We have breakfast in a group, as a couple, alone, standing in the kitchen, with the table set, on the terrace, next to the fireplace… Breakfast is the purest moment of the day, where the product and temporality rule and this is the TRUE real food. This is one of the statements that we can read in Sara Cucala’s book entitled Wake up! (Gastro Planet, 2022).

The writer claims that We have two habitual enemies who usually play against this very special breakfast ritual.: routine, with its rush and abuse, and boredom.

More than 80% of the Spanish population eats breakfast at home, but what do you have for breakfast? According to the latest data from the Spanish National Health Survey (ENSE), 12.24% of Spaniards only drink some liquid in the form of coffee, tea, cocoa…; 57.64% some liquid and bread, toast, cookies, cereals or pastries; and 3.36% of the population does not usually eat breakfast.

Having breakfast is essential. The experts from the Nutrition and Health Foundation (FEN) They ensure that for it to be healthy must include four elements: dairy, cereal, fruit and other foods such as coffee, tomato, ham…The combination between them provides us with complex carbohydrates, fiber, protein, water and an adequate amount of fat. In addition, it contributes to meeting the needs of vitamins and minerals, without forgetting the presence of bioactive compounds.

This book brings together the voices of prestigious chefs, journalists, butchers, bakers, pastry chefs…that delve into possible ways to start the day.

“Without a doubt, breakfast is one of the best times of the day. It is my moment. I take my time to eat breakfast calmly and patiently. I take advantage of the moment to take care of myself and love myself. Rediscover myself, prepare myself to face the responsibility that comes with running a restaurant like Arzak and prepare myself to face the challenges that the new day presents me,” she says. Elena Arzak, daughter of Juan Mari Arzak, one of the most prestigious chefs in our countrynow in charge of the restaurant, in the prologue of Wake up!

Also the only woman in the world who has seven Michelin stars, Carme Ruscadella He assures in the prologue that “this book will awaken the spirit of those who are bored at breakfast or with food in general. It will motivate those who do not stop to observe, to look at the food, to smell with pleasure, to chew in a gastronomic way, and I dare say also, to practice lustful forms in the preparations, no matter how simple and basic they may be.”

The author, Sara Cucala, has worked for many years as a journalist specialized in gastronomy and wine for media like TVE. She has hosted shows and created formats for television, radio and social media.

His passion for breakfast led him to publish in 2008 Breakfasts in Madrid. From churro to Bruch, which many others followed. She is also the owner of A Punto, a gastronomic culture center, specialized bookstore and cooking school. We talked to her about that first meal of the day.

Sara, you confess from the first moment in the volume that you are bored with always having the same breakfast, that there is no imagination when one is sleepless and yet, it is the most important meal of the day, how do we fix this?

Doesn’t it happen to you that you always have the same breakfast? In the book, I propose some options to combine and that we choose and vary depending on how we wake up each day, since we do not always wake up the same.

It’s about listening to ourselves a little in the morning, and not running away… or with a bad coffee at 12:00 p.m. sticking a skewer ‘from side to side’, because it is not good for our health. So, I propose that we wake up calmly, and think about how you wanted to wake up and try to indulge yourself.

It is true that many of the ideas that I proposed there are not suitable for doing in your daily life. If you feel like a cake, you’re not going to make it right away, nor are you going to make a pizza for breakfast on a Monday.

But you can do a little batch cooking, that is, the preview of recipes and saying: Hey, I’m going to leave muffins, cookies and a sponge cake prepared for the week! Why do we prepare other things and not do it to wake up?

For example, leave the fruit that is always very lazy cut, and put it in a vacuum and then make fruit salads or prepare smoothies.

Do we Spaniards have a bad breakfast?

Fatal. We already give the information in the book. It is not about buying industrial pastries in the supermarket, but it is important to eat in the morning, because that will keep you satisfied throughout the day and with just enough hunger to not overeat at midday or at night.

And maintain the energy necessary to carry out your activities.

It is also true that those of us who work in front of a computer do not need a very powerful breakfast, and those who work in the fields or those who play sports do not need the same energy. Depending on the day you are going to have and the activity you are going to carry out, you will need one type or another of breakfast.

