Let's try for a 1d20 list of breakfast types with the idea that each type is the predominant type in a nation or a world...
1. What breakfast?!? You get up, and get to work after splashing some water on your face. Lunch is the first meal of the day.
2. The Fruit Bat Special: Half a grapefruit (or other tart and juicy fruit in your world. I've read 'redfruit' in some stories.) Sliced up banana with peanut butter. Orange juice. Grapes. Walnuts. {The nuts keep this from being a total sugar rush followed by a collapse}.
3. Steak with egg on top. The manly choice. /deep voice off.
4. Healthy, not so super tasty, but well-balanced protein shakes with all essential vitamins and minerals in strawberry, kiwi, vanilla, or chocolate flavors. Yum!
5. As #4, but more amateur. Tomato juice, two raw eggs (sterilized by radiation), pureed celery, vitadust (vitamin mix), tabasco sauce mixed together. Usually drank with an evil scowl and a wince.
6. Pancakes with syrup and butter with waffle on the side with small sausage. Carbloaders paradise.
7. How is breakfast different from any other meal? Special breakfast foods? What nonsense! Now eat your meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes for breakfast.
8. Danage. A honey bun, sort-of, with sugar encrusted nuts on the outside, and a ham or sausage on the inside nestled alongside a cheese and brocolli mix. Usually bought in a rush at the vendors outside most offices and factories. Burning your tongue on the hot cheese mix is common.
9. Coffee. Give me coffee, and no one gets hurt. /pained voice. Brunch is the first real meal of the day. The first thing everyone does in a day is gather in a loose circle at the place of business with their mug of coffee, and slowly wake up, and have the boss start to hand out daily assignments. This ritual takes about fifteen minutes.
10. Breakfast is leftovers from the night before, usually eaten cold with a cup of coffee or juice.
11. Breakfast is done right. One dines at a proper breakfast house with linen tablecloths, a newspaper or a laptop open to news. Polite quiet conversation is permitted between guests. Meals start with espresso, continue with a cold cuts plate which is followed by some form of potato and vegetable dish (there are dozens of varieties ranging from mashed potato with broccoli cakes to potato pancakes with a green chile sauce [very hot] to stuffed bell peppers with hash browns mixed with tomatoes as the stuffing. The meal ends with a small, and very rich dessert.
12. Panfried potstickers both sweet and savory are served with milk and coffee to a table. Often the insides of the potstickers are a mystery until one bites in. Kids try to guess which ones have the strawberry with jam in them, and not the lightly bbq'ed roast pork. Its typical to eat 2-3 of these. They are lifted from the central frying pan or warming pan with a spatula,and then tossed from hand to hand to cool, or if one is more delicate, placed on a napkin at the table to cool. Its not uncommon for the man of the house to eat a savory roast beef with gravy potsticker while the gravy is still bubbling hot, and affecting not to notice at all (so yes, the locals are used to eating their foods at temperatures Americans would find tongue scorching.)
13. There's nothing like smoked dried fish with a hefty smear of mayo on it, and a pickle to wake ya' up. Add in a cup of hot tea, and you're good to go!
14. Its said that if you eat a frog for breakfast nothing worse will happen to you all day.
15. Good Southern biscuits broken open, still steaming, and white gravy with large chunks of sausage scattered liberally in it and the gravy poured in a very generous fashion over the biscuits. Hot coffee, black (in this world, adding sugar is for sissies and for delicate women), in large heavy mugs is the drink.
16. Coffee. Well sort of. By the time you finish adding the chicory, the vanilla extract, the caramel, the whipped cream, the chocolate syrup on top of the whipped cream, the maraschino cherry on top of that, the dissolving sugar amaretto spoon...and that's just the basic drink, the fancy ones get more exotic, some people might not call it coffee anymore. By law, a 'coffee' drink has to have at least 25% coffee by weight and volume.
17. Omelettes. Almost any type of meat, veggie, and cheese mixture can be found in the numerous 'Omie Shoppes'. Each small, brightly lit shoppe has tiny tables fixed to the walls, and small chairs. Hot coffee is served in small, styrofoam cups (drink all you want, but you have to serve yourself, and its typically served at about 180 degrees to keep you from drinking too much...and yes, legally, no one is liable for burns in an Omie shoppe unless the victim can prove malice.) Its completely normal to have a 'Two egg omellette with lamb brisket, mango chutney, and goat cheese' although this would be yelled 'dulette baa dash many dash cruncher' as the omie shops have their own jargon for their dozens of omellette choices.
