Brunch (1896) - A Historical, Geographical, Demographic, and Religious Analysis

[DaveO]

"How Brunch Became The Most Delicious and Divisive Meal in America" by Roberto A. Ferdman and Christopher Ingraham on washingtonpost.com

[darkstar965]

Four reactions.

- The title of this thread was a little daunting; clicked thinking it might be a project you'd worked on for months. Glad it wasn't. 

-  Brunch is elitist?

-  Of all the major religions, Jews like brunch best; agree it's all about the bagels and lox angle

-  Wyoming is the least-friendly brunch state; hmmm, not so surprising

[DonRocks]

"How Brunch Became The Most Delicious and Divisive Meal in America" by Roberto A. Ferdman and Christopher Ingraham on washingtonpost.com

This is a superficial column, but at least it references a book that appears to cover the subject in some depth, and from a less ethnocentrical point of view (although there's nothing wrong with American History or even an American perspective as long as its clearly labeled as such): Brunch: A History by Farha Ternikhar. Torn apart, this could be an interesting topic of study; this article is merely something to - hopefully - pique peoples' interest to look a little more deeply.

Also, inside Mr. Ternikar's book, I assume there's some clarification of this statement:

"Cultural trends tend to go from the coasts to the center," said Farha Ternikar, the author of 'Brunch: A History.' "The Midwest is slower on food trends with the exception of Chicago."

Which, on its surface, plays right into the "flyover America" stereotype. If a trend starts on one coast, for example, does it go to the other coast first, and *then* make it's way towards the center? Or does it sweep across the country in a single direction? The reader does not know.

[DaveO]

I found the research fascinating, the findings and discussions interesting and something worth learning. Much of this information came from using google trends: And many people studying what is popular and how "things" change make great use of Google trends:

For instance: If one redid the map and focused on cities one would see the clear trending of search on brunch to be focused on cities, on East and West Coast Cities plus Chicago, plus New Orleans and Austin. Why Austin, why New Orleans and why not Miami or Denver or Phoenix? If I were working in the industry on the restaurant side it would be something worthwhile to research.

Now using google trends I might be interested in various terminology and menu items and popularity of phrases for marketing. So I looked up three terms very unrelated but got interesting graphs for what is trending in search for tater tots, farm to table, and sriracha

Came up with the above graph (among thousands of alternatives).

Google trends generates interesting information.

Now on the sociological and demographic side the article sparked some memories and thoughts. I for one enjoy brunch, have had large and long Sunday breakfasts and then brunches for most of my life, and enjoy them. I've never thought about them. So the discussion was interesting.

Now Google trends is an interesting "research tool" for anyone and its a terrific way to frame a story or topic. I tend to do a lot of work in the world of search engine search, search engine optimizing etc. Over a very long time I've had access to certain very interesting data from that from the websites I handle plus a number of other websites with absolutely great data. I've used google trend data to "validate" some of the search phenomena I've seen.

Its a very interesting tool usable in so many different ways, and an interesting way to dissect a topic and then open it up for further discussion

[DonRocks]

There's a pretty funny "history" of brunch on the top-left of the Lapis brunch menu.