Sunday, March 4, 2012

The Story of French Toast

By Matt Howard


French Toast has been a favourite breakfast meal in America as well as abroad for years. There's a surprisingly huge variety of ways to prepare this scrumptious breakfast meal. Yet many people have not considered how this particular breakfast treat came into existence. To be able to really appreciate this delightful meal, we need to look into the fabled history of French toast.

French toast is recognized by a number of titles such as Poor Knights, American toast, Spanish toast, Easter toast and eggy bread. In Cajun circles, French toast is referred to as pain perdu or ameritte. Around England it's known as Poor Knights. It's because, since only the wealthy were offered dessert, the lesser class knights would feed on their Poor Knights bread, what's a lot like the present day French toast, together with jam. In China, it is called by 2 titles; French toast or Western toast, and it is deep-fried and offered along with butter and syrup.

French toast recipes were located in cook books dating back to the Middle Ages, making some speculate that the meal was created sometime before that. Cookbooks were held by the rich only and also the poor were not likely to have discovered from them. Instead, the working class would pass down the recipe form generation to generation, making it tough to pinpoint the precise time of origin.

White bread, in which the first French toast tasty recipes called for, was the best bread available at the period. In Roman days, French toast had been referred to as la Romaine, or Roman bread, and was served with honey. It possibly earned the title "French toast" from the French pain perdu, which usually means lost or stale bread. A few believe that French toast is the precursor to bread pudding.

Although the specific roots of it are not clear, several believe it came into being in medieval times once chefs will be forced to use every ingredient available because they were very poor to dispose of anything out. Therefore, stale bread will be moistened, most likely with eggs or milk, and then deep-fried to be able to be produced tasty.

The earliest reference to French toast in America is during 1871. Legend has it that it had been sometimes referred to as German toast prior to world war two, but the title had been altered because of anti-German sentiment. One more popular history is the fact that it got its title in 1742 coming from Joseph French, an Albany, NY restauranteur that called his type of the recipe after himself.

A thing is certain, today French toast is a favorite American breakfast custom. It's offered sliced in sticks in fast food eating places, in big thick fluffy portions at diners, and in the homes of the majority of Americans. Many households have no less than one member who boasts the title of "best French toast maker" along with recipes and secret ingredients that they hold dear. However you cut it, French toast is here to remain.




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