That wouldn’t have anything to do with it. As long as the toasters have approximately the same heat output, then voltage and current are irrelevant. BTW European current is lower (50Hz) than yours, not higher.
Toasted bagels!
Wash your keyboard with soap, Wolfman!
Butter on sandwiches might be strange to me, but toasting bagels is an abomination!
Seriously, though, when starting this thread, I never expected the amount of information that has come to light.
- Butter on sandwiches is routine all over Britain and in some American households
- Mayonnaise is not commonly used in Britain (I thought mayonnaise was universal for ordinary sandwiches)
- British stove/range units (“cookers”?) traditionally include a “gas grill” (actually a broiler?) at eye level?
- Toasted on one side?
Something I find frustrating about American stoves (you really call them “cookers”?) is that the broiler is – no, not at eye level – not at stovetop level – not at oven/knee level – It’s freaking at ankle level! So, yeah, I use that one often. Not.
50/60Hz is the frequency, and has nothing to do with power or current. The voltage differences between Europe (including Britain) and North America could explain something, because the identical Chinese-made toasters can’t be used successfully in both places. 220-240V will result in twice as puch power going through the thing as 110V, which means that it catches fire or melts in Europe, or only becomes slightly warm in America.
If I can add one more. “Butter” is in many cases used as a generic term that includes vegetable oil-based spreads and margarines. “do you want your bread buttered?” actually means, in many cases, “Do you want me to spread something - which may or may not be real butter - on it?”
Re: buttered sandwiches–
in my experience (Eastern US), buttered sandwiches were mostly something for young kids. Once you got older and got used to the slightly odd taste of Mayonnaise, you switched to that.
Surely the Chinese would make two versions of the toaster? One rated at 230 volts for Europe and the 110 volt version for the USA.
FWIW in every deli I visit here they ask “Do you want butter or mayonnaise?”
My grandmother always buttered the bread before making a sandwich, the family has drifted away from the practice since. Now I really feel like a meatloaf sandwich on buttered bread…
In addition, there are some heathans for whom “mayonnaise” actually means Miracle Whip.
I’ve gotten sandwiches with butter and mayonnaise that actually had neither of 'em.
Mayonnaise is commonly used in the UK but not in place of butter nor in all sandwiches. Butter (or equivalent) always, mayonnaise with tuna, ham or chicken, yes, beef, definitely not!
Eye-level grills are/were pretty common in free standing cookers and could be either gas or electric. More common these days with built in appliances would be a double oven with the smaller top oven containing the grill at about eye level.
Unfortunately we are also suffering from a rash of stupid “space saving” built under ovens with grills at ankle level - grrrr.
I’m still having a hard time with “cooker.” Seriously? The terms “stove” and “range” are not used at all? It makes me giggle. “Cooker” sounds like a word that a child or a non-English-speaker would invent for something they didn’t know the name for.
Or English mustard.
Triple drool
‘cooker’ is a term that describes an all-in-one oven and hob package - may people will refer directly to the oven, or the hob (aka ‘ring’ or ‘gas’ in some cases), but yeah, ‘cooker’ is still a fairly widely used term.
‘Range’ is pretty much reserved for solid fuel fired, cast iron behemoths, or commercial-style cookers with six ovens and eleventy-one hobs.
‘Stove’ is sometimes used (I suspect regionally), but often, that term is reserved for something portable such as a camping stove.
So yeah, ‘cooker’ is not abnormal here.
‘Spackle’ does the same for me.
I think around the end of the 19th century, “stove” was more-or-less attached to the cast-iron solid fuel burning things, and “range” was the similar item with an oven, a water boiler and a hotplate attached. There was a need for a new name for the modern (at the time) slimline free-standing appliances with an oven, hobs and grill, so in the absence of anything better, “cooker” it was.
To us, “stove” and “range” tend to sound a little quaint.
All I know is that right now, I really really want toast.
Slightly cooled.
With butter.
And cut into triangles.
Exactly - which is why Mk VII’s comment, that there should be no reason for the toasters to be any different, doesn’t quite work. Yes, they shouldn’t have any functional difference, but we can’t be sure that’s the case.
It just dawned on me why the idea of spreading unmelted butter on cooled toast doesn’t work here.
In the United States, butter is generally served rock hard. You can’t spread it if the surface you’re spreading it on isn’t hot.
I’ll second Mangetout and say there’s nothing abnormal about it.
Gives rise to many amusing moments with elementary ESL students who are cooks/ professional chefs.
“So, Dmitry/ Youssouf/ Angelina/ Heinrich/ [insert generic student name of almost any nationality here] - what do you do?”
::student furrows brow::
“I…I am cooker!” comes the triumphant reply.
“Stove” is used here to mean the entire appliance consisting of a range, a grill(er), and an oven. I have never seen a household stove without a grill, and I didn’t know they existed until this thread.
Maybe it’s a Midwest thing? I can’t even imagine eating a ham sandwich without buttering the bread. The only other sandwiches I really eat are turkey and peanut butter, and I probably wouldn’t butter for turkey and definitely not for peanut butter, but a ham sandwich absolutely requires butter.
Real butter. None of this margarine crap.