Toasting

“ In toasting bread, do not expose it to such fierce heat that the bread will be burned or singed. Singed bread is not toasted bread. Again, the fire should be hot enough to more than simply dry the bread. ”

“ To make dry toast properly, a great deal of attention is required; much more, indeed, than people generally suppose. Never use new bread for making any kind of toast, as it eats heavy, and, besides, is very extravagant. Procure a loaf of household bread about two days old; cut off as many slices as may be required, not quite 1/4 inch in thickness; trim off the crusts and ragged edges, put the bread on a toasting-fork, and hold it before a very clear fire. ”

“ Good tea must be steeped not boiled. Mother's way is to make hers on the table. I have been drilled over and over in tea making, and am skillful.
I made some dainty slices of toast in this way: I cut off the crust and put it aside for a pudding, and as the oven was hot, I placed the bread in a pan, and let it lean against the edge in a slanting position. When it was a pale golden brown I took it out, and carried it to grandmamma. The object of toasting bread is to get the moisture out of it. This is more evenly done in the oven than over the fire. ”

“ Many seem to think that they have made toast when they brown the outside of a slice of bread. Have they?
The object in making toast is to evaporate all moisture from the bread, and holding a slice over the fire to singe does not accomplish this; it only warms the moisture, making the inside of the bread doughy and decidedly indigestible. The true way of preparing it is to cut the bread into slices a quarter of an inch thick, trim off all crust, put the slices in a pan or plate, place them in the oven—which must not be too hot—take them out when a delicate brown, and butter at once. ”

“ A few drops of cream are easily saved for the patient’s tea from a small quantity of milk; and cream in small quantities is considered more digestible than milk.
All cooks think they can make toast. There is about one person in ten thousand who really does know how to make it;{316} who actually appreciates the difference between a thin, symmetrical, well-yellowed, crisp piece of toast with the crust cut off, and just from the fire, and a thick, unshapely slice, unevenly crisped on the outside, and of doughy softness in the centre. One is digestible ”

“ Solid breakfasts are only fit for those who have much solid exercise to take after it; otherwise heartburn may be looked for. Avoid new bread and spongy rolls; look on muffins and crumpets as inventions of men of worse than sanguinary principles, and hot buttered toast as of equally wicked origin. Dry toast is the safest morning food, perhaps, for persons of indifferent powers of digestion; or they may substitute for it the imperial fashion set by Marcus Antoninus. Of liquids I may next speak; and in this our ancient friend, Tea, takes the precedence. ”

“ I told him that all kinds of cookery or preparations which prevented the necessity of teeth labor, such as soaking in milk, forming into toast, mashing, or in any way softening, were wrong, and must be avoided. Also, that all additions to our food, whether of foreign bodies, such as pepper, mustard, vinegar, salt, etc., or of more concentrated substances, such as molasses, sugar, honey, butter, gravy, etc., should, for the same reason as well as others, be shunned as much as possible. ”

“ If the best results are desired in the making of toast, considerable attention must be given to the heat that is to produce the toast. Whatever kind is employed, it should be steady and without flame. ”

“ Toast one or two thin slices of bread with the crust cut off; if there are two slices, have them of equal size. When still hot, spread evenly over them a very little fresh butter, and sprinkle over some salt. Now pour over a small tea-cupful of boiling milk, thickened with half a tea-spoonful of flour, and salted to taste. If the invalid can not take milk, the toast may be moistened with boiling water. Serve immediately. It is a very appetizing dish, when fresh made and hot. ”

“ For adults, any time, with milk or fruit, Post Toasties are an admirable food, and their convenience often means a cereal and milk served when otherwise there might be no cereal at all. Also, Post Toasties are delectable in certain macaroons and cookies that may be substituted for undesirable sweets in the nursery menu. They may be crushed and used for crumbing cooked dishes in kitchenette homes where stale bread and the hoarding of leftovers have no place. ”

