Talk:French toast

message: This section is messed up. Can someone fix it. It states "The hard bread is softened by dipping in a mixture of milk and eggs, and then fried." and then "The bread is sliced on a bias and dipped into a mixture of egg, milk, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. The slices are pan-fried in butter...". This is very poor editing on someone's part.   207.131.251.16 (talk) 23:40, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please fix "Variations" section 

message: Under preparation and serving, dry bread and stale bread are made appear to be synonymous terms, which they are not. Which is better for french bread? I do not know.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.183.249 (talk) 04:22, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dry bread vs stale bread.

message: Hello all from Cornell, just a quick note on how and what to add to an article. There is a Good article in a similar vein that you might want to take a look at, Gumbo. This article is considered to be one of the articles on a particular dish on Wikpedia.
So here is what I recommend to you:
* Use the following structure as a guideline:
** Lead (WP:Lead)
** Etymology
** Variations
** History
** Preparation and serving
** Social aspects
** See also (WP:See also)
** References (WP:Sources)
** External links (WP:External links)
I am going to be unavailable until Thursday as I have a paper due Wednesday, so I will only respond lightly. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 05:58, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  On editing 

message: Hello Cornellians. I was wondering if you were aware of Wikipedia Commons? It is a repository of photographs that can be used in Wikipedia articles. If you do a web search for that website and search there for French toast you will see several photos relatede to this subject. Do you think any of them are useful or worth including? Candleabracadabra (talk) 02:25, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello!  We will be taking a close look at the photographs on the Wikipedia Commons.  Hopefully, some of them will be worth including because we really think that some photographs could make the article better.  ShannonClare06 (talk) 01:17, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

text: Going along the lines of including pictures, are there standards to this? I can see many pictures that would be nice to include, but I am wondering if only relevant pictures should be included that tie to the text it stands next to. Are there norms to this, or is it more of a case by case basis? Thanks! Roycecab (talk) 19:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you looked at the Manual of Style Images section?  Basically, images should add some useful information to the article and not be too repetitive.  The current number and variety of photos in the article seem to me about right.  The main thing that is missing is an example of savory French toast. --Macrakis (talk) 04:37, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Photos

message: *Do the opening paragraphs of the article do a good job of summarizing the rest of the contents of the article?
*In the social aspects portion of the article there are a few links to other articles. Are these related to social aspects? Should these be in a different section (See also perhaps?) or maybe integrated into the article in some way? Should they be explained? What are these subjects and what do they have to do with French toast?
*There is a sentence about French toast in Quebec. Is it in an appropriate section of the article?
*There is a long list of toppings. Are all of these used to make french toast? I have never heard of french toast with cooked meat or beans. Who serves it that way? Is it a breakfast dish when prepared that way? Should some explanation be given of savory v. sweet preparations? 
*In your research what have you found out about French toast that isn't covered here?
Best of luck with you project. I will be watching and will try to respond where appropriate. Please let me know if I can be of any help. Candleabracadabra (talk) 02:32, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible improvements

message: Hi Cornell folks working on this article. I see that you have been editing the article. Please make sure to be logged in when you are making edits so the teaching staff evaluating your work can attribute the contributions to you and give you credit for them. LeshedInstructor (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Course assignment 

message: We just would like to thank all the Wikipedia users for being helpful during the course of the project!  Technically, the project ends today at 1:25pm.  We learned a lot and it has been a wonderful experience being part of this online community.
Sincerely, 
Shannon, Lauren and Royce
ShannonClare06 (talk) 13:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cornell University Project: Thank You 

message: Why is this particular dish called "French Toast?"  When was it named "French Toast?"  I read the Gumbo article and that sort of information is included in the first paragraph.Selesindrin (talk) 20:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why and When Appear to Be Missing 

message: Hold on, how could this be a historical French dish used to preserve stale bread when it requires the bread to be sliced before it stales (try slicing stale bread and see what happens)? Historical people didn't ever slice their bread and then leave it unused, right? At least, not often enough to have a dish based around recycling it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.204.139 (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Slicing crusty, stale bread is why bread-knives are serrated :) DewiMorgan (talk) 07:12, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: In France stale bread is 1 day old bread ~ the french like their bread made daily ~ they are talking about what to use the stale (day old bread) for the next day ~ ~mitch~ (talk) 21:36, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stale sliced bread 

