I consider myself to have had the most fortunate upbringing. From an early age my parents taught me the independence of breakfast, with the plus that if I could organize it well, and was autonomous enough, I could consume it in bed.
Sublime pleasure!
A cup of chocolate milk, or tea, and some brown bread with homemade jam. Under the blankets, of course.
I still do it today, every day. Breakfats may now be just a coffee or a tea: but in bed, in bed, in bed!
My utmost luck, however, has been having had the chance and the privilege to be able to share lunch with my parents every day for almost all of my upbringing years.
I feel sorry for all these children today, stuck in a school building from breakfast almost till dinner. Swished away on Saturdays to soccer or riding or swimming or skiing. No time to build a family with their parents, and I think no time for their parents to truly “be parenting” - at least in my view of this task.
I could go home instead, and help out with the last preparations or set the table, and all the while chitchat with my family. While growing up, taking onboard more and more of the tasks, till being able to cook and clean autonomously.
Work was a forbidden item of discussion around the table, same as school matters and disturbing news.
So we invented stories, we talked about travels and excursions to plan, or we discussed history, philosophy. Lots of ancient tales, classical poems and Homer. Botanics, music, childhood tales and plans for the holidays: anything.
I remember we had quite some Egyptian mummies, pyramids, dynasties, and a lot of dinosaurs, for lunch - one of my favourite childhood themes.
Missing out on lunch is a sad affair to me.
Lunch to me is magical.
A parenthesis in the day, a meal that even today I consume with pleasure.
As an adult, I’m mostly alone at lunchtime, which frankly sucks as I am used to having a family lunch.
For some time I indulged in eating out, and tried different restaurants and frolicked about town - a rather expensive hobby of mine.
But lunch loneliness is not my kind, so lately I find myself preferring a home-cooked meal (that gives me time also to prepare something for dinner or advance some cooking for later) in the delightful company of my two attentive and participating cats.
We sit at the table and while I enjoy my food, I reset the day.
If the day is truly hectic, I resort to a smoothie and call it a day: dinner will be surely better!
Supper in the Alps is a small and rather early meal, and we sometimes migrated to the low chairs and table of the living room, substituting a proper meal with some omelettes, soup with cheeses and bread, or one of the amazing oven bakes so typical of the area.
But the centrality of lunch, for me, has always been paramount.
Lunch is a civilised thing.
Then again, Alessandro Barbero wrote extremely in detail and extensively about the times of the meals in the past and their evolutions. One important thing is common: the central meal (the one between a light thing to break the fast, and before the light thing to start the fast) is the most important meal.
Socially, culturally and gastronomically.
And for you, what’s your most important and central meal of the day?
For me, the most important meal is whichever one I can have in the company of good people. Sometimes it's lunch, more often it's dinner. But sitting at a table with food and friends keeps my soul alive.
Breakfast remains my most important meal of the day. It's not about what I eat, but it's a me moment of peace, relax, contemplation and reading that makes me face better the day ahead. For the same reason, though I can't consider it a meal, the tea time is almost as important: another me time to put a break in the middle of the day, even if it was not a working one. I also do it while I'm on holiday. In fact, right now I'm writing this comment while sipping on an aged Taiwanese tea in the oldest tea house of Taipei, and that is magic! 🤩