I disagree that Swiss do not understand hearty eating.
I think they actually may have an excellent choice of healthy breakfast choices. Fruits, healthy crunchies, cheese, bread, cardboard-tasting stuff.

I used to take the Crunchy Cereal (sporty) thingy available from COOP and/or Migros. I add some raisins and a cup of healthy Swiss cow milk.
Now I am too lazy to eat that (cos I gotta wake up at least 30mins before going out).

Fresh bread is also healthy. (but costly)

What I miss is the oily, fried stuff from Asia (super unhealthy but super tasty)

HAT

For an English Breakfast, (if you don't know already) Coop sell Heinz baked beans, a welcome treat after the horrible Migros ones!!

I am from the South of England and have never eaten breakfast. At ten ish i will have a couple of slices of toast with the dreaded Marmite and of course a cup of tea made with PG Tips. What interests me is that whenever i return to the UK i insist on having a full English fry up, Sausage, Bacon, Beans,Tomato,Mushrooms,Toast,even Black Pudding, every day!! WHY??? I didnt eat that when i was living there!

When I was in Uni back in the states (In New England) I worked mornings at a greasy spoon. I would typically have an omlette with a bit of cream cheese inside, zucchini, tomatoes and onions. A bit of toast and I was good. Always an inordinate amount of coffee as well.

In grad school, however, I was living in Philly with Macrobiotic Hippies. I typically ate a bit of granola (bought from Amish folks that were near by) maybe some fruit and certainly, a vast amount of coffee.

Here, my breakfast is typically coffee. On Tuesdays and Fridays I go to the Helvetiaplatz markt and often end up with a Hexabretzli (a pastry thingy with almonds).
On Sundays, my friends and I take turns hosting one another for brunch. So far, they've all gone out of their way to make my turn come around more often than is fair. I don't know if it was the pumpkin-cinnamon pancakes, the blueberry waffles or the proper bacon, but they love to come here.
I, however, loved the Mexican brunch that we ate in a restaurant on my friend Iwo's birthday.
When breakfasting with my fiance it is typically mueslix, fruit, salad, bread, cheese and meats. And oh God, don't forget the butter or he'll go mental.

When I get home I intend to have more than my fair share of Chicken and waffles. No one seems to understand here the beauty of fried chicken and waffles together. Mmmmmmmmmmmm

I have just come back from a tour of the states including a visit to Boston, Philly and NY. Most of the time I had to settle for bagels and coffee for breakfast. But why do they insist on sticking cream cheese on it all the time!!?

As for the quantity of coffee, I was shaking continuously by the end of the trip. Even the hotel rooms had coffee makers instead of kettles!

No complaints about Miami though.....

Wow, you all have such healthy breakfasts (mostly). For me it was a 5-hit espresso in the States with a chocolate chip muffin.
Now it is a Migros chocolate filled gipfeli with a diet coke.

I'm still really boring, Kelloggs, oj and tea (tetleys!) in the UK and here. Shame the Kelloggs range isn't as great here though. Even found Actimel. Did find a not too bad brunch a couple of weeks ago, big fry up, great! Not sure I could find to again though.

Kellogs K Red Berry... wherever I am... though if in Oz I will have weetbix with fresh fruit, yum yum

@ Canada Girl
for a hot breakfast in Zug, go to the Park Hotel on a Sunday - they have an awesome brunch

@ Jazz
Migros might not sell Yorkshire Tea but they do have Twinings and Tetleys, PG and Lipton ... so a pretty good selection of British teas I think...
re. cereals, they sell Kellogs, Nestle and even Weetabix

If someone wants an English/Danish version of bacon just ask for schinkenspeck at the deli counter in migros. They will cut it to the desired thickness. We cant always get what we want but this is an exellent substitute.

My routine in Melbourne was either to grab a milkshake-sized take-away cup of fresh fruit/veg juice (fresh of course) or on a yummy wintery day, a plain toasted croissant, on the way to work. On Sundays, I often used to do yum-cha with my mum at 11am. Pretty much breakfast for me.

