It first appeared in a cookbook called Apicius, and its name, translated, is: “another sweet dish.” The recipe for another sweet dish, presented in its entirety: “Slice fine white bread, crust removed, into rather large pieces which soak in milk and beaten eggs, fry in oil, cover with honey and serve.”įor those of the blog generation, such brevity in recipes might seem unfamiliar. If French toast is not French, though, where did it come from?Ancient Rome, as it turns out - about a hundred years before there was a France. And the minute you are old enough to think to sprinkle it with confectioner’s sugar, you’re practically a grade school Gordon Ramsay, and I think you’re technically allowed to curse like he does, too. Butterworth’s (and then fill the plate for good measure).įrench toast is a breakthrough moment for a child at the stove. After the cooking, there are more steps yet, and you pull a bottle of syrup from the fridge like Arthur drawing Excalibur from the stone, and drown that fluffy not-French not-toast with Mrs. The egg is still there, but now you need a bowl and a little milk, some sugar and cinnamon (the latter being the first real spice you reach for beyond the salt and pepper), and there’s mixing and whisking and the dipping of bread before a quiet, gentle fry in the pan.

The first fancy thing you learn to cook, though, is always French toast. When you’re seven years old or so and just introduced to the wonders of that source of fire and magic in the kitchen, the stove, the first thing you learn to cook is probably a fried egg. The thing about French toast -the English call it “eggy bread,” which is much worse - is that it has a special place the hearts of every young cook in the world. I don’t make the rules.) Somehow we’ve welcomed this fraudulent food - this stranger - into our homes, and though I hate to be the one to unmask it, Scooby-Doo style, unmask it I will. Here is what you need to know about French toast: It’s not French, and it’s not toast.

French Toast: The Breakfast Fraud from Ancient Rome

Gordon ramsay eggy bread