1684: french toast Jul 25, 2019

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In Cantonese, bread coated in egg to be fried is called 'sāidōsí' (西多士) meaning 'western toast'; in the US it is called 'French toast', yet in France it is called 'pain pardu' ('lost bread'). Indeed, it has gone under other names such as 'German bread' or even 'Spanish bread', but the French term may be more accurate, because no one is totally sure where it is from. There are even more names in other languages each pointing to different places or cultures, but in truth the idea of soaking stale bread and frying it until it's edible is goes back so many hundreds of years that it doesn't really matter. What may matter is that even though 'French toast' won out over 'German toast', for a time many in the US wanted to call it 'freedom toast' to distance themselves after the lack of French combatance in the second Gulf War.
If you're interesting in going further with etymologies, watch the video below: https://youtu.be/AviuxNIvdPM

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