This topic has been touched upon many times here, but never, as far as I know, given the well-deserved dignity of its own thread. I do not expect this to be a long discussion. I am hoping for a concise and above all knowledgeable overview, complete with technical details of basic ingredient, methods of preparation etc. that may serve as the “knowledge bank” of the title, ready to be referred to as the authoritative guide to the subject.
I’d like to start with the possibly contentious aspect of serving temperature. Regardless of the type of bread used, I advocate warm toast, neither finger-burningly hot nor unappetisingly cold. In my experience hot toast melts both butter (OSAA) and topping, resulting in a concomitant lack of the crispness for which toast is rightly esteemed; the slice sags defeatedly in the hand, all substance and texture lost. Crispness is strengthened by the practice of twice-toasting, which I hope Mr. Thep may step up and explain, if he’s in a charitable mood.
I am honoured. Twice-toasting (or retoasting for the hyphen-phobic) is the devil’s work. It’s why God gave us a timer on our toasters. Admittedly there’s a bit of trial-and-error involved, since the timing for Mother’s Pride is markedly different from that of artisan kneaded-on-the-thighs-of-virgins sourdough (also called Mother’s Pride in some circles, confusingly enough). Verb sap: the annoying little mountain peak thing on the top of sourdough is best removed before toasting, because it invariably burns (this may be of interest to Australians only).
I’m with you on hot toast, but in my experience you only have a window of about 10 seconds before hot toast becomes warm toast, so not an issue AFAIC. You then have about 30 seconds before it becomes cold toast. Crispness is strengthened by letting it go cold, I have found, so it’s important not to over-toast in the first place.
Most days my toast is topped with avocado, topped again with my signature chilli relish. The question of whether the avocado is ripe enough rears its ugly head here: unripe and the chunks just slide off leaving an unsightly green stain; over-ripe and it is, as we avo experts say, not very nice. But perhaps that’s for another thread.
Insofar as the choice of topping materially affects the toast’s structure, it is a valid subject for this thread.
Thank you for your input on retoasting. I have found the process naggingly inconsistent, subject as it is to a bewildering set of variables, but a successfully retoasted slice reaches the apogee of the art. It seems to me crucial that the slice be first lightly toasted (with no hint of blackening) and allowed to cool in the toaster before depressing the plunger again.
See also: toasting from frozen.
I seem to recall in a Willie Rushton book that the best way to do frozen toast was with an iron.
Iron the bread on both sides until the required browness of the toast is reached.
That reminds me Hubes, how about over an open fire? Very difficult indeed but the primal experience is worth it alone.
I was about to suggest a toasting fork, the joy of toasting over an open fire outdoors or indoors over a coal fire.
Unfortunately Mike’s pithy response to my triple toasting suggestion further down the thread has left me feeling somewhat deflated, like an old bread wrapper casually tossed aside to end up floating down the Regent’s Canal tto be caught up in a lock surrounded by duckweed.
I’ve still got the day to get through now.
Never mind, dear heart. I was going to suggest sending you a magick pakora to cheer you up, but alas I think it may very well just give you THE FEAR instead, and you’ll end up covered in algae, raving and howling with a rotting bicycle tyre around your neck before they taser and net you, and condemn you to a life spent caged in a freak show in a dank and boggy field on the outskirts of Wolverhampton.
My dear chap, I am distraught, I didn’t really mean to spoil your day. I thought you were joking, I had no idea triple toasting was a thing.
I don’t know if it is, but could a slice not be double toasted then spread with butter and toasted for a short time thereby warming the butter too.
Fried bread?
Fried jam sandwiches?
Eggy fried bread. Now you’re talking. I’ve got the munchies.
My son does something like a fried jam sandwich. Not actually shallow fried, although there is a little butter in the pan. It’s an alternative to the sandwich toaster.
On the subject of double-toasted, or bis tostato bread, I would like to see data (either quantitative or qualitative) that suggests that a slice of bread that has been toasted for two cycles of 2.5 mins is noticeably crisper than one that has been toasted for one 5 min cycle. Is this a real effect, or is it all just marketing to make us believe that the toaster is a more sophisiticated device than it actually is?
The term bis tostato is new to me. The word bis is used in French to mean “again” in the context of house numbering, where a dwelling is created between two consecutive numbers, but tostato looks Italian.
Your comment implies the existence of a toaster that performs this function (re-toasting, not house numbering)? This also is new to me. I have so much to learn. Thank you for your contribution.
Edit: it occurs to me now that biscuit is basically French for again-cooked.
“Bis” is also used in Italian. And not just for house numbering, but generally to mean an “extra one”, “additional” that sort of thing. So if you want a second serving of the pasta you’ve just enjoyed you can ask for a “bis”, for example. Also at the end of concerts, when in English one shouts “Encore!” Italians shout “Bis!”.
I haven’t eaten toast since I was a child, for while I bear it no dislike I consider it something of a waste of stomach space that could be more satisfyingly utilised.
Thank you for your comment, Garfield. As ever, it is both provocative and timely, doing both you and the thread enormous credit.
