The Tao concept in Confucianism, is that there is a "right manner of human activity and virtuous conduct" stemming from "universal criteria and ideals." Within the toast is embodied the virtuous goal of delivering a perfect breakfast, and I expect as much from my local greasy-spoon.
There are right and wrong ways of making breakfast, and after the frying and the plating, the provision of good quality toast seems to be a constant challenge for the poor breafasteur. The quality of breakfast toast has eroded and the main influences are a combination of international affairs, inferior marketing and insidious technology.
We'll come back to the last element shortly. but from a marketing and consumerism perspective, toast has been titrated to an abstract concept. This is a symptom of our heat-treated-bread malaise in that its erosion has not only eaten away at the substance of toast, but thinned the icon to a wisp of an idea. With the assault on the concept of toast, so goes the quality of the thing. A case in point was the recent absurdity of a breakfast and lunch restaurant concept called "Toast! Café and Grill" which served breakfast and lunch, but offered no toast at all. It was an entertaining absurdity to approach the counter and address the issue. I asked for an order of toast and cup of tea."There is no actual toast on the menu." I was told by an unimpressed teen aged server. I felt it necessary to address the dichotomy. "But your restaurant is called 'Toast!'" I replied, being sure to pronounce the exclamation point.
"That's right."
"Yet you serve no toast."
"That's also right."
"You don't see a bit of insanity in that?"
"No, it's just a marketing thing."
Toast has become merely the idea of toast. But that vision seems to have failed to deliver the full crispy experience. It didn't last. Launched in 1997 the business closed and even the crunchy trademark was abandoned in 2005.
Sadder still, the edible toast item on the Canadian breakfast plate itself more and more merely purports to be toast and yet it is becoming little more than bread in a toast's clothing.
Now, for Canadians, breakfast is a particularly a portentous issue, for two reasons. First, in the context of our friends to the south, for whom we are the largest single trading partner in their economy (and they in ours), pretty much the only mention of the word "Canadian" in their daily lives is in the context of ordering breakfast. "Canadian Bacon" is their term for what we call "back bacon" (and the British just call "bacon," as opposed to "streaky-bacon," but I'm thematically drifting here). Thus, our economic importance is distilled into our trade-partners' ordering of delicious pork products.
I'm okay with that, it seems a good podium on which to accept our pivotal value to their economy. But what did we get in return? We'll address that in a moment.
The second reason for breakfast occupying an important place for Canadians is that our experience of toast is a microcosm of our national identity. We had found a happy balance between the British toast experience and the American toast experience.
The typical British toast is thin, perhaps one centimetre thick, well browned, crunchy, and placed in a cooling rack for service. It approaches room temperature before one receives it and smears their marmalade across its noisy surface. This was likely our starting point for Canadian breakfasts. (We never embraced the fried bread much though.)
Perhaps due to our cold climate, drafty bedrooms, and the shipping of all our raw materials for making stainless steel out of our country for someone else to process, we abandoned the cooling rack and took to eating our toast warm. We have thus lived on a toast construct of the relatively thin bread of our forefathers, toasted to a dark-brown crispiness, and served warm and buttery. It was good. Our peanut butter melted slightly, our jam floated on trickling butter. It warmed our furry Canadian hearts, and dripped on our red tartan shirts.
That balance was all set asunder in the early 1990's.
It's a thicker slice, probably 1.8cm thick, meaning the toasting process is not trivial. Some of the best egg-flipping hands have tried and failed. Ensuring that it doesn't remain too 'bready' is difficult, and time consuming. The result is often just floppy, warmed-up bread with some scorch marks. The substance mostly compresses to a little doughy ball when you bite it, rather than crunching. Making thick toast isn't impossible, surely, but restaurateurs shirk their responsibilities and today's toasting technology is an enabler that allows them to do so.
That technology in most commercial kitchens. The conveyor belt mechanism transports the slices between elements. and there are only two controls on these units: speed and heat-intensity.
Under the pressure of the kitchen, delivering a classic three-component breakfast involves reducing every step to the fastest process possible. Bacon is often par-cooked and piled on the edge of the grill. Eggs are pre-cracked in a jug ready to be poured quickly for omelettes or the scrambled variety, while whole eggs are at hand ready for the other modes. Piles of ancillary fried potatoes sit at the edge of the grill ready for rewarming. But make no mistake, they are fourth component interlopers. The toast is the crowning glory. Yet it must start from plain bread, and has to be made on demand to be successful.
If you have used a conveyor belt toaster, you can easily take the easy way out and set the speed to high. Who doesn't want to have their toast right now?
The result though, is that you just get warmed bread. The right solution though isn't the obvious one at this juncture. One might turn the heat up, leaving the speed high, and think that the result is toast. Au contraire. Now the outer surface has been heat-blasted and the result is one that the discerning breakfasteur despises.
Leave the heat lower, and slow the speed. Allow the heat to penetrate the bread and extirpate its breadiness as the moisture is driven out. Then the amino acids and sugars, as proteins and carbohydrates, can be combined and transmogrified, and the result is the nicely browned goodness of a Maillard reaction, not a mere burning of the outer surface.
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| Source: The Green Market |
