Editing Melba toast

{{Short description|Dry, crisp toast, often served with soup or salad}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}}
{{Infobox prepared food
| name             = Melba Toast
| image            = Melba toast.jpg
| image_size       = 250px
| caption          = Melba toast topped with goat's cheese and [[tomato jam]]
| alternate_name   =
| course           = [[Appetizer]]
| country          = United Kingdom
| creator          = [[Auguste Escoffier]]
| type             = Toast
| main_ingredient  = Bread
}}
'''Melba toast''' is a dry, crisp and thinly sliced [[rusk]], often served with soup and salad or topped with either melted cheese or [[pâté]]. It is named after [[Dame (title)|Dame]] [[Nellie Melba]], the stage name of Australian opera singer Helen Porter Mitchell.<ref>{{cite book | last=Fenster | first=C. | title=1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes | publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | series=1,000 Recipes | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-544-18909-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DprRMYJWGgAC&pg=PA116| page=116}}</ref> Its name is thought to date from 1897, when the singer was very ill and it became a staple of her diet.<ref>[http://www.oldlondonfoods.com/about/ History of Melba Toast]</ref> The toast was created for her by a chef who was also a fan of her, [[Auguste Escoffier]], who also created the [[Peach Melba]] dessert for her. The hotel proprietor [[César Ritz]] supposedly named it in a conversation with Escoffier.<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Humes
  | first = James C.
  | title = Speaker's Treasury of Anecdotes About the Famous
  | publisher = Harper and Row
  | year = 1978
  | pages = 19
  | isbn = 0-06-012008-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Kipfer | first=B.A. | title=The Culinarian: A Kitchen Desk Reference | publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-544-18603-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7xUafQwz2tkC&pg=PA363 | page=363}}</ref>

Melba toast is made by lightly [[Toast (food)|toast]]ing slices of bread under a [[Salamander grill#Salamander|grill]], on both sides. The resulting toast is then sliced laterally. These thin slices are then returned to the grill with the untoasted sides towards the heat source, resulting in toast half the normal thickness.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20131105041426/http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipebook/index.php?option=com_rapidrecipe&page=viewrecipe&recipe_id=683 Great British Cookbook – Melba Toast<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

Melba toast is also available commercially, and was at one time given to infants who were [[teething]] as a hard food substance on which to chew. In the UK, this is similar to a commercial product known as ''French toast'',<ref name="Tesco">{{cite web | url=https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/266291362 | title=Tesco: French Toast | publisher=[[Tesco]] | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231204191231/https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/266291362 | access-date=2023-04-28| archive-date=4 December 2023 }}</ref> although it is very different from the egg-based dish known as [[French toast]] internationally.

In France, it is referred to as ''croutes en dentelle''.<ref name="Hensperger">{{cite book | last=Hensperger | first=B. | title=The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook: A Master Baker's 300 Favorite Recipes for Perfect-every-time Bread, from Every Kind of Machine | publisher=Harvard Common Press | year=2000 | isbn=978-1-55832-156-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ew8rS8PCkpoC&pg=PT599 | page=599}}</ref>

==History==
In 1925, the [[Mayo Brothers]] prescribed the "Eighteen Day Reducing Diet" to [[Ethel Barrymore]]. It included Melba toast, which made the toast very popular at the time.<ref>Print-ad, 1925:https://www.sciencesource.com/archive/18-Day-Reducing-Diet--1925-SS2229623.html; and Sophie C. Cubbison, autobiographical sketch, unpublished typescript. Summarized in William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, ''History of Soybeans and Soyfoods in Mexico and Central America, 1877-2009'' (Lafayette CA: SoyInfo Press, 2009), 52-53. {{ISBN|1928914217}}</ref> Melba toast was also eaten as a component of the [[Banting diet]].{{Cn|date=March 2025}}

==See also==
{{portal|Food}}
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[List of breads]]
* [[List of foods named after people]]
* [[List of toast dishes]]
* [[List of twice-baked foods]]
* [[Mrs. Cubbison's Foods]]
* [[Old London Foods]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Nellie Melba|state=autocollapse}}
[[Category:Breads]]
[[Category:Twice-baked goods]]
[[Category:Toast dishes]]
[[Category:Nellie Melba]]


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