Morning glory

Why must breakfast be a meal bereft of imagination? Felipe Fernández-Armesto offers an alternative

Iknow when Hortense is about to be snide. The slightly arched eyebrow, the slow smile with gently hitched ends, the contrived sweetness in her voice. “You never write about breakfast,” she says. She knows I always come to work without eating a meal most of my fellowlabourers deem sacred.

“Is that an offer,” I respond in a voice as sweet as hers, “to share yours with me?” She retreats huffily, leaving me to get on with my mail-room rites. Her implied criticism is valid. Breakfast to me is a meal that interests without attracting. I can see it as a subject of anthropological research, but not as an occasion for eating.

The scientific case in its favour has never convinced me. One least needs an energy boost when one has just got up, unless insomnia or lucubration has curtailed rest. Refuelling is best postponed until the body craves it.

It is surprising to me that anyone eats breakfast at all. Even more