Toast, immediately after popping up – urgently spread liberally with soft butter and then crunchy peanut butter on top. Washed down with tea. It’s great – but you feel guilty afterwards.
I also really like the continental cold toast you get in the poncy section of the supermarket. The packet must have non-English words on the front – and a drawing on it :
1. a jovial, rosy-cheeked baker, or
2. a couple o’ tricklers (French flags), or
3. a monk (or something along those lines), or
4. a playful young lady on a bicycle freewheeling through a pile of autumn leaves, or
5. a totally fictitious but impressive-looking medieval crest.
Nothing else will do.
” … immediately after popping up – urgently spread …”
Not for the first time I find myself in violent disagreement with your eccentric views, but I control myself to maintain the agreeably collegiate tone of the thread.
Chuckle! Hey…go for it! I won’t take it personally. Or harbour a grudge that will last until the day I die.
The things you’re talking about are called toasts in French, as opposed to that thing we call toast, which the French translate as toast. In the absence of violent objections and outbreaks of boffing from L’Académie française, I can only conclude that the French recognise that toast was invented by the British. There is a thing called pain grillé, but that is merely toasted bread not toast. Clear?
You make it sound like the French call it toast just to annoy us.
I prefer to think that they have developed this toast-adjacent delicacy because packaging hot toast is simply not possible. This then means the word “toast” is up for grabs. It’s not toast – we know it, they know it – everyone’s happy.
The French restaurant’s typical meanness in providing a decent amount of toast with the goose liver paste always baffled me. One always had to ask for more.
Wouldn’t put it past them.
A continental breakfast? I ask you. Overpriced and consisting of a pocket of air with flakes on it, unsalted (?!) butter and a miniscule glass of warm, tasteless orange juice. Crecy’s revenge.
It seems that twice-toasting is a technique tailored exclusively to the precise technology of the toaster. I don’t have a toaster, and do my toast under the grill, a heating space lacking the sophistication and nuance necessary for complex toasting skills. While I have no experience in twice-toasting, it does put me in mind me of double-deep-frying, which I have heard is the way forward if crispy nirvana is your goal.
After I’ve removed the toast from the grill I like to keep it standing upright on its crust to cool a little. If you allow it to cool lying down, the bottom surface will become sweaty and soft, so that’s a no-no. It only needs to stand for 30 seconds or so. For breakfast I will drizzle olive oil over it and spread cool mashed avocado over its residual warmth. Then more olive oil and salt and pepper on top. The toast has to be eaten straight away for all the individual elements of the meal to shine.
However, when it comes to a poached egg I have found that a cold and hardened piece of toast laminated in unmelted butter is the perfect foundation.
Toasted bread dissipates its thermal load faster than any other known substance except the moist towelettes distributed in Indian restaurants, which go from lava to permafrost in less time than it takes to say “Oh sorry I thought the After Eights were all for me.”
That’s why it’s so important to have a trained buttering professional on hand to move in at the P of the pop. Paraspreaders will ensure full coverage in those critical early seconds after extraction, using whatever everyday household equipment is available to them, such as a knife. Their work is impeded by ACSs – Acute Chilled Spreadables – where members of the public have forgotten to remove the butter or I Can’t Believe It – This Is Lard from the fridge in anticipation of the buttering event. For its negative impact on the work of the first-responder, this omission is akin to forgetting to remove the pin from a grenade before you throw it.
Once the initial membrane has been applied, the toast user has a relatively relaxed timeframe in which to select and apply the second spread. I usually recommend less than a minute if you’re looking for a gooey, buttery melange with your second coat, such as one would expect with Marmite or marmalade. For more resilient outer coatings, such as peanut butter, anything up to five minutes is acceptable, as that stuff is disgusting and you’re only going to throw the whole thing away anyway.
Having a buttering offsider is crucial when it comes to scrambled eggs. If you take your eyes off the egg pan to butter, the eggs will no longer be à point. However, having failed to instil in Mrs thep the necessary sense of urgency after 13 years of trying, I now take the eggs of the heat a minute or so early to do the buttering. These things are important.
The event horizon for perfect scrambled egg and perfect buttered toast is measured in nanoseconds, and it’s always a great disappointment, when you’ve threaded that needle, (in the pipe, five by five) to find that the intended recipient has wandered off to empty the tumble dryer “because you said it was ready and it wasn’t.”
Or for a pee. ‘It takes 5 minutes to eat, tops, surely you could have waited?’
What bread makes the best toast? The “fancier” the loaf, the worse the toast. A good plain white, sliced medium thick, gets my vote. Heavy black bread is a non-starter.
Bread always seems to emerge from my toaster heavy and black
Tend to agree. Your pain à la vierge, while delicious fresh for sangers etc, makes poor toast. It’s full of holes, for one thing, and you can’t butter a hole unless you’re lying on the floor of an empty Paris apartment. Also the crust goes tooth-shatteringly hard.
Is buttering a hole lying on the floor of an empty Paris apartment a reference to “Ultimo Tango a Parigi” (Bertolucci)?
Need you ask?
For a friend.
I knew Maria Schneider in Paris. She was barely recognisable from her sex kitten days, alas, and I understand permanently traumatised by the experience. Devoted her life to Good Causes.
