Talk:French toast

Please fix "Variations" section
This section is messed up. Can someone fix it. It states "The hard bread is softened by dipping in a mixture of milk and eggs, and then fried." and then "The bread is sliced on a bias and dipped into a mixture of egg, milk, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. The slices are pan-fried in butter...". This is very poor editing on someone's part. 207.131.251.16 (talk) 23:40, 12 November 2015 (UTC) Thomas

Dry bread vs stale bread.
Under preparation and serving, dry bread and stale bread are made appear to be synonymous terms, which they are not. Which is better for french bread? I do not know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.183.249 (talk) 04:22, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Cornell University: Wikipedia Class Project
Cornell University: Wikipedia Class Project

We are Cornell students all enrolled in a class called Online Communities. Here is a link to our class page. Education Program:Cornell University/Online Communities (Fall 2013)

For one of our class assignments we have to pick a C-Class article on Wikipedia and expand, edit, and elaborated it to create a better article. Lauren and I are both Communications majors and Royce is an Information Science major. We are relatively new to Wikipedia so please be patient with us and help guide us in the right direction if we are doing something wrong! 0 Fun fact, Jesus Christ ate this eggy bread/french toast/gypsy toast the day before he was crucified he ate this for breakfast. Jesus was so full he decided to just have bread and wine for his dinner commonly known as his last supper. This is why this is called soul food and is commonly eaten with kentucky fried chicken. It was called Jesus Crust for hundreds of years afterwards but eventually became Nun's bread in Monastery circles. Source: French toast in ancient Rome - http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq1.html#frenchtoast    #yoloswag sswweervve  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.245.41.193 (talk) 12:43, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

We will be working on elaborating on all the sections with more specific details. We will also be working to incorporate more references into the articles as well as images. We are still collecting sources so as we get more we will make sure to post them so everyone can know where we are getting our information from.

Shannon: I will be working on elaborating on the preparation and variations of French Toast.

Lauren: I will be working on developing and elaborating more on the history of French Toast. For example: where it came from and how the name was developed.

Royce: I will be making sure that all the formatting is correct because I am familiar with coding and using the Wikipedia language. I will also be elaborating with the Pain perdu section as well as adding a recipe section — Preceding unsigned comment added by ShannonClare06 (talk • contribs) 17:15, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Feedback from Niteshgoyalwiki (talk)
 * Move the Template for Educational Assignment to the top of the Talk Page. It doesn't exist as of now.
 * There is a response in your talk page post to comments by Prof. Leshed - you should follow that to see what changes occurred and what needs to be done.
 * It will be a good idea to talk to other contributors (and the person who commented to Prof. Leshed) to follow up on suggestions and talk to other wikipedians about your concrete plans on what you want to add and modify in the article.
 * You might want to look at existing encyclopedias or food article written chefs about the variations of French Toast for content, in addition to content that you (will) propose.
 * Remember to nominate your article to did you know by the end of class on Oct 1. Niteshgoyalwiki (talk) 15:15, 1 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Feedback from Prof. Leshed
 * You have chosen an interesting article to expand! Here are some comments to help you get started:
 * Add the course assignment template at the top of the talk page.
 * Sign all posts on the talk page with four tildes ~ so that your post doesn't go "unsigned".
 * The mentors need more information beyond "we will be elaborating all the section with more specific details" - provide more information about what details you plan to add to which section. For example, Shannon, what details will you add to the preparation and variations of French Toast - what details are missing there that you are planning to add? Where will you be getting references from and images from?
 * Add a link to your user pages from this proposal.
 * Happy editing! LeshedInstructor (talk) 20:38, 26 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi students. I think your project sounds like a great idea - however, be aware that this article has been cleaned up significantly in the last year - see this version for a reference as to what was cut - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=French_toast&oldid=526280738 阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 10:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Professor! I was just catching up on your comments. I was busy studying and stressing over the LSATs so I did not have a ton of time to really digest everything. I wanted to see if some of the progress we made was okay. We have noted some more specific edits in the talk page and I am currently working on a rough draft of some of my parts in the sandbox. ShannonClare06 (talk) 01:11, 8 October 2013 (UTC)ShannonClare06


