Lady&Mister Chef
© 2013 Cristian Lucisano Editore Lady&Mister Chef
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Toast: where does it come from?
An English name coming from a French verbe and defining an Italian delicious snack.
What is a “toast”? In Italy it is a kind of thin sandwich with ham and cheese, often seasoned with pickles, cooked in a toaster and eaten warm. Abroad, it is a thin slice of bread, cooked in a toaster and often spread with butter.
The word “toast”, which sounds “English”, comes from the French verb “toster”, meaning
“to grill”, derived from the Latin “tostus”
which can be translated into modern English
“roasted”. Anyway, notwithstanding the foreign origin of the word itself, we know that the English were the first to use it, as a definition for the well known slice of bread.
With its new meaning and English spelling, the word “toast” came back to France in 1769, and here it became really popular only in the XIX century, when it was used as the most important ingredient of a very popular food, “croques”. In Italy the original English word remains, but it is used to define something different, thanks to the fantasy and to the richness of national food tradition: as a matter of fact, what links English and Italian toast is only the original slices of toasted bread which we use as containers for our ham and cheese!
