Well, I’ll be so bold to say that, the fussier you are, the harder it is to get what you want. It’s “hard” because you have such rigid specifications in an environment designed basically for the mass production of basic breakfast meals.
It was my misfortune to waitress one summer while in college, and it’s pretty much bedlam back in the kitchen. Their “toaster” was a commercial device that basically had a conveyor that moved the bread slowly through the the toasting device itself, so all the bread pretty much had to be toasted the same because it was all moving at the same speed on the conveyor. It’s not designed for people who are really finicky about having their toast “just right”.
There was one regular who sat in the same place, and that was in what was normally my section. The first time I took his order, he said he wanted “burnt toast”. I paused and then asked timidly, “You actually want your toast burned?” He answered, “Just say ‘burnt toast’, they’ll know what to do.”
The young guys in back didn’t know what to do. They decided that they should just slather it up in butter and cook it right on the griddle until each side was black. I brought the guy his order, expecting to get yelled at, but he appeared satisfied. He then took the toast off the little serving plate and proceeded to carefully scrape off most of the charred, black stuff before he added butter and jam. He repeated this ritual every time.
Perfect toast can be accomplished with the one thing that I don’t think anyone has mentioned.
A toast rack
The no.1 cause of soggy toast is to stack it after toasting or lay it flat on a plate. Unless it is done to a complete crisp then it is still steaming and it will go floppy and soggy unless you ensure separation. The more steam the more floppyness. Those conveyor toasters are a problem because they colour the surface without driving out enough moisture. Hence steamy toast and potential floppyness. A proper slot toaster is better. For one thing if you let the toast stand in there after toasting it is seperated and can steam-off and even lightly-done toast can be crispy.
If you can’t let it stand in a slot toaster then the toast rack is your best friend.
Toast-rack, don’t be scared of it, it is a practical solution not a Downton-Abbey affectation.
Same thing with bagels, by default a “toasted” bagel arrives just slightly warmed but no crunchy edges. I always request “double toasted” even if sometimes that means I get a few charred bits around the sides.
Under-buttered toast with my breakfast is a very minor pet peeve of mine, to the point where I usually have to correct it but would never complain about it. In most/all places toast is the bottom priority of line cooks. They’re generally moving fast and the last thing they usually do is robotically grab a couple pieces of toast off whatever cooking device and quickly swipe some butter across the center and plop it on the plate. Do they very carefully apply butter all the way to the edges like I do when I’m making toast? They do not. And I hate dry toast.
So I sometimes ask for a pat of butter to correct this glaring, earth-shattering failure and all is right is mostly with the world. It’s often ends up not as perfectly melted as I would like. But these little trials is what adds the contrast to all that is good in life ;).
That’s the root of the problem, I’m sure. My home toaster (nothing remarkable- Hamilton Beach, I believe) takes several minutes to operate per cycle. No big deal for you and me, but if you’re a cook at a diner, you may be trying to crank out toast for 6-8 people at any given second. They generally don’t use toasters like we have at home - they use conveyor ones that can crank out hundreds of slices per hour- looking at a manufacturer of conveyor toasters (Vollrath), they have quite a few models from 250 slices/hr (2 at a time) to 2000 slices per hour (3 at a time). That’s a lot of toast- if my math is right, that’s 2 slices a minute for the slower one, and 11 per minute on the faster one, or 30 seconds a slice and 5.45 seconds a slice.
My company had one of these in the cafeteria. It had a dial that allowed you to speed up or slow down the movement, so it was somewhat able to get your toast “just right.”
I understand in a slammed restauant kitchen, though, this is not optimal.
The only way to get proper toast is to clamp it into a wire cage with a handle and hold it directly in the fireplace until done to a turn. If it was good enough for great-grandma, it’s good enough for me.
One of the great simple joys of life is sitting in the back garden with my little lad on a summer evening, toasting bread on the embers of a log fire. We use an improvised toasting fork as trying not to lose it in the fire introduces an element of skill and suspense that makes the outcome all the more satisfying.
I would guess his Mum served burnt toast when he was young that’s what he would do to make it edible. Sure, he’s familiar with properly done toast now, but without the scrape and slather steps, it just doesn’t taste right.
This. In fact I was thinking of posting a question about why Maillard reaction products are so tasty but I might as well piggyback on this one. You see, the local CostCo has started offering Boudin sourdough bread and having lived in the Bay Area, I instantly added it to my staples list.
Since they are boules, this morning I was at that awkward stage where the slice is too long to fit into the toaster properly yet too short to make both pieces easy to retrieve. I applied my usual solution which was to cut the slice off-center so the one piece was toaster-size, and simply butter the other piece (I prefer unsalted) and eat it while I waited for the toaster to popup. While this was fine (I mean, come on, this is San Francisco sourdough!) it did not reach the toasted piece’s status of sublime.
This got me to wonder. Why are Maillard compounds so tasty? It’s not just bread. I remember in the Aubrey/Maturin books where they had obtained a supply of breadfruit and the officers relished eating it sliced and toasted, but there wasn’t on hand to include the enlisted men (Killick got some, of course).
The advanges of cooked food (especially meat) taste and nutrition-wise are quite apparent, but what in our, perhaps distant, past has led us to dote on almost-burnt stuff?
If you are a line cook making breakfast for eighty people, you are trying not to burn the bacon and eggs. You have to make pancakes and French toast to order. So certain things are lower priority. Home fries are awful when they have been sitting around, but they fill up a plate and customers don’t complain. Toast might be off a conveyor belt and customized dark or light toast more work — you can easily do it but need a good reason to bother.
Toast is a perfect analogy for why freshly prepared food is generally better than buffets.