Breakfasts

We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, yet we still sometimes skip it. During colonial times, breakfast was considered the most important meal of the day because workers in the sugarcane fields needed all the energy they could get. Caribbean breakfast dishes were molded to fit the industrial period of sugarcane production: high-energy dishes that contained corn, barley, and wheat. Field workers packed items like porridge or johnnycakes and ate them with tea or mauby and sugar water. Breakfast was usually eaten at 10 AM, since that was when field workers got a break. Before these workers left home, they would have bush tea, made from herbs and plants growing in their gardens. This tea would sustain them all morning. Even now, many people in the Caribbean eat breakfast later than elsewhere. They call this breakfast “break,” and it is basically brunch.