18th-century breakfast, et al

Spence,

Period Breakfast foods have come to really intrigue me, even though I personally usually don't eat breakfast unless I've already done some work in the morning or am expecting to do a long day's work with no lunch.  I also find it interesting what common breakfast food choices seems to have been, depending on where one lived and what economic status they were in.

For someone living in a city like London, fresh milk would often not be available - especially not for the lower classes, so it seems reasonable they got their milk proteins and vitamins from cheese. 

Here in Virginia and many places around here, and when cow's milk was available.  A very common breakfast was simply bread and milk.  That's one way they could use up somewhat old bread and especially if they toasted it before adding the milk.  Surprisingly to me, it was common for even some rather well to do households. 

When I was a kid and was sick or had an upset stomach, buttered toast with hot milk poured over it was what Mom or Grandma gave us "to settle our stomach's."  I still enjoy it today and used to add a little salt to it, though I've backed off salt a lot as I've aged.  

Of course, since ground corn was available here sooner than wheat, I'm wondering if much of that "bread" they wrote about was some type of corn bread with milk?  Further, is that what led to corn flakes and milk becoming a popular breakfast once they invented corn flakes at the beginning of the 20th century?  

Gus