The Trouble with Brunch by Shawn Micallef

Author:Shawn Micallef
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Social Classes, Sociology, Brunch
Publisher: Coach House Books
Published: 2014-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

What Is Brunch Anyway?

In 1895, the English writer Guy Beringer published an essay titled ‘Brunch: A Plea’ in a now-obscure periodical called Hunter’s Weekly. Nearly a hundred and twenty years later, the vision for a new meal that he proposed is as real now as a traditional Sunday roast was in his time. Little can be gleaned about Beringer himself – all searches for further information circle back only to this essay. In a 1998 New York Times article, ‘At Brunch, the More Bizarre the Better,’ author William Grimes attributed the invention of brunch to Beringer and quoted a few passages from the original essay: ‘Brunch is cheerful, sociable and inciting. It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.’

Just like we do today, Beringer saw the link between brunch and the hangover, writing that having the first meal later in the day on Sunday would make life easier on ‘Saturday-night carousers.’ Beringer differentiated brunch from those English roasts, calling the latter ‘a post church ordeal of heavy meats and savory pies’ while brunch, served around noon, would instead begin with tea or coffee, marmalade and other breakfast fixtures, before moving on to heavier fare. ‘More than a century later, Beringer’s template for brunch remains as valid as the day it was created, perhaps because, in drafting his culinary declaration of independence, he was not overly specific about what dishes should be served,’ wrote Grimes. ‘He demanded “everything good, plenty of it, variety and selection.” In a postscript, he suggested that beer and whisky could be served instead of coffee and tea, laying down a precedent for the mimosa, the Bloody Mary and the screwdriver.’ Satisfaction, a little gluttony and a buzz – the familiar components of most brunches served today.

For someone so prescient, even visionary, Beringer is a surprisingly obscure figure. Farha Ternikar hasn’t been able to find out any more about him. Ternikar’s a professor at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, and author of the recent Brunch: A History. Even a call to the British Library didn’t help: ‘They have a copy of that Hunter’s Weekly,’ she tells me, ‘but they won’t let anyone touch it because it’s so rare.’ Ternikar’s had more luck with brunch research closer to home. ‘American historians and academics often cite New York, Chicago and New Orleans as the first big brunch cities in the United States,’ she says. ‘New York City because there’s anecdotal evidence of Emily Post brunching at Delmonico’s in the 1920s. New Orleans had a very early brunch culture, where it was almost like a second breakfast. And there’s evidence that in the jazz era Chicago had early brunches as well.’ By the 1950s, she says, Americans began to have brunches at home and then, by the 1970s and 1980s, with the rise of conspicuous consumption, brunch began to appear at popular hotels, diners and franchise restaurants.

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