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This has been a bit of a confusing day. It started great. But now I’m not sure what to believe anymore.
It’s St. George’s Day, the day to honour the patron saint of England. It’s also English muffin day. So I was thinking I could honour St. George by having an English muffin. I like English muffins, so that would be a good fit. But when I looked into it a bit, neither one of them is English. Maybe. Well, definitely George.
St. George was thought to be a man of Greek heritage who became a Roman soldier, but was martyred for refusing to recant his Christian faith. And that whole bit with the slaying of the dragon? Pretty unlikely that ever happened. But he is the Patron Saint of England. And Ethiopia. And a few cities around Europe. And he was known to answer prayers and protect armies. Like the English army during the crusades. But he wasn’t English and never set foot in England. But in the 1300s, when Edward III came up with England’s highest chivalric order, the Order of the Garter, George was the patron saint. It was a couple different kings around this time who ended up making George the patron saint of England.
But the real surprising fact was that English muffins aren’t really English. It was invented by a man from England, but he had left England and was living in New York at the time he came up with them. And they are now served pretty much world wide. I mean, what’s a weekend brunch without Eggs Benedict?
Supposedly, the English muffin was invented by Samuel Bath Thomas, who was an Englishman living in New York looking to come up with an alternative to the crumpet. Crumpets have baking soda. English muffins use yeast or sourdough. Crumpets have the little holes on top, English muffins have them inside.
The story is the English muffin was made in New York somewhere in the mid to late 1800s, and took many years to make an appearance in England. But there are also earlier stories of muffins and crumpets being sold door to door by Muffin Men in England before this period, so maybe Samuel Thomas just had a better PR person and kind of took credit form himself and the truth is lost to history. We may never know for sure.
But one thing that is known. You don’t use a knife to open an English muffin. And those precut English muffins? They are simply wrong. And it’s all down to those interior bubbles in the muffin. Cutting tends to destroy the little bubbles. It smooths them out so they don’t manage to pick up quite as much butter and jam or whatever else is being spread on your muffin. The proper way is to use a fork and work your way around the muffin, pulling it open with your fingers to preserve all those little holes to accept your spread.
It may or may not be English, but it sure is tasty.
