Getting really tired of this, America. Where is our sense of historic preservation? Why is there no reliable place where we can look to find the names of those heroes and heroines who have made our lives worth living? Are we so caught up in proving we are the peak of civilization that we can’t look back on those who went before, raising their flickering torches to dispel the darkness?
All I wanted from the Interwebs was a hint about the identity of the unsung genius who invented cinnamon toast. And what did I get? Everything else.
Now, I will admit right off the bat that I wasn’t really expecting a name and a date. It MIGHT be possible, but as bread and cinnamon have been known for roughly as long as humanity has been interested in food, with neither butter nor sugar any younger, it seemed unlikely. The most I was hoping for was perhaps a clue to what part of the world first produced this classic accompaniment to winter and/or bad colds.
First, the Interwebs tossed me down another rabbit hole entirely. Cinnamon Toast Crunch has such a fanatic following that it was assumed THIS was what I wanted to know about. But other people have written the tale of Chef Wendell and his improbable success. I wanted to go back farther.
Clearing away to boxes of cereal, I found the Interwebs littered with recipes and reminiscences. That was more or less what I was looking for, with hopes of perhaps running into citations from grease-stained cookbooks of generations past. I did run into a reference to a specific cookbook, but the writer would not tell me the name of the cookbook, which appears to have been one of those where people in a community donate recipes, and get their names printed under these. The one I was shown came from Illinois, which was a letdown,. I still have no serious data on the subject, but I am convinced that cinnamon toast is older than Illinois.
I wandered among the reminiscences involving people’s grandmothers making cinnamon toast for adoring grandkids. A few of these grandmothers, shown in pictures, um, looked to be about my age. Others seemed to be contemporary with MY grandmothers. But only two facts stood out from these warm recollections.
Every one oof these Grammas made cinnamon toast differently. AND NOEN OF THEM DID IT RIGHT.
Cinnamon toast, as is well known, is CORRECTLY made when it is made the way you remember it, down to whether it is cut into two triangles or four. (Yes, I see those of you who cut it into strips. I will allow for this variation, since it makes for good dunking. WE never dunked our cinnamon toast, but do your own thing.)
First of all: the ingredients. Most everyone agrees that storebought white bread is the proper starting point. Yes, when cinnamon toast was new, I presume homemade bread was used, and I see no reason to sneer at such a thing. But storebought bread is already sliced into the proper thickness, after all.
Then comes butter (or whatever butter substitute you prefer. Those who cheat by using a cinnamon-flavored spread are out of the running. We’re going for the classic here. You perhaps use a sugar substitute as well: I wouldn’t trust it, but that’s a matter of personal conviction. And you need cinnamon, of course.
AND THAT’S IT! Those of you who add vanilla, nutmeg, mace, sunflower seeds, walnuts, or pecans are gilding the lily. If you’re going to that much trouble, go bake a pie.
There is considerable differentiation in whether you spread the butter cold and hard or warm and soft, and whether you put the cinnamon on top of the butter and then the sugar, or the sugar first and THEN the cinnamon, before the cookie sheet is put in the oven. And then…hold it.
Oven? Children, did you not hear about a device called a “Toaster”? It existed for years as a long-handled device to hold over the fire before household electricity gave us a squat buddy to sit in the kitchen or the dining room, perhaps covered with a quilted toaster cover (a nice science fiction story explained once why some people use these and some don’t). I did not find one cinnamon TOAST recipe on the Interwebs which mentioned the TOASTER.
Once again, I must go forth into the Interwebs as a pioneer, and explain how cinnamon toast is MEANT to be made. No one online has bothered with MY Mother’s recipe, so here it is. (No, I have no idea where she picked up the recipe. Either of my grandmothers might have been involved.)
You take two pieces of bread from the bag and put them in the toaster. (If you have that much counter space and use a four-slot toaster, go for it.) Once this toast pops up, take it from the toaster (with or without saying “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!”) and put on a plate. Spread butter on this hot toast. Now comes the tricky part.
For many years, my mother made enough cinnamon toast that she kept a broad salmon-colored Melmac cup filled with her cinnamon and sugar mixture. This was plain old table sugar and cinnamon from a red can, mixed about half and half until it was a uniform color (no streaks of cinnamon or sugar). Sprinkle this liberally on the buttered toast. Pause. Now, taking a piece of toast by one corner, hold it diagonally over the broad cup and tap, so any cinnamon and sugar not adhering to the butter falls back in the cup for next time. Repeat with second slice. Return the toast to the plate and cut diagonally into halves (if you’re in a hurry and the tea is getting cold) or fourths. Serves two: one if eating alone and feeling self-indulgent, three or four if the smaller people have very short attention spans. If more is wanted, the toaster is still there.
The nice thing about this recipe is that just about anybody over the age of six can handle it without the need of oven mitts or cookie sheets (a broom and dustpan, maybe, if the small person hasn’t mastered toast-tapping skills.) I don’t know why this recipe is being suppressed on the Interwebs, but perhaps the Cookie Sheet Lobby will allow this blog to be printed.
By golly, it’s enough to make me despair of my NEXT project. Who was it, do you suppose, who first came up with the cinnamon roll?
Blogsy Babbles 