 * Cornell students, great to have you here. Contributing to a Wikipedia article on a topic is a great way to learn more about the topic, to understand how collaborative editing works, and to contribute to a great public resource.
 * Unfortunately, I must say that I am disappointed in the quality of the edits over the past few days. (Though I don't know if they're all by Cornell students.) Here are a few observations:
 * A lot of words have been added without adding new information, just repeating information that's already in the article, or simply being wordier.
 * There is plagiarized material. ("Linguistic evidence confirms these origins...")
 * Low quality and clearly silly sources are being used uncritically -- how can French toast be named for Joesph [sic] French of 1724 or to 1871 when the OED has a 1660 source?
 * General sloppiness: unclosed parentheses, spelling errors "Joesph", copy-paste of formatted text, losing the link "in the Middle Ages [8]", grammatical errors "There also appears [sic!] to be different dates for when the word French toast was first officially [?!] used."
 * Wikipedia formatting conventions are not being followed (e.g. put the period before the footnote) -- here, correct formatting was replaced by incorrect
 * Loose and unsubstantiated wording, e.g., "For a traditional version of French toast" -- see my essay '"Original", "traditional", "authentic", and other distracting terminology'
 * Peculiarly vague and unprofessional wording: "This recipe was utilized for the old-world elite..."
 * The unhelpful nutritional information, which I previously deleted, and discussed on the Talk page, was put back in without first discussing on Talk.
 * Normally, I would just delete the low-quality changes, but I'll leave them in for now and see where this goes. If I don't see improvements soon, I think the best way to proceed would be to create a sandbox page for you to work on, and restore the page to the last good version. --Macrakis (talk) 01:26, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Why Was The Content of This Article Cut Down?
Hi, my name is Royce and I'm in the group that took French Toast as a school project. I'm new to Wikipedia, and I'm wondering why the French Toast page was cut down so much from this-> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=French_toast&oldid=526280738, to what it is now. Could someone point me in the direction as to why? Thanks. Roycecab (talk) 19:21, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


 * There appears to have been several issues that were addressed in the recent edit storm:
 * The first appears to related to tone, the information was presented in a way that was not neutral. It was written more like a lifestyle article.
 * A lot of the content appears to have been original research, that is it was being used to present findings an author had researched themselves.
 * Much of the information appears to have been anecdotal, with no supporting sources.
 * Some of the data appears to have been outright wrong.
 * Does this analysis help? --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 19:56, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I looked over the old version. In terms of Wikipedia policy, the biggest problem with it is that much of the material doesn't have reliable sources. Substantively, a big problem is that it has a long section on variants in various countries presented as though there are distinct and distinctive variants in each country. This may or may not be true (I tend to doubt it and suspect that there is as much variation within countries as between them) and in any case is not well documented. The presentation of the name of the dish in various languages isn't really Wikipedia material either (though it may belong on Wiktionary); it would be more encyclopedic to say that there are families of names, e.g. "French toast", "lost bread", "poor knights" which appear in various languages. --Macrakis (talk) 04:10, 2 October 2013 (UTC)


 * By the way, some of the existing sources were pretty weak. I removed the Slate article for example, which is breezy and superficial, and replaced with much better references to medieval French and English practice.  --Macrakis (talk) 04:10, 2 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the help! We are working on finding some better references for the article! ShannonClare06 (talk) 01:12, 8 October 2013 (UTC)ShannonClare06

On editing
Hello all from Cornell, just a quick note on how and what to add to an article. There is a Good article in a similar vein that you might want to take a look at, Gumbo. This article is considered to be one of the articles on a particular dish on Wikpedia.