18. Meat chunks with pasta with some sauce casseroles are served at the workplaces for breakfast in the breakroom. Larger companies have actual dining rooms, but even the smallest company has breakfast for its workers even if they have to sit outside against the wall of the building. Typically you get a single styrofoam plate full of cheap but filling food and a cup of juice or coffee. A lot of companies cater this out, and breakfast caterers deliver hundreds of yard long tins of tuna casserole, and curlies with white sauce and pork meat peas (very small meatballs), and other such to companies all over the area every workday. The tins are put on a table above heaters, and the workers file in, and fill their plate. Its custom to eat just one plate, although if someone is having a hard time, the company often looks the other way if he fills up a plate to take home to his sick wife or something.
19. There are three vending machines every worker hits on the way into the building if they are early (or they sneak out too if they are late, and need to rush in, and then sneak food later). Typically there are long lines in front of each. The coffee machine, the doughnut machine, and the meat with biscuit machine (or the breakfast burrito machine.) Nothing tastes that good, and the prices are really more than they should be (but the vending machine owners kick back a portion of the proceeds to the company they are located at.)
20. Oatmeal cafe'. Grind your own minibatch of coffee, and make it in the single serving maker on your cafe' table on the sidewalk. Order from the cheerful waitress a bowl of oatmeal with up to fifty different added ingredients. Leisurely eat as you people watch. And if you really want to go hog-wild, you can take on the Monster Bowl Challenge which is four bowls of oatmeal sized bowl with ALL fifty ingredients in it. Eat it all within an hour and its free.
Any more ideas?
Eric, I don't mean to be shooting you down, but how is this really relevant? In all the time I've been playing this, I think I have had 3 meal scenes played out in two of the five worlds I've been to. Meals don't seem to really be that big of a part of the stories is what I'm saying.
EDIT: Strike that. Now that I think about it, there's probably scenarios where every single meal scene is played out and important to the story.
I like to offer GM's the ability to add color to their universes. I think we all have too many universes that are either really weird or generic bland. I'd like more with little details. This goes with my Eleven Faces of America article and other stuff like that.
It is truly not the most important stuff I've done, I will agree.
As an example...
"Waking up, you open your eyes, and get to your feet. The rose-tinted concrete sidewalk under your feet parallels the blue line that borders the black asphalt road upon which three wheeled mini-cars wheel silently. They seem to be electric cars, but perhaps not. The fluorescent green-yellow stop signs at the corner certainly catch your eyes as does the billboard for Kaintuck Broiled Chicken sold by the Major.
Of course, its flashy colors are competing with the bright red plaids of the men's kilts and the white wigs of the women, and the jewelled necklaces of the children so that your eyes ache a bit from the profusion of color.
You lean your hand against a plastic telephone pole, and cover the laminated on poster for Beethoven Rap...with relief you stumble into Johnny's Omie, and order a Two egg omelette with fried pureed parsnips and yak milk cheese as you try to absorb the weirdnesses of this new universe.
It doesn't help when you see a newspaper saying.
"Cubs Win Third Straight Superbowl." "
I don't think you covered "continental breakfast"--coffee (or tea) and a doughnut (or danish).
I'm inclined to think this is not seeing things clearly. It isn't that breakfast is the same as all the other meals; it's that breakfast is the big meal of the day, and supper is the meal that is something light, like dry cereal or a couple eggs on toast, because you wouldn't want a heavy meal on your stomach when you go to bed. (There are nutritionists who argue for this approach.)7. How is breakfast different from any other meal? Special breakfast foods? What nonsense! Now eat your meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes for breakfast.
Your oatmeal breakfast should include other grain options, such as grits, cream of wheat or Wheateena, barley.
I also didn't see a cold cereal variant.
A number of your choices seemed to me to be variations of the same, and in particular I am inclined to think that they are inadequate for "this is how everyone in this culture does breakfast", being more like our world in which you can have this or that or the other thing, but always within the specific group.
I know a lot of people who think that cold pizza or cold lasagna are a good breakfast even if not leftovers from the night before.
Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old--I think John had peas porridge in Dancing Princess, if I remember aright, but he had the good sense not to ask what was in it. They really did reheat it every day, adding something else to it and serving it for breakfast yet again. Yeah. Don't ask.
There are also a few that are too narrowly part of the culture instead of the culture itself. Only the wealthy always have breakfast at a restaurant; what do the poor eat in that world? Only the standard working stiff buys his breakfast from vending machines on his way into the office; what are people at home eating, and what is the boss eating who is not in a rush?
