Toast has many guises in the English-speaking culinary world, as we have seen this week. It is a staple at breakfast, very desirable at afternoon tea, and is happy to appear at lunch or supper alongside a bowl of soup. It can be cold and austere, or hot and buttery, it can be embellished with any number of delicious spreads, and is very supportive of eggs, or melted cheese (have we remembered Welsh Rabbit this week?) or leftover stew, or pretty well anything else - including, as we saw earlier in the week, a saucy pile of stewed fruit. As if to prove its versatility, slightly burnt toast also became an ingredient in some of the ersatz coffee recipes of the nineteenth century.
You will be pleased to know that toast rounds out its range with a number of posh roles too. The first that comes to mind is Melba Toast - the ultra-thin crisp toast invented by Escoffier for the opera singer, Nellie Melba. Melba-foods deserve their own story, one day soon, methinks. So, what else is there?
In the last decade or so of the nineteenth century in the English-speaking world, a new kind of whet became fashionable – the canapé. We use the word fairly loosely today to describe any small pre-dinner or cocktail party ‘nibble’, but originally a canapé referred specifically to a small savoury with a base of bread or toast. Actually, this is not quite true. A couple of hundred years before it was a food item, in France a canapé was a sofa. I can see what appears to be the connection here - an edible canapé is a little something resting comfortably on a toast ‘pillow’ - but I have no idea who was the perpetrator of the change in usage of the word. Please do enlighten me if you know the answer.
There is a nice explanation of the canapé in the 1905 edition of the famous The Boston Cooking School Cook Book.
Canapés
Canapés are made by cutting bread in slices one-fourth inch thick, and cutting slices in strips four inches long by one and one-half inches wide, or in circular pieces. Then
bread is toasted, fried in deep fat, or buttered and browned in the oven, and covered with a seasoned mixture of eggs, cheese, fish, or meat, separately or in combination. Canapés are served hot or cold, and used in place of oysters at a dinner or luncheon. At a gentleman's dinner they are served with a glass of Sherry before entering the dining- room.
And here are a couple of very posh versions of the canapé, from the same book – they will nicely use up that lobster coral and crab meat you have lurking in the back of the fridge.
Canapés Martha
Beat yolk one egg, add one and one-half tablespoons cream, one-fourth teaspoon salt, one-eighth teaspoon paprika, one-fourth teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce, and a few
grains cayenne; then add one-fourth pound cheese cut in small pieces, and cook until smooth, stirring constantly.
Spread on sauted slices of bread, cut in fancy shapes, and cover with finely chopped lobster meat held together with a thick sauce made of Chicken Stock or cream, garnish with rings of whites of “hard-boiled” eggs, yolks of “hard-boiled” eggs, and lobster coral forced through a strainer, and rings of olives.
Canapés Lorenzo
Toast slices of bread cut in shape of horseshoes. Cream two tablespoons butter, and add one teaspoon white of egg. Spread slices of bread, rounding with Crab Mixture, cover with creamed butter, sprinkle with cheese, and brown in the oven. Serve on a napkin, ends towards centre of dish, and garnish with parsley.
Crab Mixture. Finely chop crab meat, season with salt, cayenne, and a few drops of lemon juice, then moisten with Thick White Sauce. Lobster meat may be used in place of crab meat.
Quotation for the Day.
Ultimately, the toaster is an apology for the quality of our bread ... the toaster represents a heroic attempt to redeem our packaged bread …every piece of toast is a tragedy.
Arthur Berger.
Showing posts with label toast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toast. Show all posts
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Leftover Toast.
If one of the raisons d’être for the toasting of bread is domestic economy - by virtue of its making stale, leftover bread more palatable - then what does one do, if one is a very virtuous housewife, if some of that toast is itself, leftover?
Rest assured, dear readers, that generations of frugal housewives and cooks have come up with quite a large number of ideas over the last couple of hundred years.
One could, for example, make toast pudding. Toast can also be used in the following variation on the theme of bread pudding (not bread and butter pudding) is from the inspirationally titled The Family Save-All, a System of Secondary Cookery (1861).
An Excellent Pudding of Stale Bread, &c.