So here is what I recommend to you:
 * Use the following structure as a guideline:
 * Lead (WP:Lead)
 * Etymology
 * Variations
 * History
 * Preparation and serving
 * Social aspects
 * See also (WP:See also)
 * References (WP:Sources)
 * External links (WP:External links)

I am going to be unavailable until Thursday as I have a paper due Wednesday, so I will only respond lightly. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 05:58, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Cornell University class project beginning edits
Hello Wikipedians!

We are looking to re-organize the format of the French Toast page, we want to place the following sections in this order: Etymology, History, Nutrition, Preparation/Serving, Variations, and Social Aspects. To begin, we would like to add the basic nutritional facts set by the USDA. Another part of our class project was to nominate the page to Did You Know, which has been submitted as of October 1st, 2013. We noticed there is only basic background information regarding the National French Toast Day, so we plan on expanding more on this topic. Under the history section, we are going to elaborate on the first known origins of French Toast, dating back to Roman Times. We're going to start with a Roman variation of the meal, since this is where it originated.

This is our starting point, and will add more throughout the week! Laurenjlloyd (talk) 18:09, 1 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your interest in Wikipedia in general and the French toast article in particular. For prepared dishes like French toast, with a wide variety of recipes and ingredients, I strongly doubt that there is any meaningful nutritional analysis. It may be made with a huge variety of breads, different proportions of milk and eggs, different kinds of milk (skim to full-fat, maybe even cream...), different kinds and amounts of cooking fat (butter, lard, margarine), different temperatures of frying (which will affect how much fat is absorbed) and so on. --Macrakis (talk) 03:17, 2 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that insight. Yet the USDA does provide nutritional information for a certain preparation of french toast. Do you think that this is sufficient to include? Regardless, do you think that there is any medium by which we can find a true basis for french toast nutrition? I think it could really add to the page as nutrition in food is a big topic in itself. Thanks!Roycecab (talk) 18:55, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * No, I don't think it makes any sense. I am not sure what you mean by a "true basis for french toast nutrition".  As I said in my previous comment, recipes vary widely, so the nutritional content will vary accordingly. The USDA page gives the nutritional analysis for a 65g slice of French toast prepared with one particular recipe for French toast. There is no reason to believe that other recipes will have similar nutritional analyses, and certainly no reason to believe that typical slices of French  toast weigh 65g. --Macrakis (talk) 23:59, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I am specifically working with the introduction and the history/etymology. I have found that there are not a ton of scholarly references regarding French toast. Any advice? Also, I was looking to the Wikipedia article Gumbo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumbo) for some guidance as it was recommended as a good reference point. ShannonClare06 (talk) 01:16, 8 October 2013 (UTC)ShannonClare06


 * I see that you changed the article from saying that the earliest attestation of French toast is in the Apicius to claiming that its origins are Roman, which is a huge leap of original research (and in the process removed the wikilink to the Apicius page).
 * You call French toast a "meal"; it is not a meal, but a dish. A meal is something like lunch or dinner.  A dish is something like eggs Benedict or fried fish. A dish is typically a component of  meal.
 * For sources, take a look at WikiProject_Food_and_drink/Tools/sources. Cornell has excellent libraries -- use them! There is a huge amount of information that is not on the Web.
 * As for National French Toast Day, perhaps one reason there isn't much background information on it is that it isn't a very notable phenomenon to start with? Is it perhaps a promotion by some particular restaurant or chain? --Macrakis (talk) 04:37, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Photos
Hello Cornellians. I was wondering if you were aware of Wikipedia Commons? It is a repository of photographs that can be used in Wikipedia articles. If you do a web search for that website and search there for French toast you will see several photos relatede to this subject. Do you think any of them are useful or worth including? Candleabracadabra (talk) 02:25, 2 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello! We will be taking a close look at the photographs on the Wikipedia Commons.  Hopefully, some of them will be worth including because we really think that some photographs could make the article better.  ShannonClare06 (talk) 01:17, 8 October 2013 (UTC)ShannonClare06


