I have always been an addict of British television and movies and I have noticed than whenever people are shown eating breakfast, someone is invariable scraping the burnt layer off a piece of toast.
Is this really very common in the United Kingdom? I’ve rarely burnt toast in my life. Don’t the British have access to modern toaster technology?
I’ll always opt to use a gas grill instead of those dirty lying toasters. No real difference in speed, and toast done just the right amount. The scraping business is more a TV cliche of somebody in a rush rather than reality - if you do it for real, you end up with burnt-tasting half-toast.
It happens here in the US too. We have a rather cheap toaster, which we keep saying we’ll replace, but then never get around to it.
Sometimes, it requires pushing the toast down twice to get it adequately cooked; on other occasions a single press leaves you with nothing but a piece of smoking carbon. Take your eyes of our toaster for more than a minute, and pretty soon you’ll be fishing a fresh slice of bread out of the bag.
on a related question: what is toast done on the side?
In the song “Englishman in N. York” , Sting says “I like my toast done on the side”?
What does that mean?
Maybe he likes his toast done on the side, and and not in the middle? 
Huh?
Perhaps it’s just cinematic shorthand for “this person is having toast?”
Having an actor scrape their toast allows the director to convey “this is toast” without having to actually show the toast in close-up, or have the disruption of having the actor eat the toast (with foleyed toast effects).
(Of course, this would make me ask the follow-up-- why would conveying the concept “toast” be so important in a given scene?)
Hijack: Why do Brits eat their toast cold?
From what I’ve heard, they even have special toast-cooling racks.
I always heard it as… on ONE side. I.e. done under the grill but only on one side…
Very unusual in itself.
In the morning it’s common to let it go cold before buttering it… so that the butter doesn’t melt.
Toast with a layer of unmelted butter (so it’s still crunchy) is very nice…
though I like it with melted butter too… I.e. butter it IM-ediately after it leaves the toaster.
I think the idea is - if you’re just having toast, you’ll like to eat it warm with melted butter…
If you’re having it with your full english then it will invariably go cold anyway… and toeast with cold melted butter is yuck… toast with cold unmelted butter is yum.
He says “toast done on ONE side” (emphasis mine). Exactly why this is preferable, I don’t know. My guess: one might feel that double-sided toasting results in toast that is too dry. One might also feel that toasting the condiment-side of the bread is pointless, as the soaking of the moist condiments will soften the toasty side anyway, negating any advantage in toasting it.
Bolding mine. Not if the toast has been allowed to go cold, then buttered.
Well, I’m an american that has been staying north of London for the last week and my associates and I have had our toast burned 4 out of the last six days at the hotel buffet. At least one of the team has been required to scrape each day. One guy is from France, and he swears that they don’t have a problem with toaster technology across the channel. We are now to the point where we assign one of the guys to shepard over the toaster while the others get their coffee (another thing the Brits need some help with btw) and forage at the breakfast bar. 
For one, these UK toasters are smaller than the bread these people are attempting to put into them, leaving a handle of untoasted bread on the side (hey, perhaps that what Sting is singing about). But yes, the toasters over here are lying little buggers, set them on four and watch your toast go up in smoke. 
Ah… toast done by some indifferent hotel employee. A world away from toast done in your own kitchen… Their toaster is probably a cheap industrial one too.
It could be jam or Marmite or baked beans (yes, baked beans, which I’m given to understand some English put in their toast).
Well unless I am mistaken… most people butter their toast before putting another condiment on it…
unless this is in a hotel where the lazy employee doesn’t bother to butter it.
Plus marmalade with chunks of orange peel in it. Double yum.
I think ‘many’ would be a better word than ‘most’. It’s not uncommon to forgo the use of butter entirely. Some people just add jam, slices of cheese, marmite, or what have you without any butter at all.
Ah yes, toast with baked beans. That’s a great cheap lunch when one is a student or otherwise flat broke. You need to eat it with knife and fork, usually.
Do you mean in general or in Britain specifically? 'cause butter on bread is usually eaten alone in the US and butter as part of a sandwich is pretty unheard of.
It makes up for the warm beer.