Why We Love Brunch

On the other hand, a famous rockstar recently told a reporter, when asked why he moved out of New York City, “I don’t know how many, like, white people having brunch I can deal with on a Saturday afternoon.” Of course, the rockstar in question is, like, white and hails from a family of elite New York City socialites.

Although they seem to oppose each other, both dialogues are couched in the same haughty pretense, which speaks to the true nature of brunch. It is a pretentious meal, and it’s easy to end up as a punchline no matter if we’re extolling or slamming it. Then again, how could it not be, with champagne and poached eggs being de rigueur?

As far as we know, brunch has always been about conspicuous consumption. In comparison to the Cantonese dim sum brunch tradition, America’s relationship to the meal is insipidly modern. The word first appeared in English in a British periodical from 1895 under the title “Brunch: A Plea.” Its author lobbied for rising late on Sunday mornings, and a lighter, boozier alternative to the dense post-church meals. The idea was marketable, but prohibition and the culture of temperance in America halted any immediate popularity in the early 20th century.

Only the wealthiest Americans could procure the liquor to craft brunch cocktails during the 1920s and ‘30s, but a paradigm shift was in the offing. Following World War II, brunch became fully democratized, a result of the move from religious to secular activities on Sundays, which also coincided with women entering the workforce and assuming more independent social lives. “The new wave of mixed drinks, often centered around citrus, eventually helped shed stigmas about drinking during daylight, especially for women and members of the middle class,” The Washington Post reported.

Brunch is now synonymous with the feeling of validated indulgence. Rich sauces, Southern-inspired ingredients and portions, fitting an egg when/wherever physically possible, and, of course, the booze, all seem to be guided by an implacable spirit of decadence. No other secular meal has the tendency to swallow entire afternoons, or days, quite like brunch. Experienced practitioners will fondly recall marathon sessions that commenced with antemeridian mimosas and broke up in a dive bar at midnight.

It would be fairly pedestrian to say that brunch is still a class issue, but we’ll do it anyway. Today, the ritual is most popular in regions with higher rates of disposable time and income, ergo the Pacific and Atlantic coastlines. The Midwest, save for Chicago, is a veritable “brunch desert,” according to The Washington Post, a kind of desert that the Midwest probably hadn't known existed until the publication of that report. The meal has steadily increased in popularity over the last two decades. Even as the world economy collapsed in 2008-2009, the urgency of brunch could not be stayed.

Despite its drawbacks, the alleged divisiveness and its many caricatures, brunch does offer something healthy for the individual and the community, and it’s not necessarily edible.

It’s true that as D.C.-based food writer Maura Judkis noted, we have become more inclined to forgo breakfast and traditional breakfast foods during the workweek in favor of brunching on the weekends, which inspires a ravenous yen for breakfast staples come Saturday, and more creative ways to prepare and consume them. However,the meal also satisfies the growing need for communal engagements in our increasingly frenetic and fragmented lives. For these reasons, it seems that the brunch ritual is more en vogue than ever.