 * Going along the lines of including pictures, are there standards to this? I can see many pictures that would be nice to include, but I am wondering if only relevant pictures should be included that tie to the text it stands next to. Are there norms to this, or is it more of a case by case basis? Thanks! Roycecab (talk) 19:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Have you looked at the Manual of Style Images section? Basically, images should add some useful information to the article and not be too repetitive.  The current number and variety of photos in the article seem to me about right.  The main thing that is missing is an example of savory French toast. --Macrakis (talk) 04:37, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Possible improvements

 * Do the opening paragraphs of the article do a good job of summarizing the rest of the contents of the article?
 * In the social aspects portion of the article there are a few links to other articles. Are these related to social aspects? Should these be in a different section (See also perhaps?) or maybe integrated into the article in some way? Should they be explained? What are these subjects and what do they have to do with French toast?
 * There is a sentence about French toast in Quebec. Is it in an appropriate section of the article?
 * There is a long list of toppings. Are all of these used to make french toast? I have never heard of french toast with cooked meat or beans. Who serves it that way? Is it a breakfast dish when prepared that way? Should some explanation be given of savory v. sweet preparations?
 * In your research what have you found out about French toast that isn't covered here?

Best of luck with you project. I will be watching and will try to respond where appropriate. Please let me know if I can be of any help. Candleabracadabra (talk) 02:32, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Course assignment
Hi Cornell folks working on this article. I see that you have been editing the article. Please make sure to be logged in when you are making edits so the teaching staff evaluating your work can attribute the contributions to you and give you credit for them. LeshedInstructor (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Cornell University Project: Thank You
We just would like to thank all the Wikipedia users for being helpful during the course of the project! Technically, the project ends today at 1:25pm. We learned a lot and it has been a wonderful experience being part of this online community.

Sincerely,

Shannon, Lauren and Royce

ShannonClare06 (talk) 13:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)ShannonClare06

Reliable sourcing needed for certain elements in the lead section

 * This seems like a rather silly dispute, but at any rate...


 * A statement in the article about the possible toppings on French toast was tagged (not by me) with better source, and I agreed and thus removed the statement. It was then reverted by, who suggested that I find a better source rather than deleting the info, as well as checking the talk page for a discussion on the situation. I then re-removed the info with the edit summary:

