Farm French connection includes Saturday French toast
Saturdays at the farm always include a big breakfast to start the weekend. Usually, it’s eggs with bacon or sausage, toast and juice and coffee as the standard menu, dating back to my youth. But sometimes, pancakes, including the addition of fresh blueberries this time of year, or French toast, would be a Saturday surprise from Mom for Dad, myself and my siblings while we were growing up. French toast added into the breakfast menu rotation usually meant there was stale bread in the kitchen bread drawer in need to be rescued by a bath in egg, milk and spices.
Reader Ricky Baron, 39, of Hobart, contacted me recently through my columns posted on Facebook. We engaged in a conversation which quickly took a French turn. Like myself, Baron also studied French at Valparaiso University. Though I graduated in 1992, a decade prior to his time on campus, we both shared some of the same professors, including our French Professor Madame Eileen Coates, who is originally from Gary and studied not only at Valparaiso University but also the University of Notre Dame.
Unlike my only two required semesters of French classes with Madame Coates, Baron, from the VU Class of 2004, made French and education his concentration courses and spent some of his own career teaching French. Today, and since 2014, he has a Chicagobased government position Adjoint Consulaire at Consulat General du Canada.
I’ve always had a fondness for French culture and cuisine, from the art, pastries and cheeses to the history, wines and all the rich and heavy sauces served with flair. In just a few weeks, I will celebrate my 50th birthday on
Aug. 13. Two decades ago, to mark my 30th birthday, I enjoyed a 10-day trip to Paris, which included a birthday morning mass at Notre Dame Cathedral, and a packed schedule, that highlighted a visit to the Palace of Versailles, a day trip to the recently opened Euro Disney World, time at the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum, the Moulin Rouge nightclub as well as plenty of dining and shopping. Today, at the farm, a concrete flower planter with a carved fleur-de-lis near the steps of the back porch represents my homage and love for France.
The fleur-de-lis decorative design represent a lily, but historically, it was a French symbol designating the country as a Catholic nation. According to history, throughout the decades, the fleur-de-lis, which became the insignia of both New Orleans and Quebec City, evolved in representation “at one and the same, as a tie, religious, political, dynastic, artistic, emblematic and symbolic, in French heraldry.”
On the subject of the recipe origin as it relates to French toast, Baron said while the concept of egg and/or milk-soaked bread dates to Ancient Rome, there is a generally accepted story the recipe’s
French cuisine history.
“Far from my expertise, it (French Toast) originated when baguettes would become stale in France, and this egg mixture was used to ‘refresh’ the bread by frying or baking it so no baguettes went to waste,” Baron wrote me.
“In French, it was called ‘pain perdu’ which means ‘lost bread.’ The recipe seems to have then really taken off later in the United States, especially New Orleans, and thus, our modern day French toast?”
Today, “stuffed” French toast is popular on restaurant menus. Usually filled with an egg custard layer, or sometimes, an inside “cloud” surprise of sweetened cream cheese, this variety of filled French toast is easy to make-athome and extra hearty for breakfast, when dowsed in fresh maple syrup and accented with a pad of melting butter.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@comhs.org or mail your questions: From the Farm, P.O. Box 68, San Pierre, IN 46374.