If Jerry Seinfeld can eat cereal at night, and Darwin locals can eat laksa for breakfast, should we abandon the concept of foods being time-specific as a lot of people around the world already do? (I'm looking at you, congee-which-works-for-every-meal).
The other day I was eating leftover pizza for breakfast - one of my favourite breakfast foods - and I began to wonder about the opposite scenario: eating breakfast...for dinner.
I decided to explore this with two people who think deeply about breakfast: Chris Theodosi and Jesse Orleans, co-owners of , a Canadian-style diner in Sydney's Haberfield.
They're usually only open for breakfast and lunch, but they've also served breakfast items (like pancakes and fried-chicken dishes) for dinner at their so-called 'Happy Nights' events. In fact, the first one was so successful that it sold out in seven minutes.
Theodosi likes to describe the meals at Happyfield as "cartoon foods". He says, "When you watch The Simpsons and they eat a burger, they eat it in three bites. It just seems so easy.
Fried chicken and pancakes have been the main attraction at Happyfield's Happy Nights dinners. Source: Happyfield
"I don't really like to eat and feel sick when I'm eating, so a really tall burger doesn't appeal to me. Jesse's the same as well. We like to finish our meal and feel satisfied like we could almost eat a bit more, but we don't need to."
This is one reason why Orleans, who's originally from Toronto in Canada, thinks that Canadian-style pancakes are the perfect breakfast food.
"Ours aren't the big and heavy pancakes. They're crispy-around-the-outside pancakes with proper maple syrup from Quebec. They fill you up but are still easy to digest."
Theodosi agrees that Happyfield pancakes work well for dinner. "They're just simple. There's no chocolate sauce or Nutella or Lotus Biscoff or fairy floss. You can get it with bacon and eggs, you can get it with cream and fruit. There are no tricks to it."
Pancakes with bacon and eggs for dinner? Yes, please! Source: Supplied
Meanwhile, Orleans is also full of 'breakfasty' dinner ideas. "Frittata, definitely, because you can just play with so many different ingredients. Essentially, it's just a mix. You could add spinach, sausage, bacon, and mushrooms. You can really make it your own and have that for dinner easily."
Savoury crepes are another choice. "Instead of having an overly sweet crepe, you could have cheesy mushrooms or spinach. You could even do cream cheese with smoked salmon and peas. Now that'd be sexy as hell."
You could even do cream cheese with smoked salmon and peas. Now that'd be sexy as hell.
As for a Happyfield item for dinner, Orleans suggests the green bowl 2.0. "Essentially it's a hearty bowl. It has a broccoli miso base and it's topped with falafel, grilled broccolini, grilled lettuce, pickled ginger and avocado."
It's a dish that's quite different from what Orleans grew up eating in Toronto, which incidentally also sounds like it'd work beautifully for dinner.
"My dad used to make pancakes and French toast for breakfast. My mother, she's from the Caribbean, and usually, for breakfast they would eat a fried dough called fry bake."
They used to break off pieces of fry bake and eat this with accompaniments, like salted cod with tomato, onions and chilli. Orleans' mum put collard greens, spinach, chicken stock and onions with the fry bake.
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“My grandmother used to like finishing collard greens by cracking eggs inside of them, like a kind of scrambled egg, which we'd eat with bacon."
Meanwhile, Theodosi's fondest childhood breakfast memories have made their way to the Happyfield experience.
"Once every couple of months, when we had family visit from interstate, we'd have a big Sunday breakfast around the dining table, which was usually only used for dinner," he says. "It would be a big spread including pancakes and eggs and sausages and bacon."
That joy can be seen now in Happyfield's happiest meal.
Happyfield's happiest meal is a short stack of pancakes with a McLovin’ muffin and a side of hash browns. Source: Happyfield
"It's a short stack of pancakes with our McLovin' muffin and a side of hash browns. You could probably skip lunch after," laughs Theodosi.
Pancakes, sausages and potatoes…sounds like the perfect dinner to me.
'The Mostest' is an SBS Food column that sees comedian and food enthusiast Jennifer Wong be your guide. Read as she goes searching to uncover who we are as cooks, who we are as eaters and what we enjoy most. Expect history, incredible tips, must-make recipes and anecdotes all surrounded by food. Love the story? Follow the author here: Twitter , Facebook , Instagram .
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