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Toast
OOD toast cannot be made from fresh bread or over a poor fire. Stale bread (a day or so old) should be cut in thin slices and toasted over live, clear coals or a very hot stove until of an even, rich, deep, golden brown on both sides. In making toast the slices should be turned two or three times to insure crispness through the entire piece.
Various devices are obtainable for making toast on a gas stove; lacking these it should be made on the broiler.
MILK TOAST No. I-Cut the bread in thin slices, pare off the crust, and toast carefully until of a golden-brown hue. Butter it lightly while hot. Have ready a teacup of hot milk. Put a teaspoon of butter in a pan, when hot add one teaspoon of flour, stir until smooth, add one cup of boiling milk and a little salt. Cook for a few minutes and pour over the toast.
MILK TOAST No. 2-Toast the bread, butter it well and pour salted, scalding milk over it.
Two things carry this page: dry bread and real heat. The milk toast sauce is a very thin white sauce, and the whole dish collapses if it sits.
- BreadDay-old bread cut thin, about 1/4 to 3/8 inch. Fresh bread holds too much moisture and steams instead of crisping, which is exactly the complaint in the first line.
- "Live, clear coals"That means a coal or wood fire burned past the smoking stage. A broiler element about 4 inches away, or a toaster, gives the same dry radiant heat. Watch it rather than timing it.
- Turning two or three timesNot fussiness. Alternating sides drives moisture out of the centre so the slice is crisp through, not a dry shell over a damp middle.
- A teacupTeacup measures in this period were not standard, running anywhere from about 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup. The recipe then calls for "one cup of boiling milk," so the two measures do not quite agree; use 1 cup and treat the teacup line as approximate.
- The sauce is deliberately thinOne teaspoon butter and one teaspoon flour to a cup of milk gives barely more body than milk itself. That is intended, since the toast has to absorb it. Cook the roux a minute so it does not taste of raw flour, then simmer 3 to 4 minutes.
- Scalding, not boilingIn No. 2 the milk should be brought just to the point where it steams and shivers at the edge, around 180F. Held at a rolling boil it skins over and catches on the pan bottom.
- Serve at onceAssemble at the table or plate up immediately. Toast under milk softens quickly, which is one reason the bread is toasted through and buttered while hot.
- YieldOne cup of milk sauce dresses two or three slices, enough for one substantial serving or two light ones.
Milk toast belonged to the sickroom and the nursery as much as to breakfast, which is why it turns up in general household manuals like this one alongside plain toast rather than among the fancier dishes. It was standard invalid cookery through the nineteenth century: bland, soft, warm, and made entirely from things a kitchen always had. The two versions here show the range of the same idea, one thickened with a spoonful of flour into a proper if very light sauce, the other nothing but hot salted milk poured over buttered toast. The insistence on stale bread and a clear fire is a reminder that toast was a real skill when it was made at an open grate or on a stovetop broiler; the electric pop-up toaster arrived only in the twentieth century, and the note about "various devices obtainable for making toast on a gas stove" catches the moment when household cooking was shifting off coal.