Tea and Toast

A few years ago I decided I wanted a toast rack and went on a search. I finally found one, but it wasn’t as easy to use as I thought. A rack of buttered toast got cold quickly and butter dripped all over the tray. Then I learned the toast rack was used for dry toast in England where they eat their toast differently than we do. Ah, dry toast didn’t fly here because DH and I both love toast drenched in butter, thick pats of yellow that melted in to pools looking like the green Witch of the East when water hit her.

To me there is nothing richer than thick sourdough bread toasted. Some jam might be nice but butter is enough. Lately I have found Smuckers Cherry Preserves which are more than wonderful. I have promised myself this is the last jar I will buy since I can’t leave them alone. As a child I did a spell of cinnamon sugar. In high school my Lenten sacrifice one Easter season was eating dry toast for breakfast. I survived but the habit didn’t catch on.

Toast was originally called burnt toast; it kept longer being cooked than plain bread and it allowed people to be less nomadic when they could find grain, grind, bake and then store bread longer. People propped chunks of bread in front of a fire to toast, eventually sticking then in the fire. Of course, you can skillet or oven toast bread. I tried it the other night when my toaster suddenly quit! It was good but took more butter, and I don’t need encouragement to consume more of something that develops hip pads.

So the next morning a trip to Walmart replaced my toaster very cheaply. In the world of kitchen tools a toaster is an inexpensive appliance. The electric toaster was invented over 100 years ago and is still very similar to the original…only now you can toast four slices of bread at once.

Speaking of sliced bread, did you know that the Continental Baking Company invented sliced bread in 1930? Imagine there being no sliced bread before that, only chunks or home knifed pieces. They called their new sliced bread Wonder Bread. Remember those colorful balloons on the packaging? In the 1950’s the local white, sliced bread was famous as A. J. Cripe’s Town Talk bread.

I can give up cake, pie, and candy easier than sacrificing my tea and toast. Ah, the joys of toasted sourdough bread with dark Irish Breakfast tea can’t be beat—unless there is a scoop of cherry preserves hiding in the back of the refrigerator!!!

Are you a toast and tea person?