Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Story of French Toast

By Matt Howard


French Toast has been a favourite breakfast meal in the U.S.A as well as in another country for several years. There is a surprisingly huge selection of methods to prepare this delicious morning meal. However some people have never thought of how this particular morning meal came into existence. To be able to truly enjoy this delicious food, we have to look into the storied history of French toast.

French toast is known by numerous titles such as Poor Knights, American toast, Spanish toast, Easter toast and eggy bread. Throughout Cajun circles, French toast is referred to as ameritte or pain perdu. In England it's called Poor Knights. It's because, since just the wealthy were offered dessert, the lower group knights will feed on their Poor Knights bread, what's similar to the present day French toast, together with jam. In China, it's called by 2 names; Western toast or French toast, and it is deep fried and offered along with butter and syrup.

French toast tasty recipes were located in cook books dating back to the Middle Ages, making some speculate that the meal had been invented at some point before that. Recipe books were held by the rich only and the poor were not likely to have discovered from them. On the other hand, the working group would pass down the recipe form generation to generation, making it hard to pinpoint the precise period of origin.

White bread, in which the very first French toast recipes called for, was the best bread sold at the period. In Roman times, French toast was known as la Romaine, or Roman bread, and was served along with honey. It probably earned the title "French toast" from the French pain perdu, which loosely translates to stale or lost bread. Some believe French toast is the forerunners to bread pudding.

Even though specific roots of it are uncertain, several think it came into being in medieval times once cooks will be compelled to use each ingredient available because they were way too poor to dispose of anything away. As a result, old bread would be moistened, most likely along with eggs or milk, and after that deep-fried in order to be produced palatable.

The earliest mention of French toast in America is in 1871. Legend possesses it that this was at times referred to as German toast prior to world war two, however the title was altered because of anti-German sentiment. Yet another popular history is the fact that it got its title in 1742 coming from Joseph French, an Albany, NY restauranteur who called his type of the recipe after himself.

A single thing is certain, today French toast is a favorite American breakfast custom. It is served sliced in sticks in fast food restaurants, in big thick fluffy servings at diners, and in the homes of most Americans. A lot of households have no less than one member that boasts the name of "greatest French toast maker" along with tasty recipes and secret ingredients that they keep dear. Even so you slice it, French toast is here to stay.




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