Do You Feel Like Breakfast? Well, Do Y'a, Punk? Quiz

Answer: Mohingar

Just about anything CAN be eaten for breakfast. I happen to have enjoyed many a food normally associated with lunch or dinner in the morning; so it is entirely possible that someone might enjoy a fish soup such as bouillabaisse or rotten fermented herring from Sweden (Surströmming) or even the spicy Caribbean delicacy of a conch chowder. But if you are in Myanmar (Burma) and want the national breakfast dish you will get a bowl of hot and tasty mohingar.

The exact ingredients in the mohingar vary regionally within Myanmar; however the most common form starts with a rich local fish (often catfish), boiled with fish sauce, ginger, garlic, onion, turmeric powder, chopped coriander and lemon grass, and roasted chili powder poured over lightly fermented rice noodles. Mohingar is available almost everywhere in Myanmar from fine restaurants to sellers using small push carts. You can even find vendors walking on the street balancing a basket of mohingar on their head.

Answer: Nasi Lemak

Nasi means rice in malay and lemak is coconut, thus the traditional breakfast food of Malaysia is the sweet rice dish of nasi lemak. The name is descriptive of the cooking process where rice is soaked in a coconut cream spiced with savory pandan leaves and ginger before the mixture is steamed. The traditional nasi lemak is served on top of a banana leaf with fresh cucumber slivers, fried anchovies or chicken pieces, peanuts, hard boiled eggs, and spicy sambal sauce. Nasi lemak is considered one of the national dishes of Malaysia and can be found sold on most street corners or roadside stalls in infinite varieties and recipes throughout the country.

Rendag is another popular Malaysian dish that is a spicy beef mixture. Roti canai is a form of Malaysian flat bread similar to the Indian roti breads where dough is rolled into a thin sheet and then folded into a circular shape before being grilled with oil. Roti canai is often sold by street vendors and can accompany your nasi lemak. For a truly unique Malaysian experience add some tempoyak or fermented durian to any dish. Durian is a Southeast Asian fruit with a strong smell that inspires either a deep love or comparisons to eating rotten onions. Tempoyak is made from stale or rotting durians mixed into a paste with salt and used as a sauce or spread by Malaysians.

Answer: Ful Medames

Ful Medames is an Egyptian recipe that's remained both unchanged and a stable of breakfast menus since ancient times. Ful is sometimes spelled as "foul" but pronounced more like "fool" in English, is a slow simmering stew of fava beans seasoned with lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, cumin, salt, pepper and other spices. The husk of the fava bean is quite hard so the dish requires about a day of simmering; but most people make enough in a single batch for a few days at a time. The ful medames can be served with eggs or tomatoes and cucumbers and is often served by roving street vendors with fresh hot pita bread.

Eggah is another Egyptian breakfast food that is made from -- well eggs, as a frittata or open omelet. Hummus is a delicious mashed chickpea dish that might also find its way to the breakfast table but is really more a lunch or snack item. Couscous are the lovely round semolina pasta balls that are a staple of Moroccan and Mediterranean cuisine.

Answer: Labneh

Both the words Lebanon and labneh come from the Semitic root for white "labe". In the case of the country the name probably derives from the white capped mountains that dominate the landscape; while in the case of the food dish the reason is simply descriptive. Yogurt, strained or not, is an important element in Levantine cuisine, eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When eaten as a breakfast stable the yogurt is strained through cheese cloth to remove the watery whey and is mixed with crushed dry mint leaves, garlic, salt and sliced cucumbers. The labneh is frequently served with olive oil, cheese, olives and pita bread for a complete meal. Labneh is similar in use and texture to the creamed cheese served in western countries and is frequently made from cows' milk; however tasty versions of sheep's milk labneh are a regional delicacy.

Lebanese cuisine is quite popular in many western countries and so most have tried the traditional meatball called kibbe. Kibbe is often served along side the fresh salad of bulgur wheat, mint and parsley called tabbouleh. Arak is a potent liquor that turns a milky white when mixed with water and thus is often called the "lion's milk".

Answer: Italy

The tradition in Italy, as it is in many southern European countries, is to start the day with only a light breakfast. Breakfast is often eaten "on the go" or quickly at a café or bar and is typically nothing more than coffee, often cappuccino, and a pastry. Cornettos (Italian for croissant) and the sweet soft brioche bread are popular. Another favorite breakfast bread is the uniquely Italian biscotti. Biscotti means "twice baked" and the name is descriptive of the cooking process. Biscotti cakes are a sweet bread that is baked, cut, then baked again to form slices of a hard biscuit. Every morning you can see the cafés and streets of any Italian city filled with people dunking the biscotti into their cappuccino as they rush of to work.