Sad story.
Straight out the fridge, man.
Guaranteed to make me yelp, anyway.
Room temperature’s the way to go.
Though I say it myself, the bread I make is excellent toaster. My usual loaf is five parts white and one part wholemeal (or white) rye. Makes very crisp toast.
I’m envious. I’d love to bake my own bread. The amount of additives and frankenstein shite you get in supermarket bread is horrendous. It must be genuinely awful for anyone with IBS or Crohns. Luckily, I’m not in either category. I still peer closely with my magnifying glass when checking the ingredients on food packaging.
Frankenstein shite? Is that shite from Dr Frankenstein or shite from the monster? Pushes sandwich to one side regardless.
The worst is Lidl. I hardly ever frequent the place. If you want toxic chemical overload god-knows-what-future-health-time-bomb-crap-I’ve-just-ingested-shite they’re you go to procurers.
The bit in the middle where you find stuff you never knew you wanted and still don’t is popularly known as the Aisle of Shite.
When I’m in Blighty I often go to Lidl (or Aldi) for booze though. Aldi whisky is excellent, and cheap. When I’m in Oz I don’t bother because supermarkets don’t sell booze – in QLD or NSW at least. A lot of the bottle shops are owned by supermarkets though.
Oh yes. Any old crap thrown together. Hosepipe reels, disposable spraypainting suits, cans of stewed fruits, microwavable puddings in a bowl, toy asexual beings of some sort or another.
When Aldi was my nearest supermarket in Brisbane, they used to have random national ‘cuisine’ weeks. One minute it was all Marmite, Hobnobs and Tunnocks, next minute it was all biltong and Mrs Ball’s chutney.
Tunnocks? Are they some sort of bollock offal snack?
Don’t let any of the Scottish contingent hear you say that.
I’ve baked all our bread for at least thirty years. Even supermarket bread flour has none of the additives. I buy in bulk from Shipton Mill. Is organic, but more importantly makes a very tasty bread, whether yeasted or sourdough. Is very easy to make bread, and very pleasing.
Another one on my list then. Buy a telescope, cultivate a patch of wild garden, grow some spuds and veg, learn to bake bread.
Ah. So I guessed correctly then, Mike?
You are entirely correct in your toast thesis, as I have come to delightfully discover in recent months. I used to be a hardcore heavily toasted to the point of incineration type. Smothered with butter that soon turned into a thin charcoaled soup. Since I had to adjust my eating habits I discovered the joy of softly toasted and warm. My preferred bread is generally Hovis Seed Sensations, although a Jackson’s Farmhouse Bloomer is also used depending on the condiment. I shall be having the latter this morning with marmite, a mug of finest punjana, and a pot of greek yoghurt with strawberry jam. A breakfast fit for Olympus indeed.
ps: what is this twice toasted malarkey? Also, this done on one side only business, apparently the traditional toff way, is pretty ghastly from my brief experience with it.
My dad liked his toast one-sided, for which he employed the grill of his cooker. While I respected his culinary dexterity, his bread/toast hybrid never appealed to me, reeking of the compromise Mr. Chamberlain stooped to with Mr. Hitler.
Rob – you really should try the re-toasted toast thing, if you’re a fan of crispness in a breakfast slice. It requires both skill and luck to bring off, but the result is truly the Toast of Toasts.
It would most likely be too sharp for me to eat as my palate is more sensitive at the moment. This may change over time. It’s a variable. However, the concept of toasting a slice of toast twice, very Chuang Tzu as it may be, doesn’t really appeal anyway.
I like a fat heel, toasted to near cinders, then a hefty dollop of room temp butter, then a large knife edge of marmite. Mix vigorously and allow to melt into a limpid pool in the belly of the still warm slice.
Await gallbag pain.
Marmite is such a Marmite thing.
I adore marmite. Always have. The trick is not to overdo it, mind. Subtlety is the trick. I’m pursuing a very Taoist approach to my diet at the moment eg. combining opposing ends of the flavour spectrum. This stimulates the taste bud nerves into action and helps return one’s sense of taste, although it may be somewhat altered in some regards. I have, for instance, rediscovered a sweet tooth previously more or less lost in adolescence. I’m rather hoping that celery, which I only developed a liking for, makes its triumphant return intact.
Celery is God’s way of making you eat water in string form.
That is indeed The Way Of Celery, my son.
The only toast recipe worth knowing:
1. Toast thickly sliced quality bread evenly to a rich golden brown. Do not burn.
2. Immediately remove bread from toaster and cover generously in butter, taking care that the butter does not soak into the crispy crust.
3. Apply marmite thinly in an even sweeping motion with the tip of a knife. If this is done on properly browned toast the surface of the bread will not tear.
4. Eat while still warm with a large slice of Cheddar cheese.
You bring up the subject of crusts, which is worthy of further study.
Unfortunately, I am no longer a keen crust muncher. Even with pizzas. I can only do soft, but some new lower right gnashers should help sort that out.
I’d like at this point to thank the contributors to this thread for their well-mannered and above all impeccably informed comments. They give me confidence that the hope for this thread to become the standard reference work on the topic is well-founded.
