Early Recipes for French Toast

Under the names suppe dorate, soupys yn dorye, tostées dorées, and payn purdyeu, this dish was widely known in medieval Europe. French toast was often served with game birds and meats. The word "soup" in several of these names refers to bread soaked in a liquid, a sop, and "sippet" refers to a small piece of bread or toast, used to dip into soup or sauce, or as something served on pieces of bread; the ancestor of our modern appetizers-on-toast. Another name pain doré "gilded bread". In the Middle Ages they were very interested in gilding food and creating foods that looked golden.

Today we think of French toast as almost exclusively a breakfast food, but foods were not relegated to certain times of the day in period. Medieval households divided dishes into feast or fast categories or classified them as appropriate for specific seasons, events or people, for example: good for invalids. In period it may, like any other food, have been eaten in the morning, but it was more commonly offered as a sweet side dish during the meal to eat along side the many meat dishes.

Similar dishes have existed in many countries and under many names, known in Medieval Europe as:

Albania: buke me veze (literally "bread with egg")
Austria and Bavaria: Pofesen (a medieval type of shield whose shape resembles a slice of bread). Pafese or pofese, from zuppa pavese, referring to Pavia, Italy.
Spain: torrijas (first citation in 15th century, by Juan del Encina. They could be quite similar to aliter dulcia, although there are many other variants)
Croatia: pohani kruh
England: suppe dorate (Italian for "gilded sippets"). There are also fifteenth-century English recipes for pain perdu.
France: pain perdu (lost bread, as it is a way to reclaim stale or otherwise "lost" bread.)
Germany: Armer Ritter (poor knight; the name is sometimes meant to originate from poor knights in Medieval times, having not enough gold to pay for meat, and thus eating old bread slices, coated with egg and fried).
Korea: 프렌치 토스트
Lebanon: pain perdu
Portugal: rabanadas or fatias douradas (golden slices of bread)
Yugoslavia and some successor republics: прженице -

Ancient Rome

One incarnation may be this recipe for "Aliter Dulcia" or Another Sweet from the late Roman cookbook commonly attributed to Apicius.

Apicius original text:

Aliter dulcia: siligineos rasos frangis et buccellas maiores facies in lacte infundis frigis in oleo mel superfundis et inferes.

Translation:
Another sweet: Break grated Sigilines (a kind of wheat bread), and make larger bites. Soak in milk, fry in oil, douse in honey and serve.

14th Century

Leaping ahead a few centuries we find this easy to follow recipe for golden toasts from the well-known late 14th Century French cookbook, Le Viandier de Taillevent.

Le Viandier de Taillevent, 1395

To make Golden toasts, take some hard white bread, slice it into square toasts, roast them a bit on the grill, coat them very well in beaten egg yolks, brown them in good hot lard on the fire until fine and very golden, remove them from the pan, and put them on plates with some sugar on top.

15th Century

In English texts of the next century, we find several versions under the name of pain perdieu or lost bread by which the dish is still known in France. The dish is also known as Leche Vyaundez

Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, Harleian MS 279 (England, 1430)

xliij - Payn pur-dew. Take fayre ȝolkys of Eyroun, and trye hem fro the whyte, and draw hem thorw a straynoure, and take Salt and caste ther-to; than take fayre brede, and kytte it as troundeȝ rounde; than take fayre Boter that is claryfiyd, or ellys fayre Freysshe grece, and putte it on a potte, and make it hote; than take and wete wyl thin troundeȝ in the ȝolkys, and putte hem in the panne, an so frye hem vppe; but ware of cleuyng to the panne; and whan it is fryid, ley hem on a dysshe, and ley Sugre y-nowe ther-on, and thanne serue it forht.

43. Lost Bread. Take fair yolks of Eggs, & pick them from the white. & draw them through a strainer, & take Salt and cast thereto: Then take fair bread, & cut it as slices round: then take fair Butter that is clarified, or else fair Fresh grease, & put it in a pot. & make it hot; then take & wet well thine slices in the yolks, & put them in the pan, and so fry them up; but beware of sticking to the pan; & when it is fried , lay them on a dish, & lay Sugar enough thereon, & then serve it forth.

Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)

Payn purdeuz. Take faire yolkes of eyren, and try hem fro the white, and drawe hem thorgh a streynour; and then take salte, and caste thereto; And then take manged brede or paynman, and kutte hit in leches [slices]; and then take faire buttur, and clarefy hit, or elles take fressh grece and put hit yn a faire pan, and make hit hote; And then wete the brede well there in the yolkes of eyren, and then ley hit on the batur in the pan, whan the buttur is al hote; And then whan hit is fried ynowe, take sugur ynowe, and caste there-to whan hit is in the dissh, And so serue hit forth.

So far all these recipes have used fine textured white bread for the main ingredient but there are versions featuring coarser breads. Also from Harliean MS 4016 via Take a Thousand Eggs or More is this variant.

Harliean MS 4016 (1450)

78 Brown Fries. Take brown bread, and cut it thin; And then take yolks of eggs, and somewhat of the white; and take manchet four, and draw the eggs and the flour through a strainer; and take sugar a good quantity, and a little saffron and salt, And cast thereto: and take a fair pan with fresh grease; And when the grease is hot, take down and put in the batter, and turn it well therein, and then put it in the pan with the grease, And let them fry together a little while; And then take them up, and cast sugar thereon, and so serve it hot.

Wagstaff Miscellany (Beinecke MS 163), dated about 1460.

10. Payn purdyeu Take paundemayn or fresh bredd pare a wey the crustys cut hit in schyverys fry hem [f.69v] a lytyll yn claryfyd hony buture have yolkes of eyron drawyn thorow a streynour & as hote as thu may ley the brede ther yn that hit be al helyd with bature then fry in the same bature & serve hit forth & strew on hote sygure.

Libro de arte coquinaria by Maestro Martino de Como, (c. 1465)

Suppa dorata
Habi de le fette di pane bianco mondato che non habia corteccia, et fa’ le ditte fette siano quadre, un pocho brusculate tanto che da ogni parte siano colorite dal foco. Poi habi dell’ove battute inseme col succaro assai et un poca d’acqua rosata; et mettirali a mollare dentro le ditte fette di pane; et cvatile for a dextramente le mettirai a frigere un pochetto in una padella con un poco di butiro o de strutto, voltando molto spesso che non si ardino. Poi le conciarai in un piatello; et di sopra gli mettirai un pocha d’acqua rosata fatt gialla con un pocho zafrano, et del zuccaro habundantemente.

Translation: (from The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy)

Gilded sipets [sippet: a small piece of bread or toast, used to dip into soup or sauce]
Take slices of white bread, trimmed so that they have no crusts; make these slices square and slightly grilled so that they are colored all over by the fire. Then take eggs beaten together with plenty of sugar and a little rose water; and put the slices of bread in this to soak; carefully remove them, and fry them a little in a frying pan with a little butter and lard, turning them very frequently so that they do not burn. Then arrange them on a plate, and top with a little rose water colored yellow with a little saffron, and with plenty of sugar.
- Libro de arte coquinaria by Maestro Martino de Como, 15th century

An Ordinance of Pottage lists a recipe for Payn Perdyeu and from A Noble Boke off Cookery for a Prynce Houssolde or eny other Estately Houssolde we have this version.

A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)

To mak payn pardieu tak paynmayne or freshe bred and paire away the cruste cutt them in schyues and fry them alitill in clarified butter then tak yolks of eggs drawe throughe a strene as hot as ye may and lay the bred ther in and turn it therin that they be coueryd in batter and serue it and straw on sugur enowghe.
[There is an obvious error in the Noble version in that the bread is not fried after being coated in batter.]

This dish is also popular with non-English sources. Platina includes a recipe for Golden Balls in his treatise On Right Pleasure and Good Health, (1475).

16th Century

A little over a century later, Diego Granada includes liberal amounts of cinnamon in his recipe for Golden Sops Fried with Fat in Libro de Arte de Cozina, (1599).

17th Century

To make the best panperdy, Gervause Markham added cloves, mace and nutmeg to the cinnamon for The English Housewife in 1615. But Robert May only seasoned his French Toasts with sack, sugar and the juice of an orange in The Accomplisht Cook, (1660).

18th Century

It is easy to find similar recipes in later cookbooks both great and small. The 1758 edition of The Compleat Housewife by Eliza Smith contains a recipe for fried toasts featuring nutmeg.

20th Century

The famous French chef Escoffier included a recipe in his 1909 A Guide to Modern Cookery using vanilla as a flavoring and serving it as in our medieval recipes sprinkled with sugar. Which brings us right up to the familiar modern versions in The Joy of Cooking and Betty Crocker's Cookbook.