Toasting

     "It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you. People's failings, even major ones such as when they make you wear short trousers to school, fall into insignificance as your teeth break through the rough, toasted crust and sink into the doughy cushion of white bread underneath. Once the warm, salty butter has hit your tongue, you are smitten. Putty in their hands."

From Toast: the story of a boy's hunger by Nigel Slater.

     "In 1782 Carl-Philip Moritz, a German visitor to London, enthused that '...there is a way of roasting slices of buttered bread before the fire which is incomparable. One slice after another is taken and held to the fire with a fork until the butter is melted, then the following one will be always laid upon it so that the butter soaks through the whole pile of slices. This is called 'toast'.'" 

From Taste: The Story of Britain through its Cooking by Kate Colquhoun.

    "Milk Toast for the Ill, Weak, Old, Very Young, or Weary... The basis for the whole is toasted bread soaked in warm milk. The sweet butter, the seasoning, the cream and the milk - these are sops indeed to the sybarite in even the sickest of us. I have used this bland prescription more than once upon myself, recognising a flicker across my cheekbones, a humming near my elbows and my knees, that meant fatigue had crept too close to the fortress walls. I have found partaking of a warm bowl full of it, in an early bed after a long bath, a very wise medicine - and me but weary, not ill, weak, old, not very young!"

From The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher. 

Comments

[Karen]

Yup. Toast is good. Have you ever tried it with butter and brown sugar? Oh dear. . .

[Jennifer]

When I am unwell, the first thing I go for is homemade oatmeal bread, toasted with a thick spread of butter.

[Rattling On]

Pobs- it's not an insult- that's what the bready milk concoction is called round here.

[Dark Puss]

Milk Toast sounds absolutely revolting! I don't really like butter on my toast with marmalade these days, and haven't drunk milk, as milk, since I was about 7.

Ugh!

[Fran]

Even the most expensive toaster cannot make toast the way the Aga does. How I miss that wonderful contraption. The lovely cross hatchings it makes, the crunchy outside and soft warm middle, if you cut the bread thick enough.
Somewhere I have a French recipe for bowls of cafe au lait with toast, buttered and sprinkled with brown sugar allowed to sink or swim. I have never yet tried it......but using brioche or similar I can see it could be tasty.

[Margaret Powling]

I'm currently trying to get a copy of Toast via Read it Swap it; and I've just managed to get a copy of Taste and thoroughly enjoying it! Another good book on food history of Sir Roy Strong's Feast. Best of all I love toast and marmalade, closely followed by toast and ginger preserve, then toast and honey ... all toast is lovely. We often have it during the night if we wake around 3 am and want a cup of tea and toast!

[Mary McCartney]

The best toast I've ever eaten was made at my grandmother's huge open fire where you could see up the chimney. Thick slices were cut from a large square loaf delivered to the door by the breadman then pronged on a fork and held to the glowing coals. She did all her cooking on the fire, disdaining the Baby Belling in the corner.

[Nan]

Oh, milk toast just makes me shiver. :<) But unlike Dark Puss, I drink raw milk every single day. And I love regular toast; toast with butter or honey or jam. One of my top favorite foods and I could really eat it all day.

[Ruth M.]

And me without any breakfast in me... excuse me while I go hunt up the bread knife... Make toast,spread with soft butter till it's melted in, sprinkle heavily with cinnamon sugar to soak up the butter. Stop there, and eat, or for true decadence set under the broiler for a minute till the cinnamon bubbles and just turns crusty.

[Deirdre]

Everything sounds yummy! Dark Puss, you don't know what you are missing! Toast is the ultimate comfort food.

[Darlene]

Reading about cooking, rather than cooking itself seems to be of more interest to me (baking is wonderful). These look like wonderful books, I still have to work my way through Mrs Rundell's cookery book but have put 'Taste' on my wish list.

[Dark Puss]

I do like toast, just not mucked around with! As a rather Calvinist cat I'm not really into "comfort" anything (my motto is "Strength Through Misery"), but if pushed I'll certainly lap up a small square of dark chocolate with a nice old Armagnac.

[Becky]

My 16 year old son was sick recently--fever, aches, cough--and I offered him tea and toast. He paused for a moment and responded, "Mom, you must really love toast. You think it cures everything!"

How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a child who doesn't understand about toast!