We have not yet addressed the machinery required to make the toast. I have a thoroughly horrible-looking Phillips two-slot that insists on still working after six years of use by me and the occasional lizard who optimistically takes up residence.
I have a 40 year old Russell Hobbs 2-slice toaster that still puts in sterling service.
I have a modern Russell Hobbs, and ever since Thatcher privatised the electric toaster industry, they are no longer produced by a proud family firm of goblins up north, but have, alas, been outsourced to greedhead vulture capitalist/communist globalist shagnasties and therefore only last about a year. Bastards.
Until recently we had an absurdly up-itself Kitchenaid toaster in Ferrari red. It was called Artisan, largely because it couldn’t be arsed to pop the toast. It just stayed there, keeping warm allegedly. We ditched it because it started toasting on one side only, and not in an upper-class way. We now have a DeLonghi in a refreshing Good Morning Good Morning shade of yellow. It makes toast.
My previous toaster was named Arthur because it was red.
‘Whadda we want?’
TOAST!
‘When do we wannit?’
WHEN IT’S STILL WARM, PLEASE.
Soft boiled egg a la Delia – as soon as water is bubbling toast into toaster (home-made bread because a baguette however delicious doesn’t fit in a toaster. Grills are for the devil – as soon as you walk across the room to get a knife the toast is on fire and the smoke alarm is ringing).
First slice is smeared with butter and is used solely for soldier duty.
Second slice is re-buttered and covered with whichever delicious jam or marmalade my good lady has just magicked up.
Toast is Food of the Gods. Toast is everything.
Having last month partaken of triple cooked chips, could the way forward be triple toasting bread?
No.
I thank Mike for his short and pithy response but I had hoped for a more nuanced argument.
Mike doesn’t do nuance. It’s not required for the book trade, and he sees no need for it now.
Triple toasted bread is already available and marketed under the brand name ‘Charcoal’.
You can buy it by the sackload down the Murco.
I for one miss an overhead grill. I found them ideal for toasting, especially a quick bacon job. Every place I rented in the old days came complete with an old fashioned stand alone gas cooker with grill, those wall mounted gas heaters – *click* *light match* *don’t singe your hair* – and best of all, a communal coin slot telephone in the hall.
*click* *light match* *run away*
Quite a backdraft. Especially when herbal jazz gaspers had been taken.
A pal of mine had a toaster he stole from his gran – a pre-pop-up design, tent-like in profile. The tin sides folded down to reveal the coil elements, against which you rested the bread before lifting the sides and plugging the thing in (plaited fabric cord in cracked Bakelite© plug). It added an unwelcome element of stress (and pungent aroma of smoldering fingertips) to breakfast.
Stole from his gran?! What sort of bounder would do such a thing.
My gran had one of those, but I let her keep it.
‘…stole from his gran – a pre-pop-up design, tent-like in profile’.
Yeah, my Nan looked like that as well.
Mind you, pretty much all Nans looked the same back then, didn’t they? I think it was the hats.
And so old, even though they were much younger than we are now.
This is what we’ve now lost. The Queen was the last of the proper old ladies – with a perm and a hat as nature intended.
Absolutely right.
RIP, Nation’s Nan.
We’ll never see the like again.
Firmly a Dualit man. Allows me to adjust time based on bread thickness and also if it’s the first time the thing has been used that day (cold start takes a little longer). It was £100 (Costco bargain) but it is clearly bomb proof (and repairable should a big bomb hit it).
In terms of toast, one run is enough but I always take the slices and lean them against each other (like a card house) for 30 seconds to cool and not get a soggy bottom.
The only time I toast twice is in hotel breakfast situations where the conveyor belt machine is in play. Once is never enough and twice is normally slightly too long. Has anyone every encountered one of these machines that worked first time?
Those damn machines are agonising, like waiting for your luggage at an airport. And rascally diners think nothing of stealing your slice if your back is turned.
I hover around the machine like David Pleat looking for a chip shop.
I stayed in a Costa Brava hôtel for a week which had one of those. Every morning a grand looking lady entered, walked over to the machine and removed a slice of toast. She clearly thought there was toast on tap all breakfast long. Finally, another guest protested at her thievery. Fiery words were exchanged resulting in a plate of yoghurt being deposited on her opponent’s head. He then careered into the drinks station propelling coffee, tea, juice, cava and glasses onto the floor. She picked up her toast and walked over to “her” window seat. A newcomer was sitting there. He looked at her, looked at the chaos behind and immediately vacated the table.
That does sound like a brilliant holiday.
Carry On Costa!
Actually, I can now visualise Lodey with a pair of baggy satin-look shorts with an elesticated waistband. And I didn’t want to.
Costa Brava is almost without exception a classy place full of rich debonair people from Barcelona. And me
Ye-es … we have you down for the “almost” bit … view of the coach park, lizard in the bidet …
Dualit here. We recently bought a replacement for our 25-year-old one (we could have sent it off for a service, but 3 weeks without toast was not something I could countenance).
