast food, frankly. You might improve the question by clarifying what you mean by "course unto itself"; would you not consider the hot dog to be the "main course" in the bun-mustard-relish-sausage foodstuff of fair fame? What about steak, if - and I don't have real numbers, just guessing here - > 80% of restaurants will, by default, serve steak with some kind of potato? – Patrick87 Aug 09 '14 at 02:44
  • 1
    Sorry, but I think this is off topic. It is a very interesting question, but not one whose answer is known to cooks, it's more anthropologic. And with this type of question (I call them cultural whys), there is much danger of people writing down plausibly sounding speculations which can turn out to be completely wrong, but others nevertheless believe them. They are a seeding grain for urban mythology, so to speak. So I'll close the question - because I'm afraid we cannot give you an objectively true answer. – rumtscho Aug 10 '14 at 12:46

0 Answers0