This is toast!

THIS IS TOAST!

Not all entries in Cassell's Household Guide are very illuminating. Pity the poor journalist obliged to concoct this literary masterpiece:-

Hot Buttered Toast.—The art of making really good toast is little understood, and this is largely the reason why it is so often denounced as unwholesome. A slice of bread burnt on the two outer surfaces, with its interior in a moist, waxy condition, has no right to be called toast, but is rather a compound of charcoal and tough, heavy, sodden dough, in which condition it is certainly and seriously unwholesome. But a slice of bread, not too thick, just browned on the outside, but thoroughly baked through, is wholesome and pleasant food, which may be fearlessly eaten. The way to toast bread thus is to keep it at the right distance from the fire, so that it may be toasted throughout before the outer surface is overdone — in other words, not to toast it too fast. Concerning the buttering of hot toast we may add another hint or two. An ill-toasted slice of bread does not absorb the butter, but allows it to remain in a mass on the surface. A slice of properly-toasted bread, on the contrary, allows the butter to permeate every part of it, and to all parts equally. Butter in the one case is too heavy for the stomach ; but when thus intimately associated with the whole mass of the food, in finely divided and proper proportions, its character is entirely changed, and it becomes wholesomely nutritious.