OK OK I will admit it: I am not a devotee of eating a hearty meal during breakfast time. Nothing appeals less than the exertions required in chewing and swallowing fibrous ingredients of a nutritionally sound meal before my engine fires have been stoked. Mastication is mediated only after at least two hours have passed from the moment of waking, and this interim period usually includes a session of running or interpretive dance, a shower and a commute to work.
But heavens above when the crave for breakfast assails – when that hunger strikes – a fruity banquet laid before me is mine to devour…
Traditional Maldivian Breakfast Basket NIKON D3000 Lens AF-S 1.4G f/5; Expoure 1/80sec; ISO-200
You see, my origins are from a heritage wherein the evening meal is large, and so breakfast does not hold great importance. Indeed in southern Europe today it is still not a proper meal, but merely coffee and perhaps a piece of bread or pastry. In England and the north the pattern is quite different. Only in the nineteenth century did breakfast assemble as a full and sumptuous meal with bacon, eggs and even steaks. Thus the three-meal-a-day pattern we are familiar with in the West is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Breakfast for the Stars: NIKON D3000 f/4; Exposure 1/320sec; ISO-400
Home breakfasts in Greece, the country of my forebears, include oven-fired bread with butter, honey, strained yoghurt, hot milk served in a mug and that enduring favourite beverage, cafè frappè. No breakfast at all is common, and this habit I carry with me day to day…
Tropical Breakfast NIKON D3000 Lens AF-S 1.4G f/5.6; Expoure 1/250sec; ISO-100
…until vacations find me marooned on tropical islands of the Indian Ocean, rocky Greek archipelagos and five star hotels of the Arabian Peninsula replete with breakfast buffets fit for a Sheikh’s harem. At these moments, the call of the papaya awakens my palate; tea kickstarts my brain, and the keys to my iginition come in the form of cashew-studded sheeps-milk yoghurt, four glasses full not nearly enough to satisfy my urge for breakfast…
Creamy Breakfast Yoghurt: NIKON D3000 Lens AF-S 1.4G f/1.4; 1/160sec; ISO-200
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