In the words of Template:Unreliable sources, "unreliable citations may be challenged or DELETED". And I see no relevant discussion on the talk page; if I missed it, please point it out to me.
 * Bienfuxia then re-reverted the info, as well as leaving a message on my talk page referring to this discussion. Okay, first of all, that discussion started in 2004, and it hasn't been touched since 2013. But more importantly, there is nothing there about improving the article; just random discussion about how to eat French toast. What is so difficult about waiting to reinstate the information when reliable sourcing can be found? (BTW, Bienfuxia, if you try to revert again, it will be a violation of WP:3RR.)  Erpert  blah, blah, blah... 05:05, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If you think this is a silly dispute then that's a fair enough call - I should point out, though, that you are the one aggressively pursuing it. The statement was there first, as a result of the discussion (as you say, beginning a decade ago, but indicating this is a genuine difference between the dish in the USA vs the UK & Australia), we looked for good sources, but these are difficult to find for articles on food. So you cut half of the lede and we're left with an incomplete article. So well done there. 阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 05:32, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What part of "unreliable citations may be deleted" are you not understanding? And removing that statement definitely doesn't make the article incomplete.  Erpert  blah, blah, blah... 07:07, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No need for that tone. I'm saying that the description came before the citation was added. Do you understand the difference between Template:Better_source and Template:Unreliable_source? The deletion discussion here - Templates_for_discussion/Log/2011_December_21 - sums it up pretty well. Am I going to have to stick a 'globalize' tag on here? The article is heavily US-centric without that sentence.阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 07:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You keep linking to years-old discussions, and consensus can change within that time period. Anyway, if you feel the need to add a globalize tag, have at it. (BTW, that sarcastic "so well done there" remark wasn't the warmest tone either.)  Erpert  blah, blah, blah... 03:55, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Why are you linking me to consensus can change? Where's this new consensus? Do you understand that it was Template:Better_source not Template:Unreliable_source? The difference is that 'unreliable' means you are questioning the veracity of the statement. I'm trying to make the article better here, no idea what you are doing.阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 06:48, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Deleting *citations* is different to deleting *the statement supported by the citation*. Personally, I reserve deletion of content that others have taken the time to create as the last resort, for when it can't be improved, and I've done due diligence to show that it's spam, vandalism, or simply irredeemably false. For everything else, I can tag to ask that the original authors of a passage do that due diligence for me. Delete-first seems an aggressive, confrontational approach to someone else's work: by destroying their work it's the contemptuous opposite of the edit-first approach, which cooperatively builds on that work.
 * As it is, because of deletions, the savory version of this dish is no longer mentioned on the page at all, backsliding from a position of truth to only giving half the truth.
 * So, I'm adding it right back in, but also adding refs from around the globe, including one from the BBC's Rachel Phipps (savoury: salt, pepper, ketchup), one from Jamie Oliver (sweet or savoury: salt, pepper), one from Australia (savory: salt, pepper), and one from Turkey (savory: chilli, cumin, mint, salt, pepper). I think that should cover all bases?
 * It's still not perfect (four refs is overkill, the last couple could probably go; refs in the lede are better in the body; etc). But it's inarguably better than just claiming the American way is the only way, which is what the page currently does. DewiMorgan (talk) 00:42, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Why and When Appear to Be Missing
Why is this particular dish called "French Toast?" When was it named "French Toast?" I read the Gumbo article and that sort of information is included in the first paragraph.Selesindrin (talk) 20:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Stale sliced bread
Hold on, how could this be a historical French dish used to preserve stale bread when it requires the bread to be sliced before it stales (try slicing stale bread and see what happens)? Historical people didn't ever slice their bread and then leave it unused, right? At least, not often enough to have a dish based around recycling it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.204.139 (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Slicing crusty, stale bread is why bread-knives are serrated :) DewiMorgan (talk) 07:12, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * In France stale bread is 1 day old bread ~ the french like their bread made daily ~ they are talking about what to use the stale (day old bread) for the next day ~ ~mitch~ (talk) 21:36, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Pain perdut in the History section
15 century English recipes are mentioned. There is a 12th century troubadour known as Marcabru who is believed to be from Gascony and was at first nicknamed Pan-perdut. This is likely the Old Occitan (Old Provencal) cognate of pain perdu although the context may or may not have been the same.Halconen (talk) 19:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Is milk required?
Milk makes the eggs go further, helps them to soak into the bread with less beating, and a pre-soak in milk allows the bread to change its texture. I don't believe it's required: some recipes omit it. But I'd say it's more common than the other optional ingredients, like the various herbs and spices, cheese, syrups, etc. The log shows: ...and it's been that way ever since. I think this edit history doesn't support a consensus that milk is a required ingredient, but I think "often" was fine, maybe even "typically": "bread soaked in eggs, typically with milk". Typically has the advantage that it's a harder, more specific term, so less likely to be silently removed. I think I'd have a very hard time providing a good canonical reference saying milk's definitively not required, however, since proving a negative is troublesome. I can find many online recipes which exclude milk, but not from any chefs or cookbooks with a well-known reputation. There are certainly good references from reputed cooks giving recipes that include milk, but I also can't find any references that say all eggy-bread recipes worldwide must include milk, nor that a recipe without milk would not be considered "eggy bread" by anyone. So that's my rationale for editing to use "typically", and creating an "optional ingredients" section in the sidebar. But I know it's far from an ideal rationale, hence writing it here for discussion. DewiMorgan (talk) 02:11, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 2003 Jan 30 - Page created, giving ingredients as "bread and eggs, often also with milk and spices".
 * 2015 Jul 12 - Sidebar amended to add "often milk" in the "main ingredients" section.
 * 2015 Dec 6 - Sidebar amended to remove the word "often", by an IP editor.
 * 2016 Nov 3 - Lede amended to add a preliminary "milk-soaking" step, by an IP editor.
 * 2017 Sep 17 - Lede amended to "eggs whisked with milk".
 * 2017 Oct 21 - Lede amended to "eggs and milk".

