They May Be Different but We Love Them Both
Breakfast and brunch—a lotta food that covers a lotta ground—who doesn’t love those meals?
But when does breakfast become brunch? I mean, really, you’d have “breakfast for dinner” but not “brunch for dinner,” right? Wouldn’t that be chicken with a side of pancakes or eggs? No—not likely to happen at our house.
Thankfully, thekitchn.com set the guidelines straight on what distinguishes one meal from the other. Here’s what author Anna Eidelstein said about the transition of breakfast to brunch. Thekitchn’s rules, but I’ll try to sum it up:
- It’s a weekend. Brunch is only for weekends. During the week, you have breakfast if you eat before noon, and lunch if it’s after 12:00. End of discussion. Any weekend meal eaten between 11:00 am and 4:00 pm is brunch. Before 11, it’s still breakfast—and they won’t even discuss the idea of lunch on a weekend. Actually, they said it doesn’t exist. Huh—what about my Reuben??
- Mary and her good friend Mimosa are invited. I’m guessing that these people at thekitchn are my kind of people—Mary and Mimosa were at my last brunch and they’re very fun. They don’t attend breakfast gatherings, though—only coffee, tea, or OJ for breakfast, though that crowd does hang around Mary, Mimosa, and their third friend, Bellini on the weekends. Hey—I don’t make the rules—I just report them.
- It’s an experience. Breakfast may be eaten on the fly, but you wouldn’t do that with brunch. Or at least, you’d better not. In Ms. Eidelstein’s words, “it’s an experience, a little (or very) indulgent, and it’s a carved-out time on your calendar to kick back and revel in.” Hmmm—sounds fantastic—
And now you know the breakfast vs brunch rules—
Until next time,
