French toast

This article is about the food. For the band, see French Toast (band).
French toast

French toast served at a restaurant
Serving temperature Hot, with toppings
Main ingredients Bread, eggs, milk or cream
Cookbook: French toast  Media: French toast

French toast, also known as eggy bread,[1] Bombay toast,[2] German toast,[3][4] gypsy toast,[5] poor knights (of Windsor),[6] or Spanish toast,[4] is a dish made of bread soaked in milk, then in beaten eggs and then fried, a variation from the traditional spanish dessert called Torrija.[7]

History and names

The earliest known reference to French toast is in the Apicius, a collection of Latin recipes dating to the 4th or 5th century; the recipe mentions soaking in milk, but not egg, and gives it no special name, just aliter dulcia "another sweet dish".[8]

Under the names suppe dorate, soupys yn dorye, tostées dorées, and payn purdyeu, the dish was widely known in medieval Europe. For example, Martino da Como offers a recipe. French toast was often served with game birds and meats. The word "soup" in these names refers to bread soaked in a liquid, a sop.[9]

The usual French name is pain perdu "lost bread", as it is a way to reclaim stale or otherwise "lost" bread. It may also be called pain doré "golden bread".[10] The term pain perdu was formerly used metaphorically to mean sunk costs.[11]

A fourteenth-century German recipe uses the name Arme Ritter ("poor knights"),[4][12] a name also used in English[6] and the Nordic languages. Also in the fourteenth century, Taillevent presented a recipe for "tostées dorées".[13]

There are fifteenth-century English recipes for pain perdu.[4][14][15]

An Austrian and Bavarian term is pafese or pofese, from zuppa pavese, referring to Pavia, Italy.[16]

Preparation and serving

French toast topped with fruit, butter and cream, served with maple syrup

Slices of bread are soaked or dipped in a mixture of beaten eggs, often with milk or cream. Sometimes sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, or vanilla are added to the mixture. The slices of egg-coated bread are then fried on both sides until they are browned and cooked through. Day-old bread is often recommended by chefs because the stale bread will soak up more egg mixture without falling apart.[17]

The cooked slices may be covered with sugar or sweet toppings such as jam, honey, fruit,[18] or maple syrup, or served as a savory dish with ketchup or another sauce.

Variations

The bread may be dipped in milk only, with the egg mixture added afterwards.[19]

The bread may be soaked in various other liquids, such as wine, rosewater, or orange juice, either before or after cooking.[20][21]

Formerly, the dish was eaten more as a soup than dry.

Local versions

France

In France, pain perdu may be eaten as a dessert, a breakfast, or an afternoon tea snack ("goûter").[22]

Hong Kong

Hong Kong–style French toast

Hong Kong–style French toast is made by deep-frying sliced bread dipped in beaten egg, served with butter, and topped with golden syrup or sometimes honey. It is frequently made as a sandwich, with a sweet filling.[23] It is a typical offering in Hong Kong teahouses (cha chaan teng).[24]

Spain

Torrija is a similar recipe traditionally prepared in Spain for Lent and Holy Week. Torrijas or torrejas were first mentioned by the Spanish composer, poet and playwright Juan del Encina (1468–1533) in his Cancionero, published in 1496. In "Anda acá pastor" one reads: "En cantares nuevos / gocen sus orejas, / miel e muchos huevos / para hacer torrejas, / aunque sin dolor / parió al Redemptor".[25]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Beckett, Fiona (18 September 2010). "Student cookbook: French toast (aka eggy bread)". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
  2. ↑ White, Bridget. "Sweet French Toast (Bombay Toast) - Anglo-Indian - Family friendly - Recipe". Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  3. ↑ Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1918). The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Boston: Little, Brown; republished at Bartleby.com, 2000. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Koerner, Brendan. "Is French Toast Really French?". Slate.com. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
  5. ↑ Mille (24 February 2002). "Gypsy Toast". food.com. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
  6. 1 2 Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed., 2006, s.v. 'poor' S3
  7. ↑ Clemente, Esther (20 March 2016). "¿Conoces la historia de la torrija?". Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  8. ↑ Joseph Dommers Vehling, trans., Apicius: Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, Book VII, chapter 13, recipe 296 full text at Gutenberg
  9. ↑ Odile Redon, et al., The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy, 2000, p. 207f
  10. ↑ Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé s.v. 'pain'
  11. ↑ Gabriel Meurier, Christoffel Plantijn, Vocabulaire francois-flameng, 1562 p. 83
  12. ↑ Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. Deutsches Wörterbuch, quoting from the Buch von guter Spyse.
  13. ↑ Pichon, Jérôme; Vicaire, Georges (1892). Le Viandier de Guillaume Tirel dit Taillevent. p. 262.
  14. ↑ Austin, T. Two 15th-century Cookery-books, 1888, quoting a 1450 recipe, quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary
  15. ↑ Davidson, Alan; Jaine, Tom (2006). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press. p. 102. ISBN 0-19-280681-5.
  16. ↑ Ulrich Ammon, Variantenwörterbuch des Deutschen: die Standardsprache in Österreich, der Schweiz und Deutschland sowie in Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Ostbelgien und Südtirol, 2004, ISBN 3110165759, p. 552
  17. ↑ Alton, Brown. "French Toast-Food Network".
  18. ↑ "French Toast Toppings – Unique French Toast Recipes". Good Housekeeping. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
  19. ↑ Compleat Cook (1659) as quoted in the OED
  20. ↑ John Ayto, The Diner's Dictionary: Word Origins of Food and Drink, ISBN 0199640246, p. 142
  21. ↑ Adam Islip, A Dictionarie [sic] of the French and English Tongues, 1611, full text
  22. ↑ (French) Wikipedia article about the pain perdu
  23. ↑ "40 Hong Kong foods we can't live without", CNN Go, 13 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-10-09
  24. ↑ CNN Go World's 50 most delicious foods 21 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-10-11
  25. ↑ Cervantes, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de. "La teatralidad en los villancicos pastoriles de Juan del Encina / Marta Haro Cortés | Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes". www.cervantesvirtual.com. Retrieved 2016-03-23.

Further reading

External links

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