Is the De re coquinaria of Apicius legitimately talking about eggy bread, or just milk bread?
Both references for the quote derive from the 1936 translation by Joseph Dimmers Vehling. A somewhat better copy of Vehling can be found on Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29728

Vehling's translation says: "Break [slice] fine white bread, crust removed, into rather large pieces which soak in milk [and beaten eggs] fry in oil, cover with honey and serve." - I have corrected the quote here to include these square braces, but done nothing further, as deletion would only be backed by OR.

The items in square braces are the translator's notes and additions to the text. Of this text, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/home.html writes:

"The Hill edition, while adequate, is not as good as it could have been, however. It does not provide a Latin text, is said to be based on inferior manuscript tradition, and Vehling's translation is quirky and inconsistent. The best full English translation of Apicius seems to be that of Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum, published in 1958." - I have not got a copy of this translation, and can't find one online.

The Latin is also there, in what looks like a 1920 transcription collated from multiple sources (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16439/16439-h/16439-h.htm#bk7), and for this passage it says: "Aliter dulcia: siligineos rasos frangis, et buccellas maiores facies. in lacte infundis, frigis, ex [in] oleo, mel superfundis et inferes." Close as I can tell, with negligible Latin, this translates to "Another sweetmeat: wheat bread break, into bits more big. In milk immerse, cool, take from oil, honey on top the dish." Or more grammatically: break bread into big chunks, soak in cool milk, cook in oil, sprinkle with honey".

It bears the annotation "ex Vo, et in EV |" which I suspect is referring only to the word "[in]", and which I interpret from the intro notes to mean "from Vollmer, a copy in the Vatican, and a copy in Cheltenham", but the intro notes that explain the annotation key are in abbreviated Latin too, translated into a kind of ascii art table, so it's really hard to tell.

To me, this doesn't look like eggs are involved at all. That's just something Vehling made up. But maybe "in lacte infundis" implies egg in some way that only a classical Latin speaker would get?

