Lightly sweetened seasonal fresh fruit with mint and a squeeze of lemon juice replaces sticky syrup and powdered sugar in this delicious take on a weekend breakfast favorite, French toast. Recipes below.
How has this happened? This is my 100th post at Blue Kitchen, closing in on two years of blogging about food, and I’m only now getting around to breakfast. This is just wrong; breakfast is very important at our house. Not so much as a big weekend ritual. [And we are so not brunch people—to us, brunch means too much food for too much money after waiting in line for too long.] For us, breakfast is a practical daily meal, breaking the fast [the period between bedtime and breakfast is the longest most of us go without eating], fueling up for a good start to the day.
Breakfast is usually foraged individually as we get going in the morning, especially during the work week, and often includes some combination of a fiberrific cereal, maybe an egg, maybe some toast [also fiberrific], a handful of nuts or a little peanut butter and maybe some fruit. Oh. And caffeine. Tea or coffee for Marion, iced tea or diet Pepsi for me.
But some weekends, we do opt for what we call a weekend style breakfast. Omelets or pancakes or, far too infrequently, French toast.
French toast’s origins are clouded in mystery. Hardly anyone thinks that it originated in France, although one source claimed authoritatively that it did, in the 16th century. Another popular story is that it was created in the 1700s by a tavern owner in Albany, New York—one Joseph French. And at least one source claims that the first recipe dates back to ancient Rome! No one really agrees on the name, either. We Americans call it French toast. In France, it’s pain perdu—lost bread. French bread dries out in just a day or two and this is a wonderful way to give it another life. In some quarters of the UK, it is apparently called “poor knights of Windsor!”
What all do agree upon is what French toast is: Bread dipped in a mixture of egg and milk, then fried until golden brown. Most also agree that it is delicious.
I’ll be honest with you, though. As much as I like French toast, what got me started on this post was the fruit. Berries and stone fruits only have a little more time left in the markets this season. Most of the time, they don’t make it past their original state in our house before being devoured. Last Sunday, Marion and I polished off a pint of blueberries driving home from the produce market [thank heaven for automatic transmissions]. But the berry mixture Susan over at Food Blogga created for her Skinny Berry Parfaits got me thinking. Then I saw a recipe for minted blackberries in the August issue of Gourmet. Never mind that that it was meant to top cheesecake. I was off to the races. Continue reading “Berry delicious: French toast with fruit and mint”