#! /usr/bin/perl

use XML::Simple ;

my $xs1 = XML::Simple->new(); 

my $doc = $xs1->XMLin("test.xml"); 

foreach my $key (keys (%{$doc->{breakfast_menu}})){ 
        print "$key --> $doc->{breakfast_menu}->{$key}->{name}\n" ;
}
[download]

<breakfast_menu>
  <food>
    <name>Belgian Waffles</name>
    <price>$5.95</price>
    <description>
      two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real maple syru
+p
    </description>
    <calories>650</calories>
  </food>
  .....
</breakfast_menu>
[download]

But I'm still confused why the following code is not working

If you don't enable the KeepRoot option (and you generally don't want it enabled), then the outermost tags from your XML will not be in the resulting hashref. So here's a version that's probably closer to what you want:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use XML::Simple ;

my $xs1 = XML::Simple->new(); 

my $breakfast_menu = $xs1->XMLin("test.xml"); 

foreach my $key (keys (%$breakfast_menu)){ 
    print "$key --> $breakfast_menu->{$key}->{name}\n" ;
}
[download]

The fact that you're not specifying any options at all in you XMLin() call is a big red flag. This article gives some background on the basic options you ought to be using.

I thought XML::Simple was simple :(

Well, the single biggest shortcoming of XML::Simple is that it can't read your mind :-)

This article has some advice on using LibXML instead.