European Breakfasts / Historical Breakfasts / Literary Breakfasts

Hard Roll Life: Breakfast at a European Budget Hotel in 1977

Erma Bombeck might seem like an unlikely hero for a thirteen year old girl, but she was one of mine at that age. I picked up a copy of If Life Is A Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing In The Pits? in 1984, and I was a devoted fan from then on. I could always count on her books to make me laugh when I sorely needed it.

In that book, she related the story of taking a European package tour with her husband in 1977, for twenty-one days. Once on the tour, they realized that one of the reasons that budget group travel is such a bargain, is that the continental breakfast included each morning never varied, although they visited twelve countries. In every hotel, they are presented with all of the cutlery and china they might expect at an American hotel breakfast room, but the consumables for each person are limited to a pot of coffee or tea, canned fruit juice, a pot of marmalade that was far out of date, butter, and a hard roll.

At first, they try to be gracious about the rolls, kidding that a light breakfast is just the ticket for not overindulging when they travel. After several days though, the charade wears thin. Hangry tour group participants start to take out their frustration on the tour company with various passive or aggressive tantrums. Bill Bombeck decides to test his theory that the tour company ships the rolls to each hotel where the group stays. He carves WLB 1977 in his roll, before sending it back to the kitchen. A few countries later, the same roll ends up on his breakfast plate.

The meager breakfast offering must have seemed even more sparse to Erma than most. She was raised in an Ohio farming family, by people who saw a substantial breakfast as necessary to get through their daily work, even after they had moved into cities.

Erma Bombeck published a couple of different versions of this story, so it’s hard to know how much license she took with what actually happened. It is true though that these hard rolls are served for breakfast in Europe, according to the recipe that I used from King Arthur Flour.