science

Second breakfast

Second breakfast is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Second breakfast rather than just read about it. In short: Second breakfast (German: zweites Frühstück; Polish: drugie śniadanie; Slovak: desiata; Hungarian: tízórai) is a meal eaten after breakfast, but before lunch. It is a traditional meal in Bavaria, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.

Key takeaways

Second breakfast belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Second breakfast to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Second breakfast from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Second breakfast (German: zweites Frühstück; Polish: drugie śniadanie; Slovak: desiata; Hungarian: tízórai) is a meal eaten after breakfast, but before lunch. It is a traditional meal in Bavaria, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. In Bavaria and Poland, special dishes are made exclusively to be eaten during second breakfast. In Vienna and most other parts of Austria the second breakfast is referred to as Jause.

Details The second breakfast is typically a lighter meal or snack eaten around 10:00 in the morning (its Hungarian and Slovak names, tízórai and desiata respectively, actually mean "[snack] at 10"). It consists of coffee and either pastries or sausages. The typical sausage is a white sausage, Weißwurst, which is considered the specialty of Munich and Bavaria in general. The sausage is prepared during the early morning to serve during the second breakfast. It is served with pretzels, sweet mustard, and wheat beer. The meal is roughly similar in concept to the British elevenses. In Poland second breakfast usually consists of snacks like sandwiches or pastries, but may consist of light dessert-type dishes like chocolate pudding or kisiel. In Hungary, second breakfast is mainly associated with schoolchildren, and typically consists of fruit, sandwiches, pastries, or granola bars. First and second breakfast is also a common custom in some rural areas. Farmers who need to rise early to tend to animals or perform other chores may eat a small "first breakfast", such as toast and coffee, just after rising, followed by a heartier second breakfast after the first round of chores is done.

In literature and film In J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, the protagonist Bilbo Baggins eats a second breakfast, and in the preface to its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien mentions that hobbits prefer to eat six meals a day. In Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring, as Aragorn is leading the hobbits on a march, Pippin – hoping for a meal break – is horrified when Merry tells him that the man probably does not know about second breakfast. Pippin goes on to ask if he knows about the other meals commonly eaten by hobbits, including elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, and supper. Aragorn throws an apple to each of the pair to tide them over until their next "regular" meal break. However, in the book, hobbits are specifically described as eating "six meals a day (when they get them)", not seven. In Thomas Mann's books The Magic Mountain and Buddenbrooks, frequent and detailed references are made to second breakfasts. Sometimes food from the first breakfast appears again such as oatmeal and fruit. In fact, in Magic Mountain, Mann even refers to "third breakfasts". In Chapter 11 of "Mansfield Park", Jane Austen refers to second breakfast.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Second breakfast

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Second breakfast claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Second breakfast before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Second breakfast ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Second breakfast

In research: Second breakfast appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Second breakfast in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Second breakfast is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Breakfast, Meals, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Second breakfast outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Second breakfast in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Second breakfast means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Second breakfast out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Second breakfast in simple terms?

Why does Second breakfast matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Second breakfast?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Second breakfast.