A flash back in the childhood of a little more… "older teenagers" can only cause a smile, when one remembers the "breakfast" (because then we did not know the word "brunch" which is very fashionable today)
Most of the time the snack was not something packaged and bought, but something that someone had to make to give it to - which means there was already a higher percentage of care to remember today. It was not chocolate, or chips or anything like that, but something for which the mother had to go into the kitchen, get a knife and a loaf of bread in her hand and deal with what she was going to eat.
Also, breakfast usually found you on time "work": Hidden, chased, ball… Where you were already busy with something that -many times- was pleasant, you heard the voice" come, to eat ", to do something that was also pleasant. A pleasant routine that is.
The first role was usually played by the beaten egg (usually the yolk only), for which there were at least three known variants: egg with sugar, egg with sugar and cocoa, or egg with a little oil and bread crumbs. This was the quick "snack", which was ultimately superfood, in today's terminology. Protein with the right amount of carbohydrates. Everything that was needed to continue the game, that is, without being burdened.
The next one was a slice of bread, with many variations: wet bread with sugar - bread with butter and honey - bread with butter and sugar (for the most delicacies) - or the most "complete brunch" which was the bread with oil, salt and oregano in the most festive cases and with a little chopped tomato.
The cunning of the grandmothers also played a very important role here, as they developed a whole strategy to make you eat fruit: a grated apple with a little sugar and cinnamon, or the well-known "I pass you the peeled orange while you talk", so you eat it unconsciously without realizing it.
And of course, special care was given to the liquid accompaniments: juice or milk.
If you think about it, this homemade breakfast preparation was much healthier than the easy solution of today's (mostly) snacks. Many of the foods included in the then "brunch" consisted of the right proportions of protein - fiber - carbohydrate, something that is not easily controlled if you offer something that you just opened from a package. But, the primary ingredient, which can not be replaced by any other, was this very care, the interest. Sometimes "come and eat" came before you said "I'm hungry". There was a prediction.
Sometimes what seems simpler is the most worth remembering. I remember, said my father, one of the last jugs of Aegina, that when he was young he would take the basket with the ready jugs and wait for hours in the port of Aegina, to side the boat, load them and take them to Piraeus for to sell them. "While I was waiting, I took the barley nut from my pocket, watered it in the sea and ate it. How delicious it was!
I do not know what is more beautiful than that breakfast and it makes us remember it with a smile. That they made it for us? That we interrupt the game to eat, and then play again? That they shouted at us with concern: "come to eat"? The fact that our breakfast was not the same as the one next door, why weren't they unpacked?
However, the smile probably exists.
photo https://pixabay.com/el/
