It's not quite breakfast, it's not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end.\ These eloquent words spoken on the esteemed television show ""The Simpsons"" aptly describe the greatest meal of the week: Sunday brunch. Lucky for us at UW-Madison, the Sunday of May 14 is quickly approaching, offering three reasons to celebrate: We can honor our mothers with a leisurely morning free of cooking, toast our mimosas and bloody marys to the end of finals, and fondly think of our beloved food columnist whom we will sorely miss over the summer. But all this hungry anticipation got me thinking, Why do we limit our indulgence to Sundays?
Intriguingly, the creators of brunch may have had us here at the No. 1 party school in mind. British history tells of a post-church tradition of the wealthy, who would enjoy an immense evening meal on Sundays. This meant an early Sunday morning breakfast to stave off hunger until evening. It seems these early mornings were ruining the late night fun of some Brits, who proposed the Sunday feast be moved to early afternoon. With only a few hours in church before the hearty meal, the hooligans freed up Saturday nights for British shenanigans.
Brunch really caught on in the 1930s, when the American phenomenon known as the all-you-can-eat buffet became the standard brunch menu. Ironically, experts point to the Las Vegas Strip as the birthplace of the all-you-can-eat buffet. Thus, those freshly absolved of their sins would return for a gluttonous feast courtesy of Sin City.
This brings me to my main point: Sunday brunch clearly has its origins as a post-church meal. But 230 years after our founding fathers established the separation of church and state, how the hell has brunch resisted American secularization? Whether people are Hindu, Buddhist or Satanic, they want their eggs Benedict, and they don't care what day it is.
Ok, so maybe it's not all about religion. After all, Saturday night is the preferred ""go out"" night, and some have simply renamed Sunday as ""Hangover."" But you'd think here, on our progressive and liberal campus, where Wando's and Brother's have soaked the average weeknight in alcoholic glory, that a brunch for those fighting off the Fish Bowls would be offered at least on Saturday. But check the menu at Pop's Club: Saturday features an ""extended"" breakfast, while Sunday offers a ""brunch.""
And this is not just about nomenclature. In fact, there are a few Madison restaurants that call their Saturday morning meal a ""brunch."" But none offer the essential buffet, instead offering a ""menu brunch."" What exactly is this phony ""menu brunch""? One brunch aficionado described it simply as ""a meal that costs as much as breakfast and lunch combined,"" lacking the delicious and economical flair the words ""all-you-can-eat"" proudly proclaim.
So in defiance of this food felony, I propose we devote our summers to a boycott of the traditional Sunday brunch. Scour your hometown and find the one greasy spoon where you can have a buffet binge on a Saturday. Or better yet, cook up a brunch feast on a Tuesday morning right in your own kitchen. Cook up everything in the fridge, and flip some pancakes to make it authentic. If nothing else, it will give you an excuse to get drunk on a Monday night.
So good luck on finals, and be sure to celebrate your first—and last—Sunday brunch of the summer. It will be tough, but when our protest gives us a Thursday brunch option other than Bennett's Smut-N-Eggs, you'll toast your mimosa to your beloved food columnist. See you in August!
E-mail Jay over the summer at storey@wisc.edu.
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