There are many good things about the average American chain hotel. You get fluffy white towels in the bathroom, there are usually a couple of vending machines out in the hallway, and nothing hits quite like watching “Seinfeld” while lounging on a plush bed in a heavily air conditioned room. But they’re not exactly glamorous, are they? You can call them reliable, unpretentious, even serviceable, if you’re not one to be charitable, but they’re hardly the Ritz Carlton.
But that doesn’t stop them from offering something called a “continental breakfast.” Ooh la la! Who would have thought the Hampton Inn could give you a taste of Old World sophistication? Of course, if you expect to be transported to a Parisian cafe when you go down at breakfast time, you’ll be sorely disappointed — a continental breakfast just means you’ll be offered a modest array of breads, pastries, and cereals, with a smattering of hot options as well. (Although depending on your health consciousness, you may want to avoid the hot foods at the breakfast buffet.) The discrepancy between the classy-sounding name and the mundane reality was memorably spoofed in a “Key and Peele” sketch (which, being the brain child of Jordan Peele, ends in an homage to “The Shining.”)
Why a “continental breakfast,” then? Are they just putting on airs? Nope: they’re simply reflecting the supposed breakfast habits of Europeans, as opposed to Americans.
Europeans supposedly eat lighter breakfasts
In the early 20th century, American hotels were receiving an influx of European tourists, and one thing became very clear: Americans and Europeans had very different tastes in breakfast. Americans tended to eat big, heavy breakfasts, preferring foods like pancakes, fried eggs, and an assortment of meats. Europeans, on the other hand, ate lighter foods, such as fruit and pastries. (Excluding, perhaps, Italian-style gelato breakfast sandwiches.) By advertising “continental breakfasts,” hotels could feed European patrons as well as stereotype-busting Americans who didn’t go ham at the breakfast table. It certainly didn’t hurt that continental breakfasts are much less expensive to make than heavy, IHOP-style fare.
By “continental,” of course, we mean the mainland of Europe: France, Germany, Italy — those sorts of countries. Conspicuously, it does not include the United Kingdom, which is, of course, not part of mainland Europe (or the European Union these days), and has historically had a taste for heavy, hearty breakfasts, just like their former colony across the pond. (A taste that would one day inspire Gordon Ramsay’s Full English Breakfast Pizza.)