The new one came with a free sandwich rack, which rests over one of the slots and allows us a poor simulacrum of a Breville toastie, I imagine. I’ve never used it because the instructions say to butter the OUTSIDE of your sandwich before grilling, which is against the natural order of.. well, anything.
Apart from that Dualit is the king of toasters. As it fucking well should be for the price.
Those racks are handy for crumpets.
I haven’t had crumpet in years…. er, missus. Might be worth a go.
A warning to the crumpet curious. Sourdough.
No. Don’t like them. They are…. sour. Which is a bit bloody much.
It’s got to be Warburton’s crumpets for me. Others are nearly always too sweet.
Butter? As Henry Cooper told us, splash it all over.
Hence the warning, dear boy, and yes, spread that butter like you’re toasting crumpets in old Pompeii and suddenly it’s ‘my gosh!’ as you look out the window and the roof catches on fire, but nevertheless, you say ‘Fuck the Gods, and Volcanos, ‘ as you defiantly spread your ancient crumpet topping of choice (probably butter, yes, or some form of goat cheese, which is cool, of course.).
Top bands even sing about them….
We’ve got an early Dualit, bought in 1998 I think. I replaced the elements a couple of years ago but it’s currently in storage as my wife bought a De Longhi because it will cope with bagels, which the Dualit won’t.
Ours does. It has a bagel setting which toasts just the cut side and leaves the other side warm but soft. It divides opinion in our house but I prefer it.
God, I love a bagel. Smoked salmon and cream cheese ahoy!
Ours has a clockwork dial and 2 or 4 slice switch, that’s all. Having replaced the elements, there’s very little inside, except a lot of toast crumbs.
Ours is a recent upgrade – we needed the slots. It’s just more options on the 2-4 slice switch.
I screwed up once (Hilton, Paddington since you ask) and my toast went round again somehow. There was smoke, and I ran away. Nothing to do with me, guv.
I set the communal fire alarm off in the warehouse testing the repaired Dualit. Fire brigade automatically responded. They were very nice about it fortunately.
I used to stay at the same hotel every other week for work and worked out the ‘right’ seeing for the conveyer toaster. I think they may make the perfect toast of set right so, after a few weeks my day started very well indeed!
I did stay somewhere when I was first of the day to use the toaster and someone had forgotten to clip in the ski slope at the back. As a result, my nearly perfectly toaster bread went doing out of the back and onto the floor.
I can’t do toast in hotels. Ideally you’d start your bread off on the conveyor belt and go round and load your plate with your sausage, egg, bacon and beans while it made its progress through the browning flip. But then you’re putting your toast on the top of your breakfast, which is an aberration in any polite society. There’s also the odds-on chance that someone will filch your slice while you’re waiting for replenishment of the hash brown station. I can’t cope with that kind of anxiety at 7.30am.
The Browning Flip – three more rounds from them later.
I’ve got Three Egg Omelette, their third albumen
The White Albumen, indeed.
Which reminds me of Graham Chapman on tour in New Zealand as recounted by Cleese.
“Chapman ordered a three-egg omelette. The waitress was astonished. She said, ‘A three-egg omelette?’ Graham said, ‘You know, an omelette with three eggs.’ And after about a quarter of an hour, this huge omelette arrived with three fried eggs on the top.”
“Three igg omlit”, surely?
Indeed in his book A Liar’s Autobiography that’s how it is said. Much better thanks Moosey.
I can recommend doing things in the following order.
1. Pop in two slices of bread.
2. Hit on the coffee machine and get a coffee.
3. Pop toast in for a second go.
4. Get some Juice and take juice and coffee to your table.
5. Grab big plate, grab toast, put a fried egg on each one and then load up on meat based products.
6. Wolf it down.
7. Back to room for a poo.
That reminds me. I must send off a stool sample for bowel cancer screening.
There’s a gentleman that’s going round
Turning the joint upside down
Stooool sample!
Ha Cha Cha Cha
“7. Back to room for a poo.”
Errr…any particular room, Leedsy? Just seems a bit disconcertingly… ambiguous… as currently written. As it stands, I’m reading it as ‘the kitchen’.
That can’t be right, can it?
I was reading this as “back to my room” which is just as awful.
It’s a misprint. He meant roof. Look, there he is, up there! (Did you catch that? Big mistake. No wash your hands.)
I can clarify – HP is correct. It’s always back to his room for a poo.
It’s a bloody long way. You must go on the plane because you never got (or went) here.
I’m even more confused now.
No, it’s ok thanks, don’t explain, I’m fine.
HP – I’m assuming that means you’ve yet to find them.
*pushes perfectly-grilled toast to one side*
A note for newer visitors: “Pushes sandwich to one side” is Mo Esher’s most important (and arguably only) contribution to the Afterword. It is used to indicate a sudden loss of appetite caused by reading a distasteful comment.
Are you saying that in case Bob Numbers comes back?
A note for newer visitors: Bob Numbers was a regular contributor to the blog, eventually flouncing after being mistaken for Bob.
He went into a hut in the woods to have a long meditation about his relationship with the blog. He’d only been on it about three months and spent most of that time telling us he didn’t know what we were talking about. I assume the film rights to this caper are long gone.
