Author: Anne Ewbank / Source: Atlas Obscura
During the holidays, we often try to capture the feeling of celebrations past. Usually, that means making traditional foods, whether it’s our great-aunt’s fruitcake or the family eggnog.
Holidays have a way of preserving vintage recipes that we’d never normally consider. But one custom has truly died out: the centuries-old tradition of toasting with actual toast.People have been drinking to each other’s health since time immemorial. The origins of the term “toast” for a drinking ritual is perhaps related to these boozy blessings. Sixteenth-century German students often shouted the Latin word Prosit, meaning “May it do you good!” during drinking sessions. “Prosit” eventually morphed into the German toast “Prost!” (Or so many scholars believe.) It’s not hard to imagine the leap from “prost” to “toast.”
But another theory that’s gained credence among food historians is that the term originates from the surprisingly frequent practice of mixing toast and alcohol. For a time, proposing a toast called for wine or beer, garnished with a slice of bread.
Although it now seems strange, for the privileged in medieval Europe, no day was complete without a bowl of warm wine and “sop,” sodden, toasted bread. Even Joan of Arc was known to enjoy it. For everyone else, warm, ale-soaked bread was an inexpensive, calorie-filled meal. But sops were added to soup and milk as well. Toasted bread was a potent symbol of plenty. The English even covered apple trees in cider-dipped toast, as part of an ancient ritual for a good harvest….
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