Etymology
The earliest known reference to French toast is in the Apicius, a collection of Latin recipes dating to the 4th or 5th century; the recipe mentions soaking in milk but not eggs (though the editor adds eggs) and gives it no special name, just Aliter Dulcia 'another sweet dish'. There is a 14th-century German recipe under the name "Arme Ritter" (German for "poor knights"). There are 15th-century English recipes for "pain perdu" (French for "lost bread", suggesting that the dish is a use for bread which has gone stale).
A 1660 recipe for "French Toasts" is different: toasted bread is soaked in wine, sugar, and orange juice.
A similar dish, suppe dorate, was popular in England during the Middle Ages, although the English might have learned it from the Normans, who had a dish called tostees dorees.
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Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)