Soak two pounds of pieces of Stale Bread, or pieces of Stale Toast, all night in plenty of water, with a plate laid on top of them, just to keep the bread under the water; next morning, pour off and squeeze out all the superfluous water; then well mash the pieces of bread, and mix with it half a pound of flour, a quarter of a pound of currants which have been cleaned, four ounces of suet chopped fine, a quarter of a pound of moist sugar, and two teaspoonfuls of fresh-ground allspice; then grease the inside of a baking dish with a bit of suet, put the pudding into it, and bake it for two hours.
Or it may be tied in a clean floured cloth, set in boiling water, with a plate at the bottom, and Boiled for the same length of time.
Here is a more recent example, from a 1945 advertisement for French’s Worcester Sauce (“You get top-notch quality at half the price”.)
Creamed Fish.
Cube ½ cup of leftover toast, stir into 1 ½ cups hot creamed fish. Add 2 teasp. French’s Worcestershire, sprinkle with chopped parsley.
And finally, a recipe that could just has easily have featured in yesterday’s brief exploration of medicinal toast - a defiantly temptation-free idea for the invalid, from Isabella Beeton’s The Book of Household Management.
Toast Sandwiches
Ingredients: Thin cold toast, thin slices of bread and butter, pepper and salt to taste. Mode: Place a very thin piece of cold toast between 2 slices of thin bread-and-butter in the form of a sandwich, adding a seasoning of pepper and salt. This sandwich may be varied by adding a little pulled meat, or very fine slices of cold meat to the toast, and in any of these forms will be found very tempting to the appetite of an invalid.
Quotation for the Day.
The privileges of the side-table included the small prerogatives of sitting next to the toast, and taking two cups of tea to other people's one.
Charles Dickens.
Rest assured, dear readers, that generations of frugal housewives and cooks have come up with quite a large number of ideas over the last couple of hundred years.
One could, for example, make toast pudding. Toast can also be used in the following variation on the theme of bread pudding (not bread and butter pudding) is from the inspirationally titled The Family Save-All, a System of Secondary Cookery (1861).
An Excellent Pudding of Stale Bread, &c.
Soak two pounds of pieces of Stale Bread, or pieces of Stale Toast, all night in plenty of water, with a plate laid on top of them, just to keep the bread under the water; next morning, pour off and squeeze out all the superfluous water; then well mash the pieces of bread, and mix with it half a pound of flour, a quarter of a pound of currants which have been cleaned, four ounces of suet chopped fine, a quarter of a pound of moist sugar, and two teaspoonfuls of fresh-ground allspice; then grease the inside of a baking dish with a bit of suet, put the pudding into it, and bake it for two hours.
Or it may be tied in a clean floured cloth, set in boiling water, with a plate at the bottom, and Boiled for the same length of time.
Here is a more recent example, from a 1945 advertisement for French’s Worcester Sauce (“You get top-notch quality at half the price”.)
Creamed Fish.
Cube ½ cup of leftover toast, stir into 1 ½ cups hot creamed fish. Add 2 teasp. French’s Worcestershire, sprinkle with chopped parsley.
And finally, a recipe that could just has easily have featured in yesterday’s brief exploration of medicinal toast - a defiantly temptation-free idea for the invalid, from Isabella Beeton’s The Book of Household Management.
Toast Sandwiches
Ingredients: Thin cold toast, thin slices of bread and butter, pepper and salt to taste. Mode: Place a very thin piece of cold toast between 2 slices of thin bread-and-butter in the form of a sandwich, adding a seasoning of pepper and salt. This sandwich may be varied by adding a little pulled meat, or very fine slices of cold meat to the toast, and in any of these forms will be found very tempting to the appetite of an invalid.
Quotation for the Day.
The privileges of the side-table included the small prerogatives of sitting next to the toast, and taking two cups of tea to other people's one.
Charles Dickens.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Toast as Medicine.
In the latter group were many medical and nursing and dietetic persons of the nineteenth century, amongst whom we must include the miserable human who invented the abomination that we met on Monday – that ‘best and healthiest’ beverage called ‘toast and water’.
There was a great prejudice against fresh, hot bread at that time. Here is a snippet, complete with clinical case vignettes, from one of the Lectures on Digestion and Diet, by CharlesTurner Thackrath (Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, and of the Societe de Medecin-Pratique de Paris), 1824.
