CITY Issue 57

ICON BRUNCH It’s a Sunday ritual as common, and ﬁlling, as the football tailgate. It’s an excuse for ladies-only gossipfests and post-Church family reunions. And it’s every teacher’s favorite example of a linguistic portmanteau. Brunch, served every Sunday between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (or noon and 4 p.m. in Manhattan), is where friends playing catch-up, relatives bickering en masse, and night owls recovering from hangovers linger blissfully over fancy eggs and spiked-juice concoctions. The idea of brunch was ﬁrst introduced in Britain by Guy Beringer in his 1895 article “Brunch: A Plea,” published in the periodical Hunter’s Weekly. Seeking an improved Sunday meal — one that included both breakfast and lunch fare served around noon — Beringer’s concept offered an alternative to the traditional pre- and posthunt breakfasts. Beringer envisioned it as a time to come together, insisting that brunch be “cheerful, sociable, and inciting.” One year later, the English satirical magazine Punch revived Beringer’s concept, noting that, “To be fashionable nowadays we must ‘brunch.’ ” Around the same time, an entrée referred to as Eggs Benedict was born. One story places the invention in the kitchen of New York’s Waldorf=Astoria hotel in 1894, when a Mr. Benedict — seeking a hangover cure — requested toast, bacon, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce, a dish so intriguing that the chef added it to the regular menu. Another story gives credit to New York’s Delmonico’s Restaurant, where a regular patron of the restaurant — a Mrs. Benedict — asked for a new lunch option, so the chef created Eggs à la Benedict, featured later in his 1894 cookbook. Whichever story is true, the combo has since become the meal’s signature dish. As brunch caught on, hotels became the foremost arbiters of the idea. The mimosa was invented at the Ritz in Paris in 1925, with the Bloody Mary following more than a decade later at the St. Regis in New York. Rock stars took advantage of the late Sunday meal in the 1970s after long nights of debauchery, and families of the 1980s partook in the hotel buffet, where pancakes coexisted happily with prime rib. In the 1990s, brunch traveled to Italy where it added risotto and pasta to its repertoire. Mexico threw tortillas into their mix creating migas — scrambled eggs and tortilla chips — in addition to old standbys like huevos rancheros and breakfast tacos. China has a dim-sum brunch of sweet and savory stuffed buns and dumplings. In the city that sleeps in until noon, New Yorkers enjoy bagels, lox, cream cheese, and the Sunday Styles and Arts & Leisure sections. And then there’s Las Vegas, where mammoth buffets include everything from elaborate Swedish wafﬂe stations to breakfast pizzas, all for just $5.95. While the appeal may be the plethora of options, we think Guy Beringer was onto something else back in 1895: Brunch, he said, “puts you in a good temper.” Well, perhaps that’s just the mimosa. — ANDI TERAN 112 CITY TY ILLUSTRATION BY JULIA ROTHMAN

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CITY Issue 57

City Issue 57 Contents Letter from City Our Friends Action Wanted City Moment Temporary Contemporary In Rouge Fast Food The Amused Bouche How We Live/The Kitchen Taste Test Dessert Wine Going Local Expert Opinion Travel Employees Only Summer Showers Wild Things Be There at 10 P.M. Sharp If... Where To Buy It Icon

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.