Pauline on 5 Aug 2006  •  Link

from "Pepys at Table"
Cream Toasts
(referenced to July 13, 1665 entry)
from Patrick Lamb "Royal Cookery" 1710
"Take two French rolls or more according to the bigness of your dish, and cut them in thick slices, as thick as your finger, crumb and crust, lay them on a silver or brass dish, put to them a pint of cream, 1/2 pint of milk, strew over them beaten cinnamon and sugar, turn them frequesntly till they are tender soaked, so as you can turn them without breaking; so take them with a slice or skimmer for your cream; break 4 or 5 raw eggs, turn your slices of bread in the eggs and fry them in clarified butter; make them a good brown colour, not black; take care of burning them in frying; scrape a little sugar round them, have a care you make them not too sweet. You may well serve them hot for a 2nd course, being well drained from your butter in which you fried them; but they are most proper for a plate of a little dish for supper."

What we call "French Toast" out here in my life. I am therefore quite taken with the beginning instructions to "take two French rolls...". And we too go for a "good brown colour, not black." And we call that "beaten cinnamon and sugar" 'cinnamon sugar'.

Australian Susan on 6 Aug 2006  •  Link

Yes! French Toast! I had some last week for breakfast at the markets (sitting under a huge fig tree, watching a regatta on the river - lots of frantic, squaling teenaged girls all called Alice, Sarah or Rachel encouraging their 8s or 4s), but mine was served with marscopone and caramalised pears. Melding of food cultures.

Sam may have also eaten Eton Mess or Stone Cream.

Derek L. on 17 Jun 2007  •  Link

I am uncertain as to why the annotations seem focused on French Toast ("Cream Toasts") - when the text seems to imply a dish of Stone Cream or something akin to cottage cheese or fresh cheese.

Jan Paulsen on 17 Jun 2007  •  Link

I know this dish as "Pain Perdu" (lost bread). I got the recipe from a cookbook by Lesley Blanche, written for teens back in the sixties. She tells a story about each recipe in the book. Re: this one -- the French do not waste anything, and always make something wonderful to eat with very little. Pepys's Cream toast and Blanche's "Pain Perdue" are a bit different from the French Toast Grandma used to make and serve with maple syrup - that was stale sliced white bread, soaked in a mix of egg, milk, and salt and pepper (no sugars), and fried in butter to golden brown. It was definitely for breakfast, while Pepys' and Blanche's would be more appropriate for dessert nowadays.

Jan Paulsen on 17 Jun 2007  •  Link

I know this dish as "Pain Perdu" (lost bread). I got the recipe from a cookbook by Lesley Blanche, written for teens back in the sixties. She tells a story about each recipe in the book. Re: this one -- the French do not waste anything, and always make something wonderful to eat with very little. Pepys's Cream toast and Blanche's "Pain Perdue" are a bit different from the French Toast Grandma used to make and serve with maple syrup - that was stale sliced white bread, soaked in a mix of egg, milk, and salt and pepper (no sugars), and fried in butter to golden brown. It was definitely for breakfast, while Pepys' and Blanche's would be more appropriate for dessert nowadays.

language hat on 13 Sep 2007  •  Link

I agree with Derek.

Off-topic reminiscences are fine in the daily annotations, but I don't think they're particularly useful in the glossary entries.

Besides the usual meaning, these are the two possibilities in the OED:

2. transf. a. A fancy dish or sweet of which cream is an ingredient, or which has the appearance and consistency of cream, as almond, chocolate, iced cream, etc.
c1430 Two Cookery-bks. 7 Fride Creme of Almaundys.--Take almaundys, an stampe hem, an draw it vp wyth a fyne thykke mylke.. gadere alle {th}e kreme in {th}e clothe. 1667 MILTON P.L. v. 347 From sweet kernels prest She tempers dulcet creams. [...]1836 T. HOOK G. Gurney (L.), The remnants of a devoured feast..creams half demolished{em} jellies in trembling lumps.

b. A substance or liquor of cream-like consistency; esp. a decoction (of barley, etc.): cf. CREMOR. Obs.
1545 T. RAYNALDE Byrth Mankynde 116 Skum or creme of [...]1615 CROOKE Body of Man 119 Till the meate bee perfectly chaunged and boyled into a moyst and liquid Creame. 1626 BACON Sylva §49 Indian Maiz.. must be thoroughly boyled, and made into a Maiz-Creame like a Barley-Creame. 1668 CULPEPPER & COLE Barthol. Anat. I. xi. 24 To change the acid Cream brought out of the Stomach, forthwith into a brackish Salt.

Michael Robinson on 15 Sep 2007  •  Link

"A fool. Take a pint of the sweetest and thickest Creame that can be gotten, and set it on the fire in a very cleane scowred skiller, and put in sugar, cinammon, and a nutmeg, cut into foure quarters, and so boyle it well: then take the yelkes of foure eggs, and take off the filmes, and beate them well with a little sweete creame: then take the foure quarters of the nutmeg out of the creame, then put in the egges, and stir it exceedingly, till it be thicke: then take a fine Manchet (fine white bread loaf) and cut it into thin shives, as much as will cover a dish-bottome, and holding it in your hand, powre halfe the creame into the dish: then lay your bread over it, then cover the bread with the rest of the creame, and so let it stand till it be cold: then strow it over with caraway Comfets, and prick up some cinamon Comfets, and some slic't dates; or for want thereof, scrape all over it some sugar, and trim the sides of the dish with sugar, and so serve it up."

Gervase Markham, Countrey Contentments or The English Huswife London: R. Lackson, 1623

http://www.bl.uk/learning/images/…

San Diego Sarah on 7 Aug 2023  •  Link

In 1665 Ambassador Sir Richard and Lady Anne Harrison Fanshawe came back from Spain -- and with it came England's first recorded recipe for ICE CREAM!!!

It was flavored with orange flower water, and the successful version has an option of ambergris. It is almost identical to the earliest printed European ice cream recipe, published by Audiger in "La Maison Reglée" (Paris: 1692).

Lady Anne's is nearly 30 years older than his. Audiger's ice cream is also flavored with orange flower water.
Don't let anyone tell you that England was a culinary backwater at this time!
http://foodhistorjottings.blogspo…