"Substances, which from their texture or consistence are but imperfectly pervaded by the gastric juice, must be difficult of digestion. Hence new Bread is particularly objectionable. Two soldiers (mentioned by Schmucker) who had eaten immoderately of fresh-baked bread, complained of great uneasiness at the stomach. To this, vomiting succeeded; the abdomen became hard and tumid, the pulse sank; and death was the speedy result. On examination, “the intestines,” says Schmucker, “were found extremely distended with air, and singularly contorted."
The writer goes on to give a story from close to home, which seems to suggest that butter is also a breakfast culprit:
"Two members of my family, were annoyed with disorder of the stomach after breakfast. One in particular was uneasy, depressed, and irritable during most of the forenoon. Plain bread, or Toast, was substituted for buttered Toast, and the disorder was removed in the one case, and materially removed in the other."
Often, in American books of this era on dietetics and health, the preferred bread for medicinal toast was zwieback .The name means twice-cooked, and the bread was intended for long-keeping. Was this an extra precaution against the ‘indigestibility’ of fresh bread? Or is there something that I cannot fathom (not having tried it) about zwieback?
Of course, one could, if one wished, throw caution to the wind, and modify the health properties of this twice-baked, once-toasted bread by the heavy application of cream, as in the following ‘recipe’ from Good Food How to Prepare It - The Principles of Cooking, by George E. Cornforth (1920).
Cream Toast.
Put a slice of zwieback into a cereal bowl. Pour over it one-half cup of hot cream, and serve at once.
And from the same book, the following idea – from the section on Fruit Toasts.
Pear Toast.
Pear sauce for toast may be made from either canned pears of stewed fresh pears. Cut the pears in thin slices. Measure the juice, heat it to boiling, and thicken it with cornstarch stirred smooth with a little cold water, using one tablespoon cornstarch for each cup of juice. Use a batter whip to stir the starch and cold water together, then whip the boiling juice with the batter whip while the cornstarch is poured in a small stream into it. Put the sliced pears into the thickened juice and allow the whole to remain over the stove long enough to heat the pears.
Quotation for the Day.
Toast was a big item in my mother's culinary pharmacopeia. At first it was served plain and dry, but that was soon followed by crisp, sweet cinnamon toast, the baby-bland toast that tasted soothingly of fresh air. Thick slices of French toast, crisp and golden outside but moist and eggy within, would probably come next, always topped with a melting knob of sweet butter and a dusting of confectioner's sugar. I knew I was close to recovery when i got the toast I liked best - almost-burned rye bread toast covered with salt butter.
Mimi Sheraton.
Image is of a toast rack, circa 1851
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Origin of Toast.
I want to continue to consider toast today. At risk of appearing to repeating information and opinion from a post last year, the credit for discovering ‘toast’ appears to go to the English. Overseas visitors to England in the eighteenth century started to notice and comment upon two particular things: the delightful habit of ‘taking tea’ in the afternoon, and the idea of toasting bread before the fire. It seems that the thinness of English bread slices was particularly noteworthy.
M.Grosley wrote of his visit in A Tour to London, published in 1772:
“The Butter and Tea which the Londoners live upon from morning until three or four in the afternoon, occasions the chief consumption of bread, which is cut in slices, and so thin, that it does as much honour to the address of the person that cuts it, as to the sharpness of the knife.”
And the previously quoted C.P. Moritz, a Prussian clergyman who visited England in 1782, said:
“The slices of bread and butter, which they give you with your tea, are as thin as poppy-leaves – But there is another kind of bread and butter usually eaten with tea, which is toasted by the fire, and is incomparably good. This is called toast.”
An even earlier visitor from Scandinavia, a man called Pehr Kalm in 1748, had a theory about how toasting came about:
“The cold rooms here in England in the winter, and because the butter is then hard from the cold, and does not admit of being spread on bread, have perhaps given them the idea thus to toast the bread, then spread butter on it while it is still hot.”
His theory however begs the question of why was the butter not softened before the selfsame fire?. The real reason of course is that toast is much nicer and tastier than plain stale bread!
From The Dictionary of Dainty Breakfasts (1899), here is a very robust way to have your toast (and your eggs too.)
Toast, Bombay.
Ingredients: Two eggs, toast, essence of anchovy, capers. Time required: Ten minutes.