Here (since starting my new job with a great cafeteria) I get freshly cut pieces of fruit in the mornings and yesterday (Sunday) I steamed up the frozen pieces of siu-mai and red bean pau from my freezer. (Available in all asian food stores).

I do miss the fresh asian breakfasts though.

BTW - you can get frozen parathas from asian shops that you can easily grill/pan-toast.

There's also a scottish expat with his own bacon/sausage sideline:
http://www.over-the-rainbow.ch/shop/.

~ Nanda.

Back home when I had time... normally only on weekends... I would have eggs, bacon, toast, hash browns and coffee.

Here I normally only do breakfast on the weekends (perhaps out of habit) so we have that large loaf of fresh made bread they sell at Migros (not sure if they sell it a COOP or anywhere else since we only shop at Migros) along with various selections of cold cuts, jellies/jams, Gouda cheese and coffee.

most of the people I know back home including me, it was more of a question.

Breakfast????!! what's that?

My swiss in-laws here cared more about breakfast than I did. When I go visit their place, they prepare eggs, ham and hashbrown(rösti equivalent), bacon, bread, butter and the whole lot. As for me, the usual caffeine injection suffice.

I know... and to think most of us are missing one of the most important meals of the day. But I just can't get used to eat that early. Coffee.... yes. Then the gym... then comes 2pm and I am hungry as hell.

When I lived in Lithuania, I used to eat a slice of black bread with cheesse or boild egg or scrambled eggs.
When I lived in UK it was always weetabix or toast with marmite.
Here I usually have a pot of yoghurt. I do have to agree with others, that there isnt a big choise of breakfast here in Switzerland for the people who dont like pastries or muesli. Oh well....

I thought the most common Swiss breakfast is a Migros budget energy drink and a couple of cigarettes, no?
Or Redbull for the more discerning palate...

Oh sorry, what was I thinking

My swiss husband eats the same breakfast he's had since a child: nutella with half a loaf of bread, and chocolate milk! Somehow he is thin with good skin!

Being a cereal lover, I was initially disappointed with the selection here. But I tried Coop fine foods muesli with dried fruit and seeds, and it's delicious. I also like coop's bio yogurt, and I add some fruit. I don't like the bread here at all--I find it very dry as if it were three days old, so I rarely eat it.

Our breakfast's haven't changed from what we had in Australia - muesli, O.J. (or other juice), toast, tea, coffee. Must admit muesli is much cheaper here though and we love the muesli with nuts in it! Living in Germany and not Switzerland is a bit of a bonus as things are much cheaper here. We both love a leisurely breakfast if possible!

during the week either muesli or granary toast. This is recently being sold in migros although only seen it in the airport. Weekends atm asparagus, poached egg, toast and italian tinned tomatoes ... yummm

If im feeling hungover Ill raid the contents of the freezer for my british imported bacon and pork sausages ... perfect

Aaah breakfast. When I'm back in the old country, it's always a couple of fried eggs with ham and bread on the sunday, hangover cure and get me ready for the day. On occasion I get some coop baked beans, the non-sweet ones and a bit of bacon although it tends to end up very crispy (which I don't mind). Otherwise, it's down the bakery for croissants, ramequin au fromage, delice au beurre and the likes, with a "renverse" coffee or a plain strong coffee. I avoid tea, it's rubbish and I encourage every Brit expat to bring a big box of strong tea-bags....

English things I would miss enormously at breakfast are: crumpets and potato cake, the latter fried in the bacon fat. The thick, meaty bacon might be an issue too. Black pudding (the Swiss version is just as good but does not work at all for breakfast). Proper tea.

English things I would NOT miss enormously at breakfast: coffee, it's awful and all that American non-sense with tons of milk does not pass muster. Breakfast saussage, that stuff is vile (I only get posh range cippolatas if I want sausage). Eggs, except a funny blue type(not duck) from a rare breed that you do find at Sainsburry and the stuff you get from B&B that keep chicken. Salty butter, now I like it and the best butters are all salted, but a toast with salty butter AND jam/honey...come on

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