Fud

[ailbhe]

We will have to eat this evening but are all exhausted and the house is a godawful tip. I was thinking stir-fry (carrots, broccoli, onion, garlic, courgette) and egg noodles. Or french toast (WHY is it French? WHY?) or similar.

THEN we can refill the front room with its rightful complement of Stuff and clean up the dining room and kitchen.

Tomorrow, laminating the front hall. Yaay, doorways and doorframes. I think we'll have to buy a smaller saw. Or a BIG electric laminator. A4 won't do.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Dictionary.reference.com puts "french toast" back to the mid-1600s (just after my family arrived in North America) but without etymology.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

The OED gives a 1660 cite, where it's explicitly "French bread" toasted thickly, served "steeped in claret, sack, or any wine, with sugar and juyce of orange".

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

What was French bread, in 1660? (And I like a cinnamon challah, if I can get it. :) )

Now I'm pondering making a syrup like that.

Also, after I posted the above, I had to go ask deyo, who was brushing his teeth, "You know how sometimes someone asks a rhetorical question and you can't not look for the answer?" (He knew.)

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

Remarkably, their first cite for "French bread" is sixteen years later! It seems to be just an identifiably "fancy" kind of bread; I'd have to chase up some different books to find out what it was back then... given it's conceived as fancy, perhaps something brioche-line?

[ruthi.livejournal.com]

French toast is French because there is a french name for it, I think: 'pain perdu'.

Not wanting to call bread 'pain', people went for 'French toast'.

Or so I explain it in my head.

[pauamma]

Which translates to "lost/spoiled/wasted bread" - probably "how to serve stale bread so it doesn't go to waste"?

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

If I have my terminology straight, what many people call French toast is what in my dialect is "poor knights" - bread soaked in beaten egg and fried. ("Rich knights" is cheese sandwiches treated the same way.) The OED quote from above is quite different but doesn't sound like a main course?

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Poor knights = French toast, from your description indeed. But it's a great main course for a quick dinner. I wouldn't serve it at a dinner party or if I were worried about everyone getting a solid, nutritious dinner with lots of A and C vitamins.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

I was unclear, I meant that the "French bread" toasted thickly, served "steeped in claret, sack, or any wine, with sugar and juyce of orange". version didn't sound like a main course.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

I think it sounds great :-) Beaten egg turned up in later versions, so it presumably developed a bit over time.

[clare-s.livejournal.com]

No idea, but we call it Gipsy toast at home or eggy bread at Guides.

[86nikki.livejournal.com]

oh, i do like all the info on french toast! we called it eggy bread when i was younger, but then i used to think that was 'common' when my friends would call it the far posher (in my 12 year old mind) french toast! x

[moustachios.livejournal.com]

I've come across a Norman-era recipe for "tostes dorees" before. Can't remember which book... something from the library about food in medieval England. I can go hunting for it, if you like.