Prepare slices of buttered toast cut into rounds or fingers. Melt a little butter in an omelette pan. As it dissolves stir in two beaten eggs, half a teaspoonful of essence of anchovy and half a teaspoonful of chopped capers and pepper. Spread the mixture on the toast and serve hot.
Quotation for the Day.
When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender, of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries."
The Wind in TheWillows
M.Grosley wrote of his visit in A Tour to London, published in 1772:
“The Butter and Tea which the Londoners live upon from morning until three or four in the afternoon, occasions the chief consumption of bread, which is cut in slices, and so thin, that it does as much honour to the address of the person that cuts it, as to the sharpness of the knife.”
And the previously quoted C.P. Moritz, a Prussian clergyman who visited England in 1782, said:
“The slices of bread and butter, which they give you with your tea, are as thin as poppy-leaves – But there is another kind of bread and butter usually eaten with tea, which is toasted by the fire, and is incomparably good. This is called toast.”
An even earlier visitor from Scandinavia, a man called Pehr Kalm in 1748, had a theory about how toasting came about:
“The cold rooms here in England in the winter, and because the butter is then hard from the cold, and does not admit of being spread on bread, have perhaps given them the idea thus to toast the bread, then spread butter on it while it is still hot.”
His theory however begs the question of why was the butter not softened before the selfsame fire?. The real reason of course is that toast is much nicer and tastier than plain stale bread!
From The Dictionary of Dainty Breakfasts (1899), here is a very robust way to have your toast (and your eggs too.)
Toast, Bombay.
Ingredients: Two eggs, toast, essence of anchovy, capers. Time required: Ten minutes.
Prepare slices of buttered toast cut into rounds or fingers. Melt a little butter in an omelette pan. As it dissolves stir in two beaten eggs, half a teaspoonful of essence of anchovy and half a teaspoonful of chopped capers and pepper. Spread the mixture on the toast and serve hot.
Quotation for the Day.
When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender, of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries."
The Wind in TheWillows
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
A Mere Man’s Breakfast Suggestions.
A Mere Man Considers Breakfast.
A breakfast should consist:-
A. Of a fundamental dish.
B. Of one or more trifling accessories for the benefit of (1) thos who are so hungry that the fundamental dish does not suffice, and (2) those who feel so sick that they cannot touch it.
C. Of fresh fruit, stewed or tinned fruit, jam or marmalade.
D. Of drinks.
E. Of bread, toast, or scones.
The mere man then goes on to clarify the choices within each of these categories. Here they are, much summarised:
Fundamental dishes: ham or bacon, alone or in combination with other articles; eggs cooked in various ways; fish and allied products; “certain internal portions of the animal economy”; meats - chops, sausages, fricasees, curries, etc etc of different kinds hot or cold, including “meat pies of all sorts … [which] should be large: the smaller varieties contain an undue proportion of crust. … The very robust are willing to eat chops and steaks at breakfast. Men in training commonly do so. … The ordinary person eschews butchers meat [ie beef and mutton] at breakfast.”
Accessory dishes: boiled eggs; cold ham or gammon; sardines, in the tin or on toast; anchovies; potted meats; shrimp, bloater, or anchovy paste; mushrooms on toast; herring’s roes on toast; porridge and its allies; cold sausages of sorts.
Fruit and Vegetable products – including tomatoes, stewed rhubarb, tinned fruit, jam and marmalade and honey, and cream “is good with them all, especially Devonshire cream ….the best way of eating Devonshire cream is, however, unquestionably with cheap, black, highly flavoured treacle.”
Drinks: Tea, coffee, cocoa; “when fresh fruit is taken at the beginning of breakfast, a glass of hock is a suitable accompaniment. A glass of good light beer is excellent after breakfast, as they know very well at Westminster school.
Bread, etc. … hot buttered toast, dry toast, tea-cakes and scones – hot and buttered, cut bread and butter, white and brown bread, Vienna and other fancy breads, Hot rolls (for the reckless), Hot Cross buns on Good Friday.
In comparison with this list, the “traditional” English breakfast is a puny, unvarying, unimaginative thing – even such worthy entrants as the “10 deadly sins breakfast” served by the historic London restaurant Simpson’s-in-the-Strand doesn’t quite cut it. The ten sins offered at the venerable establishment are: Cumberland sausage, egg (fried, poached, or scrambled), streaky and back bacon, Stornoway black pudding, fried mushrooms, baked tomato, lamb kidney, bubble & squeak, baked beans, fried bread. Observe that includes neither pie in any form, nor a glass of hock or beer.
