What is Brunch

What is brunch

Before getting into too many details, allow me to give you a quick summary of the concept of brunch, and a few related terms. I must warn you that some are a little freaky…

  • Brunch: Breakfast+Lunch at a time closer to breakfast (link)
  • Blunch: Breakfast+Lunch at a time closer to lunch (link)
  • Drunch
    • Dinner+Lunch
    • Drunk+Lunch
  • Drunkfast: drunk breakfast
  • Drunner: drunk dinner
  • Brinner: brunch for dinner

 

Here is how you pronounce the word brunch

 

What’s brunch, and where does it come from?

The word ‘brunch’ is a combination of breakfast and lunch, and it’s eaten between breakfast and lunch time. Some define it as a late breakfast, or early lunch. It first appeared towards the end of the 19th century in England and seems to have been born from the British upper classes. On Sundays wealthy families would give their servants a day off, after getting them to prepare a buffet style meal which their employers could then eat from for the rest of the day.

In the ‘Fashionable and Seasonable” section of the satirical Punch magazine in an edition from 1896, the following comment is made about brunch.

What is brunch

To be fashionable nowadays we must “brunch”. Truly an excellent portmanteau word, introduced, by the way, last year, by Mr. Guy Beringer in the now defunct Hunter’s Weekly, and indicating a combined breakfast and lunch. At Oxford, however, two years ago, an important distinction was drawn, The combination-meal, when nearer the usual breakfast hour, is “brunch”, and, nearer luncheon is “blunch”. Please don’t forget this.”  

Nowadays the brunch is usually associated with the weekend, perhaps because these are the days in which one can sleep a little longer, and is usually served between 10am and 5pm, depending on the city and the restaurant.

 

Typical brunch food

A typical brunch combines sweet foods like pancakes, french toast or waffles, with savoury dishes which usually have egg as their protagonist. One of the typical dishes is eggs benedict, which is made from poached eggs on English muffins and bacon, all covered in hollandaise sauce.

egg benedict

However, given an increasing interest in brunch, restaurants have been creating ever more original dishes, often with a healthy edge to appeal to the health conscious, or perhaps less healthy for those who need a brunch to get over a hangover. Brunches are also being adapted to different audiences, such as vegetarians, vegans or celiacs.

Personally, what particularly draws my attention to brunch is that the timing of it is so flexible and you can mix up sweet and savoury. Brunch lovers also swear by it as a hangover cure. On the one hand, greasy food can help speed up the body’s absorption of alcohol and on the other hand the consumption of more alcohol reduces the effects of alcohol abstinence.

In fact, a brunch is often accompanied by alcoholic drinks such as Mimosas (prosecco with orange juice), Bellinis (prosecco with peach juice), or Bloody Marys (vodka, tomato juice, spices, lemon juice, olives and celery).

What to drink for brunch

 

Brunch in Spain

Until very recently, brunch was an unknown concept in Spain – but it does seem now to be finally here and it is likely to stay. Various places have adapted their offer to incorporate a brunch menu, while new restaurants have opened with brunch as a key selling point.

If in some northern European countries brunch is usually a buffet, it seems that this approach hasn’t caught on quite so much in Spain, and restaurants are sticking with an a la carte approach – with traditional dishes and an increasing tendency to use healthy ingredients. Buffet brunch lovers can satisfy their cravings in various hotels, where the price of brunch tends to be higher.

Brunch buffet

If brunch was born as a fashion, and seemed to be reserved for the wealthy, today it has been accepted as a new meal for all of our weekends.

 

Want to read more about brunch? 

You cannot miss these two articles

>> Click on the image to read the post <<<

reasons to love brunch

 

Indispensable-products-for-brunch-addicts

 

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What is brunch