message: 15 century English recipes are mentioned. There is a 12th century troubadour known as Marcabru who is believed to be from Gascony and was at first nicknamed Pan-perdut. This is likely the Old Occitan (Old Provencal) cognate of pain perdu although the context may or may not have been the same.Halconen (talk) 19:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pain perdut in the History section

message: Milk makes the eggs go further, helps them to soak into the bread with less beating, and a pre-soak in milk allows the bread to change its texture. I don't believe it's required: some recipes omit it. But I'd say it's more common than the other optional ingredients, like the various herbs and spices, cheese, syrups, etc. The log shows:
* 2003 Jan 30 - Page created, giving ingredients as "bread and eggs, often also with milk and spices".
* 2015 Jul 12 - Sidebar amended to add "often milk" in the "main ingredients" section.
* 2015 Dec 6 - Sidebar amended to remove the word "often", by an IP editor.
* 2016 Nov 3 - Lede amended to add a preliminary "milk-soaking" step, by an IP editor.
* 2017 Sep 17 - Lede amended to "eggs whisked with milk".
* 2017 Oct 21 - Lede amended to "eggs and milk".
...and it's been that way ever since. I think this edit history doesn't support a consensus that milk is a required ingredient, but I think "often" was fine, maybe even "typically": "bread soaked in eggs, typically with milk". Typically has the advantage that it's a harder, more specific term, so less likely to be silently removed.
I think I'd have a very hard time providing a good canonical reference saying milk's definitively not required, however, since proving a negative is troublesome. I can find many online recipes which exclude milk, but not from any chefs or cookbooks with a well-known reputation. There are certainly good references from reputed cooks giving recipes that include milk, but I also can't find any references that say all eggy-bread recipes worldwide must include milk, nor that a recipe without milk would not be considered "eggy bread" by anyone.
So that's my rationale for editing to use "typically", and creating an "optional ingredients" section in the sidebar. But I know it's far from an ideal rationale, hence writing it here for discussion. DewiMorgan (talk) 02:11, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is milk required? 

message: Both references for the quote derive from the 1936 translation by Joseph Dimmers Vehling. A somewhat better copy of Vehling can be found on Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29728
Vehling's translation says: "Break [slice] fine white bread, crust removed, into rather large pieces which soak in milk [and beaten eggs] fry in oil, cover with honey and serve." - I have corrected the quote here to include these square braces, but done nothing further, as deletion would only be backed by OR.
The items in square braces are the translator's notes and additions to the text. Of this text, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/home.html writes: 
"The Hill edition, while adequate, is not as good as it could have been, however. It does not provide a Latin text, is said to be based on inferior manuscript tradition, and Vehling's translation is quirky and inconsistent. The best full English translation of Apicius seems to be that of Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum, published in 1958." - I have not got a copy of this translation, and can't find one online.
The Latin is also there, in what looks like a 1920 transcription collated from multiple sources (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16439/16439-h/16439-h.htm#bk7), and for this passage it says: "Aliter dulcia: siligineos rasos frangis, et buccellas maiores facies. in lacte infundis, frigis, ex [in] oleo, mel superfundis et inferes." Close as I can tell, with negligible Latin, this translates to "Another sweetmeat: wheat bread break, into bits more big. In milk immerse, cool, take from oil, honey on top the dish." Or more grammatically: break bread into big chunks, soak in cool milk, cook in oil, sprinkle with honey".
It bears the annotation "ex Vo, et in EV |" which I suspect is referring only to the word "[in]", and which I interpret from the intro notes to mean "from Vollmer, a copy in the Vatican, and a copy in Cheltenham", but the intro notes that explain the annotation key are in abbreviated Latin too, translated into a kind of ascii art table, so it's really hard to tell.
To me, this doesn't look like eggs are involved at all. That's just something Vehling made up. But maybe "in lacte infundis" implies egg in some way that only a classical Latin speaker would get?
So like I said, I haven't done anything beyond this, and don't think I can as it would be OR, but I'm decently convinced that Vehling's translation and claim are incorrect. DewiMorgan (talk) 06:49, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the ''De re coquinaria'' of Apicius legitimately talking about eggy bread, or just milk bread? 

message: I keep seeing references to French toast being called eggy bread…seriously why would anyone with more than 3 brain cells call it eggy bread, it’s called French toast. 101.119.92.239 (talk) 08:42, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Guessing because you live in Australia (according to your IP) rather than Northern England, where this is a common, uncontroversial name. 阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 00:28, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name