So like I said, I haven't done anything beyond this, and don't think I can as it would be OR, but I'm decently convinced that Vehling's translation and claim are incorrect. DewiMorgan (talk) 06:49, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Gypsy toast
I can't find any specific source that says WHO first called it gypsy toast, or when, or why, but if you do a simple Google search for "gypsy toast" you will find many, many hits, including many recipes for it. Some of them appear to date back at least several years and all of them seem to be reputable enough. Unless we can definitely show that it was introduced into WP by a vandal and THEN outsiders started calling it by that name because of the WP source, I would be inclined to leave it in. And keep looking.... (Just looked at my magisterial M-W Unabridged of 1940 and *IT* has "french toast" but not "gypsy toast". Hayford Peirce (talk) 20:46, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Just did a careful examination of the History of the phrase "gypsy toast" in the Wikipedia article, and it was only inserted about a week ago. So my speculation that *other* sources were using WP in order call their recipes "gypsy toast" was wrong. You can find internet recipes for "gypsy toast" going back at least five years or more. Hayford Peirce (talk) 20:56, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Google Books finds mentions of Gypsy toast more than 10 years old:
 * Nigella Lawson, 2010
 * Élodie Bonnet, 2006
 * It's even mentioned in a Gypsy cookbook, Gypsy Feast, 2004 p. 77
 * That said, Gypsy toast can also mean other things
 * A "toast" for drinking (supposedly) used by Gypsies
 * a recipe involving stewed tomatoes
 * fried eggs and toast
 * bread fried in some chicken/goose fat and garlic, in a Hungarian cookbook p. 253
 * But it is not a very common name, so it's not clear that it belongs in the article at all. --Macrakis (talk) 22:21, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. Unless there are some actual British restaurants that list it on their menus as "gypsy toast", I would remove it. A few websites are not enough. Hayford Peirce (talk) 15:18, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi Nice to meet you all! ~ this source here mentions Gypsy toast as one of the names. Regards ~mitch~ (talk) 16:29, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It was added to the article in 2013. Gypsy/Gipsy toast/bread does seem to have some currency, but it is rare in Google Books, and doesn't seem to appear in standard references (OED, Oxford Companion to Food, etc.). Maybe the original adder can give us some more background.
 * Mitchellhobbs, random newspaper articles are not great sources for things like this. There's a good chance that the reporter relied on WP for those names. --Macrakis (talk) 16:34, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yea I kinda figured they might be off of WP ~ after I did some checking about the paper ~ it's a stand alone ~ that why I did not make it RS ~ Here is a little bit of reading, talking about North England I just started researching ~ ~mitch~ (talk) 16:40, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Although ~ the Daily Press owned by Tribune Publishing speaks of Gypsy toast in one of their articles, maybe an RS? ~mitch~ (talk) 17:05, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, THAT certainly seems like a reliable source. On the other hand, Newport News is in the United STATES, not the United KINGDOM. Hayford Peirce (talk) 17:12, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * LOL ~ Yea I'm still looking around the UK ` I got to go and run some errands ~ I'll do some more when I return ~ Nice to meet both of you all ~ ~mitch~ (talk) 17:35, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, so I guess I'm not going after all. "a tiny pot of home-made brown sauce to go with my gypsy toast" ~mitch~ (talk) 18:09, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Having a mother who cooked a lot and who read and used a lot of cookery book and magazines, having lived all round the UK, I am pretty sure 'Gypsy Toast' was not a UK thing until relatively recently. As in, it's an import via American media exposure, and celebrity chefs have included it in their books as it is something novel rather than traditional.   SandJ-on-WP (talk) 15:34, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

There should be an attempt to explain why “French toast” is so-named
This article offers no explanation as to why a dish that clearly wasn’t invented by the French is called “French toast”. From what I’ve read, there isn’t a definitive explanation, but the “most popular theory” is that it is named not after France, but some 18th-century American restauranteur called “Josef French”. People who read this article will want SOME explanation, and 1 or more of the strongest available should be provided—even if one has to qualify that no specific explanation has been solidly confined. It would be unfair to leave readers clueless when explanations—however inconclusive—exist. A topic called “Possible Derivations of the Name”—providing at least 1 theory, along with assessments of its/their reliability, would suffice. 24.112.172.98 (talk) 08:06, 2 March 2023 (UTC)


 * agreed! It's a weird omission. 119.18.0.30 (talk) 07:52, 15 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Do you have a reliable source for this?
 * As for "It would be unfair to leave readers clueless when explanations—however inconclusive—exist." That's not really the Wikipedia approach. If there are reputable writers who make plausible claims, that's one thing. But I can't find any trace of a Josef French, let alone of his being connected to this dish. --Macrakis (talk) 19:45, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Name
I keep seeing references to French toast being called eggy bread…seriously why would anyone with more than 3 brain cells call it eggy bread, it’s called French toast. 101.119.92.239 (talk) 08:42, 30 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Guessing because you live in Australia (according to your IP) rather than Northern England, where this is a common, uncontroversial name. 阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 00:28, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

French Toast APICIUS recipe includes [and beaten eggs] documented - revision needed
Directly taken from text translation includes [and beaten eggs] The Project Gutenberg eBook of Apicius: Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, by Joseph Dommers Vehling. ""'''[296] ANOTHER SWEET DISH ALITER DULCIA BREAK [slice] FINE WHITE BREAD, CRUST REMOVED, INTO RATHER LARGE PIECES WHICH SOAK IN MILK [and beaten eggs] FRY IN OIL, COVER WITH HONEY AND SERVE [1]. [1] “French” Toast, indeed!—Sapienti sat!'''"" see link https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm Pretzelfactory (talk) 14:17, 24 June 2024 (UTC)