"Quintessential American Breakfast" for visiting Swedish couple: SUGGESTIONS???

[MikeLM]

In June we will host a Swedish couple who are attending Rotary's one-hundredth anniversary International Convention in Chicago. We will put them up for five days and nights and be responsible just for feeding them breakfast, since lunch and dinner will be part of the festivities downtown.

I'd like to put on the dog a little and make some really representative American breakfasts...

Like, Missouri country ham with red-eye gravy and grits. (I'll get the ham from Esicar's Smokehouse in Cape Girardeau, as I do each Christmas.)

Maybe corned beef hash, like they serve at the Colonial Inn in Concord, Mass. (It doesn't come out of a can.)

Probably huevos rancheros. (Certainly qualified as Southwest American.)

How about a Cajun breakfast?

A Down-east breakfast?

I would be grateful for some menu suggestions to round this out, including other items to go with the main themes I've suggested above.

I will appreciate your advice.

Mike

[cheflayne]

How about a Joe's special from San Francisco or a Hangtown fry?

[Suzanne]

If you feed them the kind of big American breakfast we mythologize, they'll never need lunch, and may even sleep through the morning activities! That said:

Buttermilk or buckwheat pancakes, or waffles, with real maple syrup and sauteed apple slices.

Blueberry pancakes or muffins, or better yet, a blueberry grunt or slump (stove-top cooked berries with baking-powder dumplings steamed on top), cobbler (baked with the dough plopped in close dollops), crisp (the usual crumbly crumb/oatmeal topping baked on, or buttered bread crumbs), or buckle (cakelike with lots of berries mixed through), all with lots of cream poured over at serving.

Bagels, lox, cream cheese, smoked whitefish (chubs), or a lox-and-onion omelet with bagels on the side. (Warning: seek out REAL chewy bagels, not the "round roll with a hole" that seem to have taken over. )

For Cajun, pain perdu (French toast) or bread pudding with pralinee pecans.

Applewood-smoked bacon, sage sausage patties to go with almost anything. Buttermilk biscuits. Hash brown potatoes.


And then there's the quintessential urban American breakfast: cold pizza and warm Coke.

[chrose]

Originally Posted by Suzanne

Bagels, lox, cream cheese, smoked whitefish (chubs), or a lox-and-onion omelet with bagels on the side. (Warning: seek out REAL chewy bagels, not the "round roll with a hole" that seem to have taken over. )

Now this is all you need for 7 days! (Or all I need)

[Mezzaluna]

I spent five weeks in Sweden one summer. Although it's been some years, I'd argue against the lox; too much like gravlaks, I think. They do eat a lot of pork in Sweden (when they're not eating fish), but our lively sausage flavorings are unlike theirs, in my experience. That might be better. For many Europeans eggs are a lunch or supper item, so serving them at breakfast would be more unusual. Pancakes and waffles are not so unusual (Swedish pancakes, remember?).

Products like wild rice, pecans, cranberries and pumpkin are native to North America.

That said, I'd vote for eggs, patty sausage and biscuits with something like pumpkin butter (a New World product). Don't forget the large glass of orange juice; I remember that being very costly in Sweden. Keep it simple!

[Pete]

Here are a few suggestions:

Red Flannel Hash (from the leftovers of a New England Boiled dinner)
Buttermilk Biscuits served with Apple Butter
Buttermilk Pancakes
Pecan Waffles
Eggs Benedict
Homemade Egg McMuffins
Smoothies (a great way to start the day especially in summer)

And then there's the quintessential urban American breakfast: cold pizza and warm Coke

Either warm Coke or warm beer, depending on whether I have to go to work or not!!!!!

[henry]

A few more suggestions:

Start with a fruit parfait: granola topped with yogurt, covered with fresh cut berries, pineapple, melon served in a martini glass (topped with a fresh mint sprig)

cheese grits (maybe with jalapeno and cilantro?)

cinnamon pecan pancakes

french toast stuffed with creamcheese/cranberry mixture

build your eggs benedict with real ham, grilled tomatoes slices and some sauteed fresh spinach. Or a crabcake benedict.

for your huevos rancheros, start with a corn waffle covered with a black bean/cilantro/sausage chili, grated cheeses, poached egg, mango salsa.


henry

[MikeLM]

Really great responses, and I appreciate them all.

