Breakfast: An etymological debate

As discussed in my previous post, I haven't been sleeping lately, and this led to a somewhat interesting (for me at least, but as previously discussed, psychosis may well have set in by now) discussion, is it possible for someone who doesn't sleep, to eat breakfast?


Now wikipedia defines "Breakfast" to be:

"Breakfast (literally meaning "breaking the fast" of the night) is the first meal taken after rising from a night's sleep, most often eaten in the early morning before undertaking the day's work."

So from this, one would logically surmise that no, if breakfast is the first meal you eat after rising from a night's sleep, literally "breaking the fast of sleep", then no, someone who does not sleep cannot therefore eat breakfast.


But fuck that, I like breakfast. Breakfast is probably my favourite meal of the day, whether it's a full on fry up, a sausage and egg muffin (no, not a McMuffin, fuck McMuffins, although to be fair they are a facsimile, and are by far the best thing McDonald's serve, so maybe not fuck them, just a little heavy petting maybe...), porridge or whatever, I'm not gunna let no pinko-open-source-commie wiki take that away from me.

This is actually what you get if you google "pinko open source wikipedia communist". There are other results, of which we shall not speak.

So to the good old Oxford English Dictionary we go, which defines breakfast as:

"The first meal of the day; morning meal"

Aha! Saved by good old British etymology. The first meal of the day. The morning meal. I can once again go back to eating breakfast without the worry that it's been stolen from me by my insomnia.

Suck it wikipedia, shove it where it don't shine pinko commies!

Wait, see, now I have a problem with that definition as well, "the first meal of the day". Now if I was to grill me up a fat porterhouse with chips at 12.01am would that be breakfast? No it wouldn't. Yes, technically it's a new day, ergo this being the first meal of said day it should be defined as breakfast. But it just isn't, not because it's a steak, I'm a firm believer that any biological or mineral substance digestible by the human body (and some not, god knows I've been to some dodgy burger vans in my time) can be eaten at any defined and undefined meal times. If, if, I had been asleep, and woken up to cook and eat that, I would have then defined it as breakfast, yes, but if without that clause then we're destroying the very fabric of the "midnight snack". So it would appear that I've come back to having to define breakfast as a meal requiring sleep prior to it, which is bullshit.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit bull...shit bullshit

See, when I used to work night-shifts, when I got off at 6-9am, breakfast was what I referred to as the meal I had then, in a dodgy looking but quite pleasant and quaint little cafe in a industrial park in Dagenham (that also served Guinness and Jamesons at said time, which wasn't altogether unappreciated), before I went to bed. But again, this leaves me with a definition that is time-based, again something I want to get away from.


Another definition of breakfast I can find, is:

"To refer to a meal composed of traditional breakfast foods (eggs, oatmeal, sausages, etc.) served at any time of day."

Again, no dice, whilst lacking in a time requirement, and no stipulation as to whether or not sleep is required, it's main fault is in it defining the food that need to be eat, to which I cannot stand. Everyone knows cold pizza for breakfast is godly, and I won't have that besmirched, and I'm damn sure no one would define pizza as a breakfast food. Well, with the exception of one service station in Guildford that serves a "breakfast pizza" of which I would warn anyone who posses either taste-buds or a digestive tract to steer  well clear of. The same goes for chili, or last nights special chow-mien and house curry. The alternative would be to define all foods to be breakfast foods, but that would mean every meal would be breakfast, if I can't define it by time or sleep, and the last thing I want to do is remove the lustre of that glorious meal. 

This breakfast pizza looks nice, the one of that fateful day...did not

So I find myself at an impasse, in an existential state of  both eating breakfast all the time, some of the time, and none of the time, at all times.


Yup...psychosis is definitely setting in...