Toast

Toast

A slice of bread, untoasted (left) and toasted (right)
Type	Bread
Main ingredients	Sliced bread

Toast is sliced bread about ¹⁄₂ inch (13 mm) thick that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning is the result of a Maillard reaction altering the flavor of the bread and making it firmer so that it is easier to spread toppings on it. Toasting is a common method of making stale bread more palatable. Bread is often toasted using a toaster, but toaster ovens are also used.

Toast is commonly eaten with butter or margarine and sweetened toppings, such as jam or jelly. Regionally, savoury spreads, such as peanut butter or yeast extracts, may also be popular. When buttered, toast may also be served as an accompaniment to savoury dishes, especially soups or stews, or topped with heartier ingredients like eggs or baked beans as a light meal. Toast is a common breakfast food. While slices of bread are most common, bagels and English muffins are also toasted. Scientific studies in the early 2000s found that toast may contain carcinogens caused by the browning process.

The word "toast", which means "sliced bread singed by heat" comes from the Latin torrere, "to burn". The first reference to toast in print is in a recipe for Oyle Soppys (flavoured onions stewed in a gallon of stale beer and a pint of oil) that dates from 1430. In the 1400s and 1500s, toast was discarded or eaten after it was used as a flavouring for drinksIn the 1600s, toast was still thought of as something that was "put it into drinks. Shakespeare gave this line to Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1616: "Go, fetch me a quart of Sacke [sherry], put a tost in 't." By the 1700s, there were references to "toast" as a gesture that indicates sexual attraction for a person: "Ay, Madam, it has been your Life's whole Pride of late to be the Common Toast of every Publick Table."