I've got three months to work on this, so keep 'em coming!

Thanks again.

Mike

[Salthouse]

You mentioned down east and I've got to say that biscuit and sausage gravy are a classic. They can be a bit of an acquired taste. And many people have had a bad experience with it. But, it is a keeper in my book. Make good biscuits. Split them open. And cover them in thick, white sausage gravy with little bits of sausage.

[Pete]

Man, I can't believe I forgot Biscuits and Gravy. Good choice Salthouse!!!!

[skylightsky]

Johnny Cakes "Journey Cakes"

Cheesey Grits Bake

And if I might add... Sugared Blueberry Cornbread or something from
Paula Deen's area such as this recipe from Ballstone Inn.

Southern Pecan Cornbread
A Ballastone Inn exclusive--
Best of Savannah Georgia Bed and Breakfasts

2/3 cup ground pecans
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs

1. Mix dry ingredients together.

2. Mix liquid ingredients together and add all at once to dry ingredients. Batter will be thick.

3. Pour into a buttered 10 inch pie plate.

4. Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes

[diane]

Would you consider revisiting the roots of the Mayflower, not that they ate so well. But an English breakfast is a fine thing. Our hotel in Japan had an English, Continental, and Japanese buffet. All Separate. Stunning presentations, all of them.

It might make a gorgeous little buffet for your people, for their breaky. Soft scrambled eggs with parsley and chives, or Poached the night before and reheated in hot water, this works well. Tomatoes, from a buttery pan, (homemade) hash browns or rosti, mushrooms in light cream sauce, the very best bacon, or fried ham, I wouldn't bother with sausages, they are too heavy. At least I find them so.

Maybe good old oat porridge would go down well, with cream and brown sugar. And eggs simmered, and served with soliders of toast. 4 mins big egg. A good nob of butter and large pinch of salt on the plate, to add as unnecessary. But jolly good. A daily made fruit conserve or an orange and or grapefuit segment starter. NZ or Danish butter to make a fuss of a good bread toast. And tea. A good English Breakfast tea. Thick in the ankle of taste and very bracing. A little milk or light cream and no sugar added. Really, it is just endless, isn't it.

[bigwheel]

Hmmm didn't realize them down east folks ate real food like biscuits and gravy Now Texas folks eat the heck out of it. This pass for a largish weekend breakfast at my house:

Fried sausage or bacon
Fried tates
Fried eggs
Biscuits
Pet Milk Gravy
Ranch Style Beans (that be a brand of chili beans not found some places guess a person could sub some other off brand for the real thing)

Let folks eat it like they want. Some prefers the gravy on the biscuits and some like it on the tates or eggs. Sometimes it even winds up in the beans. Pass the grape jam..hotsauce and ketchup on the side.

bigwheel

Originally Posted by Salthouse

You mentioned down east and I've got to say that biscuit and sausage gravy are a classic. They can be a bit of an acquired taste. And many people have had a bad experience with it. But, it is a keeper in my book. Make good biscuits. Split them open. And cover them in thick, white sausage gravy with little bits of sausage.

[shroomgirl]

Breakfast my favorite......

biscuits, maple bacon, scrambled eggs and hash browns

eggs sardou or a version similar

Greek yogurt with granola, fruit, honey

blintzes with summer fruit compote

omelets

Hi my name is Julie and I'm a grit eater......it's considered just plain weird over the Mason Dixon line but it's required for a true southern breakfast.

Good steel cut oatmeal with accompanying goo

Frittatas are easy for a group, roulades too.

Cinnamon rolls, Pecan rolls, beignets, doughnuts......the "good" shtuff that is a pain to make but OH so special.

[bigwheel]

Grits is also considered weird in vast expanses of geography South of the Mason Dixon line. Seems like most of the grit eaters is concentrated North and East of Dallas.

bigwheel

Originally Posted by shroomgirl

Hi my name is Julie and I'm a grit eater......it's considered just plain weird over the Mason Dixon line but it's required for a true southern breakfast.