Does anyone know what the crumbs are on the bottom of an English Muffin? You know usually you fin them on the Thomas’ English Muffins…the little white flecks of salt looking things… What the heck are they?
I think it may be corn meal…a lot of bread-type baked items are baked on a sprinkle of corn meal to keep it from sticking to the baking sheet. Very common with pizza and certain types of bread, like French or Italian.
Yup, it’s cornmeal, for the reasons stated.
Oddly enough, when I mentioned that I liked English Muffins to someone who’d lived in Great Britain, they had no idea what I was talking about. Incredulous, I described them again “you know, split in half with a fork, toast them up, slather in butter??”.
So what do Brits call them?
The information I’ve read (in the ever-so-credible-and-authoritative Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader), is that Mr. Thomas arrived in America and began selling “tea muffins”, based on his mother’s own recipe. The name later changed to “English Muffins”.
scones
Don’t they just call them “muffins”*? Scones are totally different.
*I must admit, my only reference for this is the scene in The Importance of Being Earnest where Rupert Everett eats all the “muffins.”
No, scones are much closer to American style biscuits.
The closest they have to English Muffins in England are called “crumpets”.
Hey, what do you know? The internet is your friend!
According to wikipedia:
So, it would seem that either “muffin” or “teacake” would do in the UK. This picture of teacake looks like what I would call an English muffin. Also, according to wikipedia, an Enlgish muffin is a bit different from a crumpet:
See the big holes in the crumpet? Crumpets are less bready - almost a little like pancakes. It’s quite a different texture. All the big holes hold butter and jam very nicely.
Farina is ground wheat, not corn, by the way. Thomas’s uses wheat, which probably looks nicer on their nice white product in its nice white sleeve, but many recipes call for corn, like this one.
Teacakes, in my experience, are either more breadlike or more cakelike (including things like eggs, which English Muffins don’t) than English muffins. One that I had was just like raisin bread, only round. But you’re absolutely right that the distinguishing difference between in English muffin and a crumpet is the cooking method. That’s why I said it was the “closest”, not “the word for”.
English muffins are weird, much like bagels. There’s lots of things that are similar, but not quite identical to, an English Muffin. But I’ll certainly accept teacake as a contender - it’s at least as close as a crumpet is.
Quiddity Glomfuster, that is the saddest looking English Muffin I’ve ever seen! It’s not even toasted! This is what a good English Muffin should look like, all warm and toasty and full of holes like a crumpet.
Well, that’s what the wikipedia article does say, but it’s hard for me tell from that particular picture-- it looks like an English muffin to me. This looks a bit different from an English muffin, and this looks a lot different. 
I’m Leftpondian, but I lived in London for two years and never once encountered anything very close to Thomas’s English Muffins by any name. Had plenty of scones and teacakes, though. Mmmmmmmmm scones with clotted cream. Americans have no idea what they’re missing.
Crumpets have larger and more holes and tend to have a more rubbery texture (though not in a bad way) in my experience.
Probably all three are descended from a common ancestor.
Alternatively, they could all have been created just as they are sometime within the last 10,000 years. 
The English muffin photo isn’t a real English muffin. That site is selling replica food for things like photography, educational purposes, etc…
And this matters because? It looks exactly like the English muffins I eat regularly. I wasn’t posting claiming that it was an actual English muffin, nor do I care. I was just trying to find photos to show the difference for the crumpet-challenged.
Yeesh.
WhyNot, I regret to disagree with you, but I assure you that “English muffins” are indeed available here, and have been since I was a tiny wee lad at least, and almost certainly a whole lot longer. They are, of course, just called “muffins” (for the same reasons that you call “American football” merely “football”).
As you observe, a “crumpet” is texturally nothing like a muffin, more like a bathroom sponge, and is cleverly designed to allow the melted butter to drip through the bottom, all over your shirt.
A “teacake” is a different shape to a muffin - rounder edges; a flat bun - and a different texture - much lighter - and usually studded with raisins. Hot cross buns are slightly smaller teacakes, with a pastry cross across the top.
A “scone” is indeed like an American biscuit, but it’s often denser, sweet, and sometimes studded with raisins or dried fruit.
Muffin nomenclature in the UK has been somewhat skewed recently by the introduction of American-style sweet cupcake-style muffins, which are rather different beasts.