It seems that the range of breakfast choices was unquestionably greater a hundred-odd years ago. Bring back pie for breakfast, I say.
Here is a nice dainty dish, from the book – a very British-type of dish - presumably from the trifling accessory range, not the fundamental one.
Bombay Toast
Ingredients: two eggs, toast, butter, essence of anchovy, capers.
Time required: Ten minutes. Prepare slices of buttered toast cut into rounds or fingers. Melt a little butter in an omelette pan. As it dissolves, stir into it two beaten eggs, half a teaspoonful of essence of anchovy an dhalf a teaspoonful of chopped capers and pepper. Spread the mixture on the toast and serve hot.
Quotation for the Day.
Sure I eat what I advertise. Sure I eat Wheaties for breakfast. A good bowl of Wheaties with bourbon can't be beat.
Dizzy Dean.
Monday, August 06, 2007
From the Savoy.
Today, August 6th
The Savoy Hotel opened in London on this day in 1889. It could hardly fail, considering it had the right position (on The Strand), the right manager (Cesare Ritz), and the right chef (Auguste Escoffier). It was the first British hotel to be fully electrically lit, and to have private baths. A welcome sanctuary for the weary nineteenth century traveller.
The site was another sort of sanctuary for several centuries in the past – a sanctuary for far more disreputable (I hope!) guests. Debtors and other escapees from the law to be exact. First, I need to tell you something about the name of the hotel. Have you ever wondered why ‘Savoy’? The House of Savoy was the oldest dynasty of royals in Europe, with a history of a thousand years of rule over an area that now encompasses part of South East France, part of Switzerland, and part of Italy. The dynasty was formally ended in 1946 when their residual empire (the Kingdom of Italy) became a republic, but a thousand years of influence ensured that the name ‘Savoy’ retained its regal connotations.
There was a Savoy Palace on the site long before there was a hotel. It was built by the Earl of Savoy in 1245, and had a long and colourful history and numerous incarnations – which are well beyond the scope of this site, and well beyond my range of knowledge. At some point in medieval times, it became an official place of sanctuary. There were a number of these in London – others were around the Carmelite Friary of Whitefriars, the Mint, the Inns of Court, and the area around the Clink prison (you’d think that would have been too close for comfort for escapees from the law, wouldn’t you?). The right of sanctuary ended in 1697, at least until the travellers version became available on the site with the opening of the hotel.
There are a number of foods with the ‘Savoy’ name – and aside from the cabbage, which presumably grew well in the mountains of the Savoie, most of the others are dishes which have some elegance or extravagance about them. We have:
- Savoy Biscuits: long finger-shaped sponge biscuits (sometimes called Ladies Fingers), the batter being piped out from a Savoy bag; often iced or joined in pairs, and sometimes forming the basis of a trifle.
- Savoy Cakes: something like a pound cake or a sponge cake, baked in shaped Savoy moulds (one nineteenth century menu describes them as being ‘like turbans’)
- Savoy Pudding: made with stale Savoy Cake.
I briefly misread the title of the recipe I give you today as ‘Savoy Toasts’, not ‘Savoury Toasts’ as it immediately precedes the Savoy Biscuit recipe in Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1870s). I decided to give it to you anyway, because ‘Savoy Toasts’ makes leftovers on toast sound very posh and royal.
Savoury Toasts.
Savoury toasts may be served as relishes at breakfast or luncheon, or they may fill a corner at the dinner table. They may be varied at pleasure, and if agreeably flavoured, will constitute appetising trifles at small expense. To prepare them, cut some slices of crumb of bread, half an inch thick, toast them, butter thickly, and spread upon them any highly-seasoned savoury mixture. Put them into the oven to make them hot, and serve. Any cold ragôut or stewed vegetables heated in thick sauce, grated ham or tongue beaten up over the fire with egg and cream till thick, truffles or mushrooms, stewed in butter, seasoned and minced, or any similar preparation may be used to spread upon the toasts. Anchovies pounded may be used in this way also. They are prepared as follows: - Wash and bone the anchovies, mince them finely, and pound them to a paste in a mortar with a little piece of butter and a moderate quantity of cayenne. Work the whole to a smooth paste, spread it upon the buttered toast, and put it into a Dutch oven till it is quite hot.