Correct on both counts. Unnecessarily hurtful, but correct.
I like toast almost burnt. If the smoke alarm isn’t going off, it isn’t ready
We have white levain in the freezer which is sliced. Good for toasting. A bit new fangled to be Afterword friendly perhaps.
But I wonder, do people put their wet goods on top of their warm, crispy buttered bread surfaces or should the toast be kept separate to one side to prevent soggyness? I generally pile scrambled eggs on to toast but she who knows best keeps toast and egg separate. Beans must surely go over the toast. Maybe a little soggyness is pleasant even. Like a pie crust in contact with the gravy beneath.
Another thing. Whither (tinned with a little tomato sauce) sardines on toast? It’s been a long time but I have good memories. Of course cheese with cheese on toast gets grilled along with the bread. It’s very good but not toast in the same way. There’s a lot to consider.
Sardines on toast is delicious. I typically avoid the tomato sauce type though – in oil and possibly with chillies.
I’m having sardines on toast for brunch, the tomato sauce variant. Delicious. Otherwise, it’s sardines in olive oil on an open sandwich or salad, but not toast. The same law applies for all things mackerel.
With cheese surely you are toasting the bread first. Then under the grill until the cheese is bubbling and the outside of the bread is black. Add Worcestershire sauce (can also be placed under cheese before grilling) and you’re laughing.
Cheese on toast – toast one side then pile the cheese on the untrusted side. Grill until molten
With a slice of ham, and generous splashes of L & P and Tabasco.
Talking of L&P, I have discussed this with Señor Valparaiso, but perhaps I should throw the subject open: is it just me, or is the good stuff not what it used to be? Seems to me it used to be thicker, more unctuous if you will, and packed much more of a wallop. These days it seems thin and watery, and much less flavoursome. Anyone?
I’ve never tried L&P, but I definitely get the impression that nothing at all is as good as it used to be.
Probably not worth telling you what you’re missing any more.
Like a lot of traditional condiments, the quality has indeed suffered in recent years, but I hang in there because it still has enough of a hint of old to make it worthwhile.
Can confirm it is thinner. Found a stash of smallish size bottles at Tesco for NINE BAHT the bottle. 40 baht = 1GBP. So that’s … does math … 360 quid the bottle! That can’t be right …
It isn’t. Check your workings.
Henderson’s Relish is the answer – much nicer than L&P (and it’s vegetarian too)
I had a go at Henderson’s Relish, but it didn’t really hit the spot for me. Perhaps anchovies were the missing ingredient…
We know a song about that ..
1. There is an “untrusted” side to sliced bread? Tbh, I always suspected as much. I would never have said so aloud, but I have noticed how people’s cutlery tends to go missing when they’re out at work.
2. Dairylea cheese spread on toast done under the grill used to be my favourite snack when I UK dwelt.
No no no. The bread under the cheese remains soft and untrusted
Burnt toast is better cold. I love burnt food generally, in fact. I’m standing up to cancer my way.
This is all very interesting but nobody yet has advised the crucial importance of the right sort of butter in achieving toast nirvana. Put plainly, it has to be proper butter – ie expertly churned cream, preferably with sea salt crystals. The ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ (though we are beginning to suspect by now) stuff and the ‘stays soft even in the fridge’ muck, won’t do at all. All of these imposters simply make toast go soft. Proper butter is meant to skate lightly and dribble down your chin.
I accidentally picked up some unsalted butter[*] at the supermarket last week. Horrible stuff, completely unsuitable for my customary two rounds of morning buttered toast. I don’t generally put anything else on my toast. Just butter. Unsalted butter in that context is just tasteless grease.
[*] Grabbed two packs from the Salted Butter section. Unfortunately some bounder had replaced a pack of unsalted in the wrong section and I didn’t notice I had one of each type until I was unpacking afterwards at home.
The exact same happened to me a couple of months ago Mike. One block of unsalted lurking amongst the salted. Luckily I used it quite successfully to give much needed body and fat content to some rather disappointingly thin soups.
I absolutely agree. Proper butter, salted of course, is essential. The rightful use of unsalted butter is for cooking, so I honestly can’t fathom its popularity as a spread in parts of the continent.
Agreed re the rightful use of unsalted butter being for cooking; somewhere, I’ve got a fantastic recipe for Hot Buttered Rum which requires unsalted – if I can be arsed to look for it, I’ll post it.
The level of salt in butter is moot with marmite. Which is what sensible people put on toast. Or just crunch a pinch of sea salt flakes on the buttered toast. Which is nicer than salted butter anyway.
Boo boo boo boo poo poo.
The only act to turn up to Top of the Pops with a gas cooker.
Apart from Rob’n’Raz with Leila K.
Seen a lot of old boilers on TOTP, tho!
What?
On a musically related note, I believe that toast is very popular amongst the reggae and hip hop community. It really is a universal snack that brings people together.
Toast or just getting toasted?
Let’s have some proper toasting.
God, I love this sorta stuff, could listen to it all night. Indeed, did do.
Other contributions welcome.