--M. J. Young
A. There is a lot I didn't cover. A d20 list is not very long.
Let me improve these a bit.
1. Only two meals a day. Lunch which is often called dinner and supper which is the evening meal.
2. The Fruit Bat Special is a combo of fruits and a smaller variety of heavy protein sources of vegetable nature. For some, its dried bananas and peanuts, for others the one listed, and for others its pears in sweet sauce and a spinach salad.
3. This is a large amount of animal protein (pork, chicken, beef, or lamb) prepared in a manly way with another source of animal protein such as eggs (goose, duck, chicken...) or cheese. One way that the poor tend to eat this is the meat roll in which a cheese and egg mix is squirted in to a crepe reinforced by a thin slice of meat. It can be eaten, not on the run, but at a walk.
4. As is. This is a world interested in speed and fitness more than taste or style.
5. As is. The recipes vary considerably.
6. French toast is also done. Keep in mind that America is rather odd in its vast array of breads and danishes and such. Basically every country in Europe had their special thing or things, and America adopted them all.
7. A. As is. The idea of a special meal for special times is weird. Likely they don't eat turkey for Thanksgiving (if they have the holiday) and ham for Christmas. Its likely there is a religious or cultural bent to this that says 'no special celebrations, just do it well every day'. This would be a Low Church world with little ceremony, and no 'bling'. One shows that you are rich by the fine details of superior craftsmanship rather than stacking gold on top of something.
B. The idea of breakfast reversed for supper is a good one.
8. The rich eat their danage's which are delivered to their offices by the lady with the meal cart. They have a porcelain plate, or if they are really high up, they have a private dining room with the other execs, but still danages.
9. Largely as is. Sure, the execs sit in the boardroom and wait for the president of the company, and the coffee is served in gold rimmed mugs, and its Blue Kona Hawaii rather than Economy Coffees.
10. Leftovers or Lefan are the breakfast. Lefan is food deliberately made to be like leftovers from the night before. So when you go to the grocery store, you can buy 'Pizza Frozen to be heated' and 'Pizza Preheated and Chilled Lefan'. I suppose that could be something to add to the Great Big Long List of Pizza.
11. Eleven and Nineteen are in some ways opposite of each other. In 11, you have store owners with a vision of providing elegant dining, and a desire to make a solid living but not a killing, and you probably have customers that are A. Mannerly B. Willing to spend time. C. Have good judgement. D. Willing to pay a bit more than some other cultures for food. In Nineteen, you have vending machine kings who intend to make millions from overpriced second rate food, from biscuits that are filled with sausage that is half stale soy flour. They are not generous souls with a vision, but cynics. Their customers are quite often violent to the machines, are not willing to spend time, and have poor judgement.
In 11, the rich and the poor both eat in good dining. Of course, the rich is nicer.
12. As is.
13. As is. This is a hardscrabble land with ready access to the sea or a good transport net to bring seafood inland. Taste is second to cheapness and durability and making sure the food has basic necessities of life.
14. As is. This is a joke anyways.
15. About seventy percent of the time, some form of gravy and biscuits is the thing. Sometimes its other forms of gravy in certain locales such as H and H (honey and ham) gravy, and Red Spot Gravy (which is said to be able to kill a cold by inhaling the hot pepper juice laden fumes, let alone eating the 'red spots' of peppers in the gravy.) but the main type is White Sausage Gravy about 70 percent of the time.
Its like with Chicken Fried Steak. I've seen it with brown gravy, and even one time (horrors...in Chicago with Yellow Gravy), but CFS is meant to be served with White Gravy. Or at least I hope its like that.
16. Hot chocolate, and other drinks are also-rans but usually available.
17. The rich have their own ways of ostentation, but breakfast ain't one of them.
18. The rich do eat different. Caterers provide plates for them with the foods already prepared and of much higher quality.
19. Meal carts where the food is not much better, but noticeable, and the prices are way higher are provided by the same vending machine kings as chisel the workers.
20. There are a few grits shoppes in Corn Belt areas, and most Oatmeal cafe's offer a second choice. Some few shoppes in the larger cities go ethnic and have up to ten different types of grains.
14.
7. How is breakfast different from any other meal? Special breakfast foods? What nonsense! Now eat your meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes for breakfast.
No Eric, this IS the special breakfast food. They eat cereal, pancakes, sausage and eggs etc. every OTHER meal. Eating pancakes for breakfast? That's unheard of. Those are for dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs is the preferred breakfast.