French Toast

[bainbrig]

My mum always called bread toasted on one side only ‘French toast’, yet Googling the term throws up a concoction of eggs, vanilla, etc, and bread.

Did my mum get it wrong, or did the English have their own cut-down version of French toast.

BB

[Mamyalynne]

My Mum called it that too, was a long time before I knew it was wrong.

[Buenchico]

Collins Dictionary recognises both definitions:
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/french-toast

[Jackdaw33]

Known by kids as 'eggy bread' French toast is dipped in egg and fried. Very thin bread toasted on one side only is called Melba toast.

[dannyk13]

My mother called it 'Eggy bread'

[Mamyalynne]

Sorry Mum :-)

[Mamyalynne]

No egg near our version of French toast, just toasted on one side and buttered on the other.

[Jackdaw33]

Eggy bread was a boarding school favourite.

[dannyk13]

Obviously there are regional differences

[Mamyalynne]

Loved eggy bread, my Daughters did too.

[Buenchico]

The OED goes with the eggy version:
"any of various kinds of toasted bread, esp. bread soaked in seasoned beaten egg and fried until brown, typically eaten as a dish at breakfast or brunch"

However, looking at the earliest known usage of the term, I quite fancy it as it was back in 1660:
"French Toasts. Cut French Bread, and toast it in pretty thick toasts on a clean gridiron, and serve them steeped in claret, sack, or any wine, with sugar and juyce of orange".

Bristol's 'Western Daily Press' though favoured the simpler style in 1924:
"A piece of bread and butter toasted on the dry side is said to be French toast".

[ummmm]

We’ve always called it gypsy toast.

If you add vanilla to the egg and when cooked coat it in caster sugar it tastes just like doughnuts.

[ummmm]

Melba toast has always been toasted on both sides....that I’ve had anyway.

[Jackdaw33]

Gipsy toast is another name for it.

[jourdain2]

'Eggy bread' was the only way I could get one of my sprogs to eat eggs.

[tamborine]

Post war ration food, where one egg is shared in poor families & they werent obese with all that bread

[albaqwerty]

imho, French Toast is slightly cutting/stale-ish bread dunked in a bowl of beaten eggs, a smidgen of milk and salt and pepper to taste.
The slightly cutting bread absorbs the gloop better.
Fry in moderately hot lard til golden brown and puffed up.

Mr Alba likes his with baked beans (he's odd)

[sherrardk]

We call it gypsy toast - a jam sandwich dipped in the egg mixture, fried and dipped in castor sugar is pretty lush.

[maggiebee]

My French Toast is bread dipped in egg then fried on both sides.

[bainbrig]

Fair enough, my mum wasn't completely wrong then (she often had her 'own' names for things...)

Like most poorer mums in the 1940s, she shovelled sugar and flour into us, as being cheap calories. We were lucky, though, as we also had the welfare state providing us with weekly orange juice and of course school milk.

[webbo3]

1 egg, whisk, add some salt and pepper, whisk again, soak some bread on both sides and fry in a hot pan, turn over and fry some more.

Q.Whats french bread in france.

A. Pain pardeau.


Dave.