Answer: Fresh Fruit

The full British breakfast is not for the weak of heart... literally. The breakfast can also be called a "fry up" as many of the foods served are fried often in a single skillet. Classic components of the British breakfast are the thick bacon common in England (often called Canadian or back bacon in the US) and fried eggs. However we are just getting started. Most fry ups also include fried toast, various sausages, black pudding (blood sausage in case you were wondering), baked beans, grilled or fried tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, porridge, and kippers. It is also common to see an assortment of breads and various jams and ketchup to go with your food.

Varieties of the British breakfast will differ by region. In Scotland you might also see potato scones, haggis and oatcakes. In Wales a local delicacy of seaweed and oatmeal called the laver cake may make an appearance.

Over the past few decades the healthy eating advocates have highlighted the amazing amount of fat and calories in a full British breakfast. Conservative estimates place the British breakfast's at around 1000 calories with over 50gms of fat. Now most British breakfasts are reserved for weekends, holidays and tourists. While personally I reject this latest attempt to strip away British heritage and frankly think it is a travesty, why there even are reports that some full British breakfasts are now including fresh fruits and unfried vegetables.

Answer: egg

Huevos of course is the Spanish word for egg. Eggs are a major part of many classic Mexican breakfast dishes. One of the most famous is huevos rancheros, (literally the rancher's eggs) which is a dish that combines fried eggs, tortillas, Spanish rice and refried beans. A spicy tomato and chile sauce and fresh avocado normally top the huevos. There are infinite variations of the huevos breakfast including the huevos divorciados ("divorced eggs") where the eggs are served alone and huevos motulenos where the eggs are topped by black beans queso fresco and a tomato sauce that is often flavored with ham, peas and plantains. The huevos mutulenos is named for the town where the dish was historically invented, Mutul, near Merida in the southeast of Mexico.

Another popular breakfast food in Mexico is the chilaquiles which are strips of fried tortilla simmered in a red or green salsa and topped with cheese. The chilaquiles is the tastier authentic forefather of the modern bar staple - the nacho. While nachos are considered more of a lunch or dinner appetizer; the traditional serving of chilaquiles is at the morning meal.

Answer: Cottage cheese

Quark is a cheese product made from warm slightly soured milk that is left to bind then strained. The resulting cheese has a soft texture similar to a cottage cheese though made without rennet. Quark is also similar to the Italian ricotta cheese tough different because ricotta cheese is strained from a heated mixture; thus its name as the twice cooked or "recooked" cheese.

In Russia and other eastern European countries the fresh quark is mixed with flour, eggs, sugar and vanilla then formed into cakes and fried in oil to become the syrniki. Raisins or currants are often added to give the syrniki a fruity flavor. Syrniki cakes have a crisp outside but a warm and soft inside. Topped with sour cream or jam the light fresh syrniki's are a classic Russian breakfast treat.

Answer: Head and Feet

In Pakistan, siri paya soup is dished up at breakfast time but it's not for the faint-hearted. If you knew that siri means head and paya means feet in Urdu, you would know the main ingredients of the soup. Siri paya combines slow-cooked cow, lamb or goats heads and feet in a broth made from tomatoes, garlic and onions and flavored with various curry spices such as cumin and turmeric. The stew is often served with a garnish of fresh ginger and cilantro along with lemon.

Siri paya is a traditional Paki dish that is often served at festivals and honored guests. Prior to the introduction of gas and electric cooking methods the siri paya was made in the embers of the night fire and left to cook overnight. Today modern pressure cookers reduce the preparation time for the dish.

Another fascinating traditional breakfast food from the region is nihari. More common in Bangladesh and India the stew is also cooked slowly overnight. The name nihari comes from the Urdu word nahar which means "after morning prayers" and reflects the fact that the meal was only eaten by the faithful after morning devotion. Nihari is often made with the brains and bones of the animal where the tasty marrow is extracted for added flavor.

Answer: Grits

Grits (or hominy) are one of the truly unique American foods. European explorers were taught the recipe for ground corn porridge by the Native Americans tribes. For example, when the British established their colony at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, records indicate they were offered bowls of a corn stew that the natives called "rockahomine," later shortened to "hominy" by the colonists. The word grits is from the older English word "grytt," meaning a coarse grain meal. Groats which would have been familiar to the early English settlers is a similar dish to grits but is made from wheat.

Grits are a popular breakfast food and are normally eaten with butter and salt. A variation that has caught on nationally is to take basic grits and mix with butter, bacon and shrimp. Contrary to what many would expect grits are normally not a sweet dish. Grits can also be fried in a pan or molded and sliced before being fried in vegetable oil, butter, or bacon grease. Flapjacks (pancakes)and waffles are wheat flour based breakfast foods that also grace many US breakfast menus. Scrapple is another unique US breakfast food from the Pennsylvania Dutch area that is a mush of ground pork trimmings (hence the name) mixed with flour and spices baked as a loaf then sliced and grilled for texture.