“ An ideal piece of toast is crisp and golden throughout. But many will say that they prefer toast that is soft inside, and that they cannot eat hard, dry toast. The ideal piece of toast is not really so hard as it seems. It breaks and crumbles very easily, and is quickly moistened by the saliva. If one would persevere with a slice, he would soon learn to prefer it to any other kind; at all events, that which is soft inside should not be given to the sick. ”

“ This explains the apparent paradox that hard crust, or dry toast, is more easily digested than the soft crumb of bread; the cookery of the crumb not having been carried beyond the mere hydration of the gluten and the starch, and such degree of dextrin formation as was due to the action of the diastase of the grain during the preliminary period of ‘rising.’ In the crust some of the work of insalivation is already done by the baker. The digestibility of toast is doubtless aided by its brittleness, causing it to be more broken up and mixed with the saliva. ”

“ Why, they ate like a couple of canaries, dabbling with the one egg each they took, and nibbling at tiny wafers of toast. Life was low in their bodies; their blood ran thin; and they had slept warm all night. I had been out all night, consuming much fuel of my body to keep warm, beating my way down from a place called Emporium, in the northern part of the state. Wafers of toast! Out of sight! But each wafer was no more than a mouthful to me--nay, no more than a bite. It is tedious to have to reach for another piece of toast each bite when one is potential with many bites. ”

“ Dry Toast.—Ought not to be toasted until quite ready to serve; when done, place it in a toast-rack, or standing upon its edges, one piece resting against another; any kind of toast that has been made half an hour is not worth eating. ”

“ I never burn my Toasts—I never put them too near the Fire at first—& yet, you see, there is not a Corner but what is well browned.—I hope you like dry Toast."—"With a reasonable quantity of Butter spread over it, very much—said Charlotte—but not otherwise.—" "No more do I—said he exceedingly pleased—We think quite alike there.—So far from dry Toast being wholesome, I think it a very bad thing for the Stomach. Without a little butter to soften it, it hurts the Coats of the Stomach. ”

“ INGREDIENTS.—A slice of bread, 1 quart of boiling water.
Mode.—Cut a slice from a stale loaf (a piece of hard crust is better than anything else for the purpose) , toast it of a nice brown on every side, but do not allow it to burn or blacken. Put it into a jug, pour the boiling water over it, cover it closely, and let it remain until cold. When strained, it will be ready for use. Toast-and-water should always be made a short time before it is required, to enable it to get cold: if drunk in a tepid or lukewarm state, it is an exceedingly disagreeable beverage. ”

“ In lecturing on cookery, as on housebuilding, I divide the subject into, not four, but five grand elements: first, Bread; second, Butter; third, Meat; fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea,—by which I mean, generically, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in teacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what not.
I affirm that, if these five departments are all perfect, the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and well-being of life are concerned. ”

“ A kettle of soap-grease is stewing upon the stove, and the fumes of this, mingled with those that were generated by boiling the cabbage which we see upon the table, and by perspiring men in shirt-sleeves, and by boots that have forgotten or do not care where they have been, make the air anything but agreeable to those who are not accustomed to it. ”

“ Green vegetables when boiling retain their color better if the lid is left off the pot.
STEWING
Stewing is cooking in a small amount of water for a long time at simmering temperature. It is the most economical way of cooking the cheaper cuts of meat. The simmering burner should be used for this cooking.
TOASTERS
Bread toasters placed on the top burners of a gas range supply a quick and the most satisfactory method of preparing toast. Large quantities of toast can be made to advantage in the broiler. ”

“ Tea or coffee must be taken clear, as neither milk nor sugar should be indulged in by the beauty patient whose chief ambition it is to lose flesh. Toast must always be eaten instead of bread, and butter used sparingly at all times. ”

“ The business of toast-drinking is reduced to the nicest system. A regular official, called a toast master, stood behind the lord mayor with a paper, from which he read the toasts in their order. Every one, according to his several rank, pretensions, and station, must be toasted in his gradation; and every person toasted must have his name announced by the official,—the larger dignitaries being proposed alone in their glory, while the smaller fry are read out by the dozen,—and to each toast somebody must get up and make a speech. ”