You wrote your first breakfast book in 2008. What can the reader find in this volume?

Many years have passed since that first book, and many other titles have passed… This one came about in a very random way, because in my time on Spanish Television, which did live shows every day, cooks came to the set and began to ask me: ‘Sara When are you coming out with a breakfast book again?’ I jokingly replied: ‘I’ll write a new breakfast book when you send me a recipe…’ And some took it very seriously and sent me their recipes.

Then I told them that the recipe alone was not enough for me, but that they should include something about their life related to breakfast, such as what do you like to have for breakfast?, memories of the best breakfasts, etc.

Starting from the premise that cooks do not eat breakfast, due to their routines and their lives, since they go to bed late, and even those who do eat only a piece of fruit, they are all very Light.

I have always liked the concept of breakfast a lot. I had already done a social media show, and I had written quite a bit about it, so it was like a continuation.

The book contains 83 recipes, some are from chefs and others are from journalists and friends. I realized that the people I was talking to were people who had been important in my life, in my career, and I began to incorporate them.

Even, for example, to Octavio, my charcutier, or from people on the different trips I have made. For me it was an obsession to go down to have breakfast in the restaurants of the hotels where I was staying.

In addition to the collaboration of the best chefs in the country who have sent you their recipes, the prologue is signed by Carme Ruscalleda and Elena Arzak.

That’s right, I asked Carme if she would like to write the prologue for me and not only did she give me a breakfast recipe, but she agreed to my request to write the prologue.

And then it was also very important for me to have Elena Arzak in the book. I have a very special relationship with Elena, especially since she also agreed to write a text for the book, and with her father, Juan María Arzak.

How do you recommend reading the book?

On a whim. It is not a book to read from beginning to end. Even when you open the book it may surprise you, because the first recipe that appears for breakfast is a Apple Martini. The point is to combine a drink you want with sweet or salty drinks that you fancy.

I always say that breakfast should contain a coffee or tea, a dairy product and some fruits… along with a protein to start the day…

What I also tell everyone is that we take it seriously, because some voices are heard against breakfast, who claim that it is a marketing campaign or that we have to do intermittent fasting every day… We have to have breakfast. I’m not telling you to get involved every day. Bloody Mary and some eggs benedict, but you have to have breakfast, and if you can make it at home even better.

All your life I have been closely linked to the world of gastronomy, but also to spaces to tell stories, whether from a newsroom, television or from your own production company, Pnka Producciones. Some of your works have been recognized at film festivals such as SEMINCI or the Malaga festival.

In 2019 you filmed Ear? They, the voice of gastronomy, a documentary project about the role of women in the world of gastronomy and to give women a voice in a sector in which they are not. Have we made any progress?

It is true that we have taken some steps, but we have taken a step that has become more of a quota. We are nothing more than a figure that indicates where there must be so many women. And this happens both in gastronomy and in cinema.

I get embarresed. Although you obviously participate in that game that society has created and well, that’s better than nothing, but in gastronomy, women still have little voice.

You just need to see the photos of the latest edition of Madrid Fusion or see how many women have been speakers, or for example, with the Michelin stars how many women take the stage. Elena comes up, but because she is dragging down her father’s legacy…

Years ago, I did feel in the demonstration of women as feminists that we defended the role of women. I have been called a feminist with a lot of contempt, and so women have resorted to that role of being more silent, so as not to attract too much attention.

But now, it’s time for us to say too. I did Eara film about the role of women in gastronomy, but if I started making it about the world of literature, art, or any other, the same canon would be reproduced.

What are you doing now from the production company?

I continue to produce videos for our clients and brands and for my own center. As a result of the pandemic, we created an online gastronomy community, the A Punto online school.

In addition, I am also betting on cinema, working on a short film, Seventh to, which we shot last year, and is now in the competition phase, and I am producing a film about Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, which I hope we will shoot this year and that it will go out to competition at the end of the year. I don’t direct it, but a Cantabrian director and I produce it.

And I am also involved in a project that I want to do with the Cenador de Amós restaurant, which I hope will come out, but everything about film is going very slowly…

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