5 Things People Used to Eat for Breakfast

Some of our favorite morning dishes have been around for thousands of years: In fact, researchers believe the earliest variations of pancakes and porridges were first eaten as far back as the Stone Age. But while some popular breakfast foods have evolved and endured, others that were once considered staples of the typical American kitchen have faded into nostalgic obscurity. 

From a leisurely meal of eggs and bacon to the convenience of a granola bar or yogurt parfait, breakfast foods come in an array of options to suit every taste and lifestyle. While the word “breakfast,” meaning “to break one’s fast in the morning,” dates back to the 15th century, some of our favorite morning dishes date back thousands of years. In fact, researchers believe the earliest variations of pancakes and porridges were first eaten as far back as the Stone Age. But while some popular breakfast foods have evolved and endured, others that were once considered staples of the typical American kitchen have faded into nostalgic obscurity. Here are five foods that were once considered popular breakfast dishes.

Granula Cereal

The first cold breakfast cereal, Granula was developed in 1863 in Dansville, New York, by James Caleb Jackson, a nutritionist who ran a health spa. Jackson believed that illnesses originated in the digestive system and that committing to a healthy diet could help cure sickness. He formulated Granula by baking graham flour into hard cakes and then crumbling the cakes and baking them a second time. The crumbled bits were then so hard that they had to be soaked overnight in milk to make the cereal edible. Dr. Jackson’s crunchy breakfast cereal was soon copied by inventor John Harvey Kellogg, who later invented corn flakes, who used a combination of cornmeal, oatmeal, and wheat flour to make his own version of Granula, which he called Granola — but only after Jackson sued him for using the Granula name.

Milk Toast

A popular New England breakfast dish in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, milk toast may date as far back as the Middle Ages when bread soaked in liquid was known as “sop.” The contemporary version was made by pouring warm milk over bread that had been toasted, buttered, then cubed. The dish could be served sweet or savory, with the addition of sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon, or salt, pepper, and paprika. The word “milquetoast,” meaning a timid or ineffectual person, was derived from a 1924 cartoon character named Caspar Milquetoast, who was named for this mild, quintessential comfort food.

Pork and Beans

Canned versions of this classic American side dish can still be found on grocery store shelves, but it was once popular on the breakfast table, served alongside johnnycakes, a type of fried cornmeal pancake. In the 1886 cookbook Practical Housekeeping: A Careful Compilation of Tried and Approved Recipes, author Estelle Woods Wilcox recommends adding a few tablespoons of molasses and salt pork to a pot of beans and baking it for six hours or longer. Noting, “This is the Yankee dish for Sunday breakfast,” the author recommends the pork and beans be baked the day before, left in the oven all night, and browned in the morning, though they could also be eaten cold.

Codfish

Whether breaded and fried as cakes or balls or served with cream on toast, codfish was once considered a popular breakfast food in American homes and luxury hotels alike. On its 1914 breakfast menu, New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel offered codfish in cream for 50 cents, while Fannie Farmer’s 1916 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book included recipes for creamed salt codfish, fish balls, and salted codfish hash. While those recipes called for picking codfish “in very small pieces, or cut, using scissors,” salted and cured shredded codfish was also packaged and advertised as a “dainty” and “sweet-flavored fish” whose price was “naturally high” because of the limited quantity of high-quality cod.

Meat Hash

Breakfast hash has been around for centuries and is still enjoyed today, but it was particularly popular during World War II, when meat rationing required home cooks to get creative. Traditional home-cooked hash was made of “chopped cooked meat” and cooked vegetables (usually potatoes and onions) mixed with broth and fried on the stove. While it was served at lunch and dinner as well, hash for breakfast was an economical way to use up dinner leftovers and stretch those precious quantities of rationed meat by adding flavorful fillers. In wartime ads, Armour and Company, the first company to produce canned meat, reminded Americans that “our war needs make it vital now to save every bit of food left over,” and offered a free booklet called “69 Meat Ration Recipes” that included breakfast hash recipes using a variety of fresh and canned meats.

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