“ Dry toast should be more gradually made than buttered toast, as its great beauty consists in its crispness, and this cannot be attained unless the process is slow and the bread is allowed gradually to colour. ”

“ Then they sat for a while drinking tea and eating buttered toast in the drawing-room. A supply of buttered toast fully to gratify the wants of three or four men just home from hunting has never yet been created by the resources of any establishment. But the greater marvel is that the buttered toast has never the slightest effect on the dinner which is to follow in an hour or two. ”

“ In the roasted or grilled meat the juices are retained in the meat (with the exception of that which escapes as gravy on the dish) , while in stewing the juices go more or less completely into the water, and the loosening of the fibers and solution of the gelatine and fibrin may be carried further, inasmuch as a larger quantity of solvent is used.
Roasting and grilling may be regarded as our national methods of flesh cookery, and stewing in water that of our Continental neighbors. ”

“ Her delicious sauce, which gives a very ordinary dish that requisite something which makes it highly esteemed, may be but the blending of many flavors obtained from little scraps.
The waste in foods need be so small as practically to have no waste material; not a crumb of bread, a grain of sugar, a bit of butter, a scrap of meat or fat, a piece of vegetable or leaf of salad, but can be utilized with profit. ”

“ Set the stew aside, and heat up shortly before sending to the table. Putting slices of toast in the bottom of the dish before serving is a decided improvement.
[Pg 12]
Roast, Boiled, Baked, Broiled and Fried. Retaining the Juices in Cooking Meats.
Too little attention is paid to one of the most important features of the culinary art—particularly in roasting, boiling, and broiling—that is the retention of the natural juices of various meats in cooking. ”

“ Always keeping in view that the primary problem in roasting is to raise the temperature throughout to the cooking heat with the smallest possible degree of desiccation of the natural juices of the meat, and applying to this problem the laws of vapor diffusion expounded in my last, it is easy enough to understand the theoretical advantages of roasting in a closed oven, the space within which speedily becomes saturated with those particular vapors that resist further vaporization of these juices. ”

“ At each meal it is well for the patient to begin with the solids before he proceeds to the fluids, and at breakfast, instead of beginning the meal with a cup of tea or coffee, he should finish a slice of dry toast and a piece of fish, egg, or bacon, before he takes any liquid at all. ”

“ One Slice of Toast (no butter)
Baked Apple
Tea or Coffee (clear)
(3)
Radishes
Water-cress Salad
With Three Slices of Bacon
Brown Betty
Tea or Coffee
(4)
Clear Tomato Soup
Deviled Egg
Slice of Toast (no butter)
Stewed Peaches
Tea or Coffee
(5)
String-Bean Salad
Toast (no butter)
Cup Custard
Tea
(6)
Poached Egg on Slice of Toast
Cantaloupe
Tea
(7)
Broiled Fish
Lettuce
Raspberries
Tea
[pg 404]
Butter and potatoes are eliminated from this meal. Use skim milk, which has had its fat content removed in the cream, but which still contains the full nutritive value of the milk. ”

“ The bloodless-looking woman who sat uneasily at her own board clutching at a thin fragment of cold dry toast that hung cheerlessly awry in the silver rack, like the last brown leaf to a frosty tree, while she crunched the toast, spoke dryly of the poor ”

“ The rackful of dry toast which is brought to you for breakfast could scarcely have been so neatly sliced without the help of a knife, but the toast is not the less in bodily presence on the breakfast-table because the knife that cut it has been left behind in the kitchen. ”

“ If you take the meat or the dry bread and masticate sufficiently, allowing the nutriment to become thoroughly solved by the saliva and separated from the dirt,—the indigestible, tasteless remainder—the taste will become more and more delicious as the saliva gets possession of the solution, and will have a final delicacy which sauces cannot equal, as a reward for pursuing Nature's invitation and rendering her the appointed service. ”