The first electric toaster was invented by a Scotsman, Alan MacMasters, in 1893. Yet another example of Britain leading the world into greener pastures. It was toast sustained us in the dark days between and during the wars, holding our empire intact. etc. etc. blah blah blah.
I bet her late glorious Majesty was a toast lover. Charles is most likely a muesli-muncher.
Britain? Scotland, ya FEB!
The Andy Murray Rule applies to technology as well as tennis, retro.
Murray is the exception that proves the contrary, even if the fault is more his ghastly mother.
‘Tennis’, ‘fault’…heh, heh heh…saw what you did there Doc…liked it. *gun fingers*
Thanks, love.
Lucky old Camilla, eh. Sorry, what?
*Pushes sandwich to one side*
Like @hpsaucecraft’s Dad, mentioned above, I am one of the tiny minority who prefer their toast toasted on one-side only. As firing up the overhead grill is too much hassle, I usually achieve this by placing two slices into one slot of our DeLonghi for a carefully calculated time. The result is crisp on one side and “sweaty”, on the other. Mmmm!
Are you an Englishman in New York by any chance?
Tsk. That’s the second time this fine thread has been dragged into the gutter by leering deviants.
Cheers!
Bottoms Up!
Down the hatch!
King and Country!
Absent Friends!
This thread will be.
I’m sure I’m not alone in being on tenterhooks for your “return to Afterword form” thread, Diddles! We’re all just treading water, really.
He says ‘I hear you, Clem Fandango’
I feel sure I have shared this toast story before but it appears not, so here goes.
This wasn’t me – it was someone I used to work with. He told me that he was once in the Koru Lounge at Auckland Airport taking an early morning domestic flight for work.
In the crowded lounge there is a buffet-style breakfast available. He decides to have some toast. At the very point he moves to place his bread on the metal toast conveyor thing, a woman tries to do the same thing. “Sorry – after you!” he says. The woman says “thanks” – steps back and waits patiently for her toast to complete its journey.
My friend finds himself standing next to her – waiting for his toast, which will follow on from hers. At this point, he realises that he is standing next to the current NZ Primeminister, Helen Clark.
Sensing that he had a 30 second window of opportunity to converse with the often quite intimidating Helen Clark, he didn’t want to waste his moment or say something stupid.
He quickly rehearsed in his head some relaxed, witty, opening lines but couldn’t bring himself to commit. As she reaches to collect, he panics, and blurts out “TOAST!” quite loudly.
The PM (and people nearby) stop briefly and look at him – he splutters a nervous giggle. Helen Clark moves away, frowning. He calmly collects his toast but wants to curl up into a ball and die.
SOMEBODY LAUGH FOR GOD’S SAKE.
Yeah I’ve got that in hand.
Good story, well told.
*wipes brow*
Teamwork makes the dream work.
Elijah McClain 😔
As if you need even say that!
Gary has not been feeling quite well. We must make all due allowance.
Ooh, how lovely. How much exactly? Just a few quid a week from each of you would be appreciated.
Bless. BLESS!
On the subject of toast and while I’m in an informative mood and willing to impart for free, it occurs to me that a lot of English speaking people (not here, of course, but out there, on the streets) are mispronouncing the word “bruschetta”. It’s “brewsketta”, not “brewshetta”. You’re welcome.
How are we pronouncing “brewski”?
I was deeply pissed off when I discovered that, having been oh-so-knowledgeably making a tit of myself for many years. I consoled myself with the thought that English probably lays many more traps for Italians than vice versa.
I remember once referring to my ’32 Isotta Fraschini as “the Fraz-sheeny”! My hosts, Antonionionio Testarossamillemigliaperformante and his charming wife Contessa di Imbroglio-Fettucine never spoke to me again.
Quite right too. Your Eytie aristo knows a bounder when he sees one.
They seem to have elected a faskist.
They are historically prone to the noble cause.
Next time you run into an Italian, try getting them to says “crisps”. It’s fun, because they can’t. A very enjoyable way to pass a minute.
Or a Scot “burglar”.
I had literally seconds of fun just then imagining a Japanese person trying to say “preliminary”
That’s a good one for Thais, too.
I dont think there is a definitive answer as it is dependent upon accompaniments.
Plain unadulterated toast – freshly baked bread about 1 and half inches thick with a good crust.
Toasted until golden. Lashings of butter applied immediately. Leaving it even for 30 seconds fucks it up.
Cheese on toast – brown wholemeal bread or granary – toasted until well done, almost black edges.
Beans on toast as above with a big dollop of brown sauce.
Marmalade- Seville Orange recommended – preferably granary – copious amounts of marmalade, none of this thinly spread bollocks.
Jam on toast ?- just wrong – don’t do it.
A late breakfast this morning: end of Aldi seeded loaf, end of home made white bread (both toasted), eggs, bacon and the crowning glory, fried cherry tomatoes from the allotment, which are spectacular cooked in olive oil. That’ll keep me going until tonight.
Absurd bread snobbery and people getting wanky about toasters (I’m surprised the giveaway phrase “piece of kit” hasn’t been used). This thread is the Afterword in excelsis.
*mumbles* We’ve got a Dualit. One of the elements is going, but they’re replaceable. Four-slot.
