Melbatoast

Melba toast n.

Very thinly sliced crisp toast.

  [After Melba, Dame Nellie.]  

Word History: The familiar foods named for Helen Porter Mitchell are not recognizable as such unless one knows her stage name was Dame Nellie Melba. This famous opera singer of the late 19th and early 20th century, who took her last name from her native city of Melbourne, inspired others to honor her by naming things such as “soaps and sauces, ribbons and ruffles” after her. Perhaps