By Elizabeth Giddens

What an upper-middle class New Yorker might have found on his morning table through the ages:

1811: In the early 19th century, people ate “dinner” at midday and a lighter “supper” in the evening. Breakfast consisted mainly of leftovers, and it was served cold so as to not require a fire. Among the delicacies: a picked-over carcass, fruit pie and — a precursor to Corn Pops — stale popcorn in milk.

1861: By the mid 19th century, men no longer went home for the midday meal, so breakfast became the family meal. Nearly everything was potential morning fare — fried trout, broiled ham, eggs, muffins, rice waffles — and served in quantities that would make a Denny’s waitress blush.

1911: The breakfast binge was followed by a kind of repentance diet. Few foods have transformed the American table quite so significantly as cereal, which began accompanying a larger meal made up of foods that are now breakfast staples — bacon, eggs, pancakes — in reduced portions.

1961: With more women entering the work force, cereal became the easiest breakfast option. By the ’50s, cereal companies were removing fiber and adding sugar. Citrus companies, meanwhile, were concentrating juice (using heat and vacuums), which put frozen O.J. on nearly every table.