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 Nellie Melba, the stage name of Australian opera singer Helen Porter Mitchell.{{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}} Its name is thought to date from 1897, when the singer was very ill and it became a staple of her diet.[http://www.oldlondonfoods.com/about/ History of Melba Toast] 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.{{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}}{{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}}

Melba toast is made by lightly toasting slices of bread under a 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.[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]

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,{{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 }} 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.{{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}}