I usually find out about places old and new by word of mouth, driving along the roads of New Jersey, and by searching all my favorite local food sites, message boards, and social media pages.
When I was a kid back home on Long Island, we would enjoy my mom’s French toast. It was your basic white bread dipped in beaten eggs, cooked in a vat of butter in a frying pan. After mom plated up stacks of French toast, we would add more pats of butter, maybe a little cinnamon, a spoonful of sugar, and a stream of either Log Cabin or Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup. It was a diabetes and cholesterol festival.
These are things we didn’t think about as kids. All we remember was, how yummy it was.
I loved Mrs. Butterworth’s. I later found out as an adult that Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup didn’t contain any butter, nor was it real maple syrup. You live and learn. I miss the innocence of being a kid.
I also found out later in life that French toast wasn’t invented by the French. What the heck?
According to the Kulick’s French Toast recipes website: “The origins of French toast are found in a recipe for “aliter dulcia,” which translates to “another sweet dish.”
This recipe, the earliest on record reminiscent of French toast, was found in a 4th century Roman cookbook titled “Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome” by Marcus Gabius Apicius, a wealthy and educated man among the Roman elite who became famous for his passion for food.
While not a cook himself, he earned a reputation through his sumptuous feasts and impressive knowledge of food. The recipe for aliter dulcia calls for pieces of fine white bread to be soaked in milk and beaten egg, fried in oil, and covered in honey.”
The history of how it made it to American breakfast tables, and why it’s called “French Toast” is pretty cool.
According to a few sources, French toast was introduced to the United States in 1724 by Joseph French, an innkeeper in Albany, New York, who decided to name his creation “French’s toast” but inadvertently left off the apostrophe and the S; little did French know that this grammatical error would be celebrated in perpetuity.
Prepare to savor a variety of mouthwatering innovative versions of this breakfast classic
Here are 9 places in Ocean County that serve incredible versions of French toast.
