Noon Chai Still Wins: Why Kashmir Rejects The Global Breakfast Menu

Most of us have grown up hearing the famous quote by American nutritionist Adele Davis:“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”

Davis, a prominent advocate of natural foods in the 1930s, also criticised the food industry for promoting unhealthy habits through misleading advertising.

That problem continues even today, as the U.S. remains among the most obese nations globally.

But her prescription for a heavy breakfast isn't universally echoed across cultures. In fact, Ayurveda suggests the opposite: Don't eat like a king in the morning.

Across the world, breakfast was never a formal meal. Some languages, like Kashmiri and Dogri, don't even have a direct word for it.

In many Indian regions, traditional eating patterns revolve around one or two main meals a day, with little to no emphasis on an early morning meal.

In most traditional societies, there was no separate menu for different meals. People ate the same types of food at different times, and meal patterns varied widely by region and social class.

Historically, Asian peasants often ate two main meals: a late morning meal and an early supper.

“In Punjab and parts of Jammu,” explains Nikhil Sharma, a Jammu-based chef and founder of a healthy diet food chain,“the term shawela refers to the food women carried to the fields for their husbands, who left for work at dawn without eating.”

That freshly cooked meal, often served with buttermilk, was their first substantial intake of the day, Nikhil adds.“Even those at home typically had a very light start, perhaps just a handful of roasted grains or leftover flatbread, before a main meal around 11 or 11:30 am.”

The concept of breakfast as we know it today arrived in the Indian subcontinent with the British East India Company in the 19th century.

Equally interesting is the role of media in reshaping breakfast habits globally.

Television ads, newspaper write-ups, and food packaging visuals inundated us with the idea of the 'ideal breakfast': cornflakes, eggs, toast, jam, fruits, and a glass of milk.

This visual narrative gradually replaced traditional options like paratha with butter, chidwa, idli-dosa, dhokla, poha, and upma in popular imagination.

“In Kashmir,” says Peer Mohammed Adil, a long-time resident of the valley,“people traditionally ate czot, lawasa, jo, and makki sattu, without butter or fancy toppings.”

Noon chai remains, he continues, a quintessential part of both morning and evening routines.

Breakfast, once a simple or even non-existent meal, has transformed dramatically due to industrialisation, migration, and modern marketing.

Today's media pushes grab-and-go options: mini cereal pots, energy shots, breakfast bars, instant oats, and just-add-water noodles. All aimed at busy lives craving convenience.

According to recent business reports, the Asia-Pacific breakfast cereal market, crossed $8.8 billion in value last year.

While packaged cereals gain popularity in urban centers, India's morning meals remain deeply rooted in regional diversity. Mostly vegetarian, savoury, and freshly prepared.

In Kashmir, Western breakfast trends and packaged options are slowly entering households, but the enduring ritual of czot with freshly churned butter and hot noon chai remains central.

Some families now add protein-rich foods like boiled eggs or omelets, but the real stars of the Kashmiri breakfast table are its many traditional, hand-made breads.

From soft, flaky lavasa (a thin, unleavened flatbread) to the rich, sesame-crusted bakarkhani, Kashmiri bakeries (kandurs) still craft these artisanal breads using time-honoured techniques.

The slightly sweet, saffron-laced sheermal and the crusty, round girda are also morning favourites, often paired with butter, or jam.

Despite the convenience of factory-made breads and croissants, it is these local, deeply flavourful breads, rooted in Kashmir's identity and history, that dominate breakfast tables.

Their continued popularity is proof: in a rapidly globalizing food landscape, taste and tradition often win over uniform, mass-produced alternatives.

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