Cynthia: I remember milk toast, though I haven't had it since I was a child and sick in bed. It was wholesome and comforting -- but not what I'd call a favorite.

The closest I've come to reliving this in recent years was in Newfoundland. Hardbread is a substance that is baked until it is so lifeless and dry that it will last, unfrozen and unrefrigerated, through a long sea voyage or particularly bad winter without any danger of spoiling. It's appearance is somewhere between a large teething biscuit and a small loaf of bread. To prepare it, you soak it then boil it, and then use it either in a recipe (it's a key ingredient, along with salt cod, in the "stir fry" known as fish and brewis) or just topped with gravy or milk and sugar. It actually tastes rather like a huge lump of pasta. But boiled hard bread with milk and sugar did remind me of milk toast. Pleasant, wholesome, but not something I'm going to be eating regularly.

comment left Jan 31, 2009