The Mary Frances Cook Book: Toast

The very first recipes in The Mary Frances Cook Book focus on something that is still very often the first thing one learns to cook: toast. Toast in 1912 was cooked with a bit of a different method to today, though.
The first difference in method one notices is that Mary Frances has to slice the bread herself. And there seems to be a preference to use stale bread, and cut off the crusts. I couldn't actually find unsliced bread at the supermarket, so I opted for a thickly-sliced white loaf instead. It's likely the bread Mary Frances used was white bread since brown bread and multigrain breads were more associated with lower classes back then. Each piece was about half an inch thick, and I let it sit on the kitchen bench for 2 days before I used it so it could go stale.

How did her hair stay so curly with this crustless bread?

The wire toaster that Mary Frances uses, poor fellow getting his head held in the fire and burnt up, is a prime example of the toasters that were in use just before electric toasters started gaining popularity.

 They are also fairly hard to come by. At first I was searching 'vintage bread toasters' to no avail, but I found I had more success searching for 'bbq grill baskets' online. I bought one that is as similar looking to Toaster Man that I could find on BBQAroma (an Australian website, but I'm sure there are similar stores for all of you overseas folk), and used it over our home gas stove. I'm don't really think it would work with an electric stove top. Mary Frances takes the lids off her wood fire stove to expose the coals so that she can toast over them, as illustrated in the book's frontispiece.

Mary Frances toasting over stove

"Slide up my collar"

Apparently these things are more commonly used for fish and meat nowadays. Should be handy next time I go camping!

No. 1.- PLAIN TOAST

With the toast clamped in the toaster, I turned on the biggest burner of the gas stove and held the toaster about 10-15cm above it, moving it to and fro. It didn't take too long until it was nice and golden, probably about 2 minutes on each side.

It's important not to have it too close to the burner/fire or the bread will burn.

Crispy!

No. 2.- BUTTERED TOAST
I invested in some actual butter, not margarine, to be more authentic.

Hot, buttered toast (crusts removed!)

One thing I thought really clever was how you cover the toast with a bowl then put it in the oven.
A few months ago I was making bacon and eggs and tried to keep my toast warm in the oven while I was cooking everything else. When I went to eat, the toast had gone rock hard all the way through, it wasn't a good time.
But hey! Mary Frances has a solution! Chuck some butter on that toast, cover it with a bowl then put it in the oven. You will be pleasantly surprised. The heat steams up the toast and the bowl keeps the steam in which stops the toast from going hard. Genius!

No. 3.- MILK TOAST
I forgot to get proper full cream milk for the milk toast and had to opt for 'lite' milk, but it still turned out quite nice!

Heating milk

It says to heat the milk until 'smoking hot'- I just heated it till it was quite steamy, and when I tried to taste a bit it was quite hot, not boiling though. Don't forget to keep stirring, because milk can stick to the bottom of the pot.

Adding flour to melted butter- look at that level tablespoon!

It's come to my attention that cups, tablespoons and teaspoon measurements differ between regions. I'm currently in Australia, and it seems like we have our own version of every measurement. Strangely enough though the spoon measurements that I have are the same as the American and English ones. Did you know that practically everywhere else, a tablespoon is equal to 15ml, whereas an 'Australian' tablespoon is 20ml? But 'traditionally' a tablespoon is about 14.8ml and a teaspoon is about 4.9ml. We can probably assume that Mary Frances used the 'traditional' measurements. Even so, the ones we use today are pretty close.

Milk toast

 According to toaster man, milk toast is meant to be more 'palatable' than normal toast. He suggests that Mary Frances gives it to her mother, who is sick. According to Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher's (fancy the name being almost identical to Mary Frances'!) book "An Alphabet for Gourmets", Milk toast was a popular food throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for young children and for the convalescent, for whom the food was thought to be soothing and easy to digest. Apparently other ingredients can be added too, like cinnamon and raisins, or salt and pepper for a savoury version. I enjoyed this version, it was creamy and tasted like white sauce with toast, but it had a strange comforting feel to it, ideal for people recovering from illness I guess. The toast was nice and chewy, I'm not sure if it's because it was so thick or because the bread was stale, but I liked the texture of it.

If I was to make this again in a more historically accurate way, I would change the milk to be full cream and organic. I wouldn't go so far as to get raw milk, because pasteurisation was a thing then and is still a thing for a reason. You could maybe get unhomogenised milk and skim the fat off the top if you like. You could also go so far as to make your own loaf of bread, or to buy a loaf of bread off a baker who doesn't put any preservatives in it, and slice it yourself.

I would happily make this again, maybe adding extras in to spice it up a little!