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03/12/2007 Entry: ""Breakfast Meetings".. WTF?"
This week, I've been invited to join two "Breakfast Meetings", ironically on the same day, as part of my role at work.
I'm there thinking "I'm invited to a Breakfast... WTF?"
Both invites came from Americans. This made me think "Here's an interesting cultural difference"...
In Europe, breakfast is a more personal thing... you might just choose coffee and croissants, juice and cereal, or even a full English. But, it's what you do over breakfast that is more important. It's not just about sustainance, it's a time to prepare for your day - you might read the papers, check the news on tv, or just listen to the radio. You might talk about plans for the evening with your loved ones ("don't be late home..."), or just want some piece and quiet.
In the US, breakfasts are enormous mountains of food. Not even 100 years ago, my Transatlantic cousins would have been chowing down on huge plates of steak and potatoes in the morning, and you might even meet people other than your family - co-workers, business associates, neighbours - over breakfast. I think that manifests itself today in that eating meals in the US is not a solitary experience, it's an eating out culture, and maybe it's not just about laziness. Apart from the indigenous Americans, everyone else travelled to where they are, and when people travelled on ships or in road caravans, people usually ate communally. Maybe this is where this culture came from and persists to this day.
Of course, now it's an excuse by slave-driving employers to cram work into your every waking hour...
It's not the first time I've been invited to a breakfast meeting by an American person or organisation, and probably won't be the last, but they go against every fibre in my being.
My breakfast is "me" time.