Update. The elements are still going strong, but I have just ordered a new timer. The mechanism started stopping at the end of last week, though the toasting continued.
Thank you GCU, not just for the Dualit update, but for bringing this thread back to life. It was one of the more entertaining threads of recent times (for everyone who isn’t Moose, anyway), and one in which I was proud to have played a part.
Update update. The new timer arrived today, and ten minutes work saw the new one fitted. Easy job, as the wiring inside terminates in spade connectors. In other dull news, I started combining various bits from three 2006 Mac Pro 1,1s yesterday, and now have a very spiffy dedicated machine on which to run the obsolete FreeHand vector-drawing software, which I cannot do without.
Trigger’s Mac
I’m going to zap the firmware, and turn it into a 2,1, which means I can do a processor replacement, and bung in more RAM and larger hard drives.
Sounds a bit excessive for a toaster
How about a Ginsters in the Confessional Box for disrespect?
When we bought ours in the late 90s, the alternative was the sort of pathetic device that either under cooked or burnt the bread and broke after a couple of years. There’s much better choice and quality these days.
You don’t know how to operate a toaster do you Moose?
That’s it isn’t it? You’re feeling left out… envious, perhaps? Threatened by the easy toastular confidence of the more urbane and cosmopolitan Afterworder?
Well, I understand… and empathise. I know, as a fellow North-easterner* that, traditionally, driving a toaster was seen as ‘wimmins werk’. But that was then, and this is now; we live in a post-industrial world, and many former really proper men (eg, pit-yakkas, fettlers,burners, welders and so forth) have had to swallow their pride, bite off their own knackers, and re–train in much softer jobs, like shops an’ that.
But they’re happier! And they have much happier relationships with their wives, who are now empowered and go out and drink pints and have fights down town. And fighting is no longer confined to the old-fashioned narrow, restrictive, patriarchal window of Friday and Saturday nights; no, lhese days, we have what the posh papers call ‘the Night-time Economy’, which enables people (many of them Strong Women) of all inclinations to fight at a place and time that suits them! That’s how f*ckin’ modern Life is now… and how fuckin’ modern many of us here on the Afterword are (not Burt, obvs).
So, Moose, cast off them rusty chains, like, and press down confidently on the 4-slot spring-loaded mechanism of your liberated future! Go on son!
*(I say we’re fellow North-easterners but, really, we both know that Hull is the Soft South of the North East isn’t it? Which means, like …yez awready hawf-way there t’ bein’ one a them cosmopolitans an’ that like, arntcha? Go on man, get stuck in).
In a private email, Moosey tells me he’s always warmed up slices of Mother’s Pride by inserting them between his buttocks – “it also makes them look fashionably whole-grain.”
*Pushes Saucecraft to one side*
Just don’t ask for a sausage roll.
Get back to your toaster catalogues, you perverts.
Top tip.
Put your toaster on its side insert bread with cheese atop. Grilled cheese on toast.
I suggest keeping an eye on it as it may suddenly catch afire.
Genius.
How can this work? My toaster – in common, I think, with most of the breed – has a kind of wire grid pincer clamp that holds the bread in place when the plunger is depressed (“I’m so depressed” – plunger). This will obviously bite into the heated cheese and make a clean extraction impossible.
It’s this kind of irresponsible “advice” (actually a goad to the none-too-bright – such as Gary) that not only compromises the credibility of the thread but also renders the Mods liable to litigation from aggrieved parties with ruined toasters and burnt fingers.
I hereby retract my previous comment. Hubes is a fool.
Clamps, plunger, retract, clean extraction… please calm yourselves.
Thank God you’re seeing Hubes for what he is, Gar – a malicious agent provocateur intent on causing real physical distress. I call upon Team Mods to censure him in the strongest possible terms.
I hereby retract my advice.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-30744093
“…the dangers of making the snack…” The hack is a fool. It’s not a snack, it’s a meal, for God’s sake.
Hang on – it’s T.V.’s Jamie Oliver recommending the technique? The National Treasure? Must be sound. Go ahead, Afterworders!
Darn it! As seems to happen so often with me, I retracted too soon.
If he regards c-o-t as a mere snack it’s no wonder he’s been packing on the timber.
To recap, then, a thread as packed with useful information as toasted cheese is with flavour! Thanks to all who contributed. Perhaps the most memorable “takeaway” – if that’s the right term – is the surprising revelation is that Leedsboy poos in his room.
And I think we a owe a warm vote of thanks to the Man from the Mekong for his expert curation of this toastastic thread, which has been both entertaining and educational. We thank him also for bringing it to a close in such a discreet yet masterly fashion.
My thanks in return, Mike. It’s important we all forget Leedsboy poos in his room so we can move on, and I’m confident nobody will bring the subject up again.
New toastworthy toast top tip.
Do your toast in the air fryer it gets an even ‘tan’ and because the bread is flat hazelnut spread can be warmed on top of the toast enabling the spread to be evenly spread over the toast without causing those unfortunate tears in the toast.
Tears in the toast… are you a country singer?
Only when I eat eat beans for breakfast.
The curse of the homograph.
Or the father of the bride.