There’s nothing more enjoyable than sitting down at the breakfast table with friends and family on Sunday but, at the weekend with a hard week’s work behind you, it is also a pleasure to lie in bed longer in the morning.
To reconcile these two pleasures on your days off work, and to enjoy tasty food in the company of others without having to spend hours slaving over a hot stove, brunch is the ideal solution: a meal that combines breakfast and lunch.
Basically, brunch is a lavish buffet where everyone can help themselves, free to choose sweet and savoury foods at random, making it an occasion for informal and light-hearted conviviality.
The term itself is American but the brunch concept has rapidly caught on all over the world: every country has adapted brunch to suit its own culinary traditions and the dishes it serves reflect national tastes.
We Italians, for instance, are unable to conceive any convivial occasion, such as brunch, without our traditional cold cuts, savoury pies, preserves and fruit tarts, better still if home-made, all of which has to be washed down with plenty of coffee and, of course, S.Pellegrino sparkling mineral water.