We had a traditional New England breakfast this morning

Apple pie with cheddar cheese. Delicious.

Say, did you hear the one about the definition of a Yankee?
To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.

Hasn't actually been TRUE since Vermont stopped being a primarily agricultural state -- there's still a deal of dairying there, but people aren't waking up at four in the morning to get the cookstove going, milk the cows, and all the other things that I don't know what people did on a farm in the seventeenth through early twentieth centuries. If you DID, and breakfast was at seven after three hours of hard labor, dinner wouldn't be for another five or six hours, and then you had another five or six hours before supper and knocking off for the day, then you needed a complete breakfast, including ham, eggs, bacon, cornbread, and apple pie.

Still, every time I eat apple pie with cheddar cheese for breakfast -- especially if it's a pie I made myself -- I feel very New England-y. (Even if I'm a Bostonian, not a Vermonter.)