I’ll give you a real Savoy cake recipe another day, I promise. Next week, in fact. Even better, I'll also give you Potage à la Savoyade. Next week we are going to dine in mid-nineteenth century France for the whole week. Now that's something to look forward too!
Tomorrow’s Story …
Wasting Food is an Offence.
Quotation for the Day ….
England is merely and island of beef swimming in a warm gulf stream of gravy. Katherine Mansfield; The Modern Soul
The Savoy Hotel opened in London on this day in 1889. It could hardly fail, considering it had the right position (on The Strand), the right manager (Cesare Ritz), and the right chef (Auguste Escoffier). It was the first British hotel to be fully electrically lit, and to have private baths. A welcome sanctuary for the weary nineteenth century traveller.
The site was another sort of sanctuary for several centuries in the past – a sanctuary for far more disreputable (I hope!) guests. Debtors and other escapees from the law to be exact. First, I need to tell you something about the name of the hotel. Have you ever wondered why ‘Savoy’? The House of Savoy was the oldest dynasty of royals in Europe, with a history of a thousand years of rule over an area that now encompasses part of South East France, part of Switzerland, and part of Italy. The dynasty was formally ended in 1946 when their residual empire (the Kingdom of Italy) became a republic, but a thousand years of influence ensured that the name ‘Savoy’ retained its regal connotations.
There was a Savoy Palace on the site long before there was a hotel. It was built by the Earl of Savoy in 1245, and had a long and colourful history and numerous incarnations – which are well beyond the scope of this site, and well beyond my range of knowledge. At some point in medieval times, it became an official place of sanctuary. There were a number of these in London – others were around the Carmelite Friary of Whitefriars, the Mint, the Inns of Court, and the area around the Clink prison (you’d think that would have been too close for comfort for escapees from the law, wouldn’t you?). The right of sanctuary ended in 1697, at least until the travellers version became available on the site with the opening of the hotel.
There are a number of foods with the ‘Savoy’ name – and aside from the cabbage, which presumably grew well in the mountains of the Savoie, most of the others are dishes which have some elegance or extravagance about them. We have:
- Savoy Biscuits: long finger-shaped sponge biscuits (sometimes called Ladies Fingers), the batter being piped out from a Savoy bag; often iced or joined in pairs, and sometimes forming the basis of a trifle.
- Savoy Cakes: something like a pound cake or a sponge cake, baked in shaped Savoy moulds (one nineteenth century menu describes them as being ‘like turbans’)
- Savoy Pudding: made with stale Savoy Cake.
I briefly misread the title of the recipe I give you today as ‘Savoy Toasts’, not ‘Savoury Toasts’ as it immediately precedes the Savoy Biscuit recipe in Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1870s). I decided to give it to you anyway, because ‘Savoy Toasts’ makes leftovers on toast sound very posh and royal.
Savoury Toasts.
Savoury toasts may be served as relishes at breakfast or luncheon, or they may fill a corner at the dinner table. They may be varied at pleasure, and if agreeably flavoured, will constitute appetising trifles at small expense. To prepare them, cut some slices of crumb of bread, half an inch thick, toast them, butter thickly, and spread upon them any highly-seasoned savoury mixture. Put them into the oven to make them hot, and serve. Any cold ragôut or stewed vegetables heated in thick sauce, grated ham or tongue beaten up over the fire with egg and cream till thick, truffles or mushrooms, stewed in butter, seasoned and minced, or any similar preparation may be used to spread upon the toasts. Anchovies pounded may be used in this way also. They are prepared as follows: - Wash and bone the anchovies, mince them finely, and pound them to a paste in a mortar with a little piece of butter and a moderate quantity of cayenne. Work the whole to a smooth paste, spread it upon the buttered toast, and put it into a Dutch oven till it is quite hot.
I’ll give you a real Savoy cake recipe another day, I promise. Next week, in fact. Even better, I'll also give you Potage à la Savoyade. Next week we are going to dine in mid-nineteenth century France for the whole week. Now that's something to look forward too!
Tomorrow’s Story …
Wasting Food is an Offence.
Quotation for the Day ….
England is merely and island of beef swimming in a warm gulf stream of gravy. Katherine Mansfield; The Modern Soul
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