Breakfast the most important meal of the day.. you heard this before
probably, but most of us tend to lack imagination when it comes to
breakfast. Sure a bowl of cornflakes or cereals with milk is what kids
all over the world eat. Kids around the world though have also other
things on their breakfast plates.
Breakfast for a child in Burkina Faso, for example, might well
include millet-seed porridge; in Japan, rice and a putrid soybean goop
known as natto; in Jamaica, a mush of plantains or peanuts or cornmeal.
New York Times magazine, sends photographer Hannah Whitaker on a journey around the world to find out..
Saki Suzuki, 2 ¾ years old, Tokyo
On the menu are white rice, miso soup, kabocha squash simmered in soy sauce and sweet sake (kabocha no nimono), pickled cucumber (Saki’s least favorite dish), rolled egg omelet (tamagoyaki) and grilled salmon.
Doga Gunce Gursoy, 8 years old, Istanbul
On the Menu are honey and clotted cream, called kaymak, on toasted bread; green and black olives; fried eggs with a spicy sausage called sucuk; butter; hard-boiled eggs; thick grape syrup (pekmez)
with tahini on top; an assortment of sheep-, goat- and cow-milk
cheeses; quince and blackberry jams; pastries and bread; tomatoes,
cucumbers, white radishes and other fresh vegetables; kahvaltilik biber salcasi, a paste made of grilled red peppers; hazelnut-flavored halvah, the dense dessert; milk and orange juice.
Nathanaël Witschi Picard, 6 years old, Paris
On the menu: a single kiwi; tartine, an open-faced baguette with
butter and blackberry jam made by his grandparents; cold cereal with
milk; and freshly squeezed orange juice.
Phillip & Shelleen Kamtengo, both 4 years old, Chitedze, Malawi
On the menu: a sweet, cornbread-like cake called chikondamoyo. Breakfast for the Kamtengo twins and their older siblings also includes boiled potatoes and black tea
Koki Hayashi, 4 years old, Tokyo
On the menu: green peppers stir-fried with tiny dried fish, soy sauce
and sesame seeds; raw egg mixed with soy sauce and poured over hot
rice; kinpira, a dish of lotus and burdock roots and carrots sautéed with sesame-seed oil, soy sauce and a sweet rice wine called mirin; miso soup; grapes; sliced Asian pear; and milk.
Viv Bourdrez, 5 years old, Amsterdam
On the menu: a glass of milk with bread, unsalted butter and — most important — sweet sprinkles called “hagelslag”
Birta Gudrun Brynjarsdottir, 3 ½ years old, Reykjavik, Iceland
On the menu: oatmeal porridge is called hafragrautur, a staple breakfast in Iceland. Birta also takes a swig of lysi,
or cod-liver oil. For part of the year, when the sun barely clears
Iceland’s horizon, sunlight is a poor source of vitamin D — but the
vitamin is plentiful in fish oils.
Aricia Domenica Ferreira, 4 years old, and Hakim Jorge Ferreira Gomes, 2 years old, São Paulo, Brazil
On the menu: chocolate milk, but her brother Hakim’s cup contains coffee (café com leite).
For many Brazilian parents, coffee for kids is a cultural tradition;
the taste evokes their own earliest memories. Also on the menu ham and
cheese as well as pão com manteiga, bread with butter.
Emily Kathumba, 7 years old, Chitedze, Malawi
On the menu: cornmeal porridge called phala with soy and groundnut
flour; deep-fried fritters made of cornmeal, onions, garlic and chiles,
along with boiled sweet potato and pumpkin; and a dark red juice made
from dried hibiscus flowers and sugar.
Oyku Ozarslan, 9 years old, Istanbul
On the menu: brown bread with green and black olives, Nutella spread,
sliced tomato, hard-boiled egg, strawberry jam, butter soaked in honey
and an assortment of Turkish cheeses
Tiago Bueno Young, 3 years old, São Paulo, Brazil
On the menu: cornflakes, banana cake and bisnaguinha, a sweet white
bread popular with Brazilian children and served with a mild cream
cheese called requeijão.
Image credits: Hannah Whitaker | Article via The New York Times
