Chelfan Breakfast

Breakfast in Chelfan cuisine is diverse and tailored to the individual or family’s social status, wealth, working life, the seasons/climate, personal taste and traditions, and the day of the week. For Echelfan nobility, breakfast is an important leisurely and luxury affair, eaten with the family. For the lower classes, breakfast tends to be more efficient so the working day can get started, with dinner the more important social meal.   Any bread served at breakfast time is a flatbread, called breakfast bread, which is not served at other meals. Unlike the milk bread served at other times of day, breakfast bread is typically infused with tea. It can either accompany other foods, or be served as a toasted sandwich. A breakfast sandwich is typically filled with an acca egg omelette, cheese or sliced pork, figs or grapefruit, and fresh aromatic herbs. On a working day, when a quick breakfast is desirable, the sandwich will be prepared in advance and stand alone. Otherwise, it can be accompanied by a small side salad and a bowl of pomegranate seeds.   A favourite sweet breakfast dish is cheesecake, which is only served for breakfast, never as a dessert. It is a rare treat for working people, but a staple of the nobility’s breakfast. The most common flavours include lemon and orange, mango, and grapefruit (especially amethyst grapefruit), and it’s often served with a dusting of cocoa powder or and/or sprinkled with nuts. It can be served with, before, or after a savoury dish, depending on the household.   Pork is the usual breakfast meat; duck is only eaten at breakfast on certain festivals, and lamb is exclusively for dinner. In breakfasts where multiple dishes are served, fish is more popular than meat. Saltwater fish and seafood, imported from outside the landlocked region, are rarely eaten for breakfast outside of the wealthier classes due to the expense, but for the nobility they are considered the most desirable daily way to break their fast. Favourite dishes include cheese-stuffed giant prawns, spicy smoked eel, stir-fried mixed fish and hot peppers with lime dressing, jellyfish and bacon salad. Eggs are not a particularly common breakfast food, aside from in sandwiches; they are more commonly eaten for lunch. Rice is quite popular for breakfast, fried with herbs or spices that complement the other dishes, and served mixed with chopped avocado and/or pomegranate seeds.   Although millet noodles, a staple of Chelfan cuisine, are usually a dinner food, they are often eaten for breakfast by those who work in fields requiring manual labour. They are commonly stirred into scrambled egg with cured pork, and eaten with a piece of breakfast bread and any preserved or leftover fruits or vegetables to hand; the meal is cheap, quick to prepare, and provides plenty of energy for the day ahead. It’s rare for an Echelfan to be working class, due to their social dominance in the Keizon Empire; but Chelfan cuisine or variants of it is eaten by many others who live in the region, as well as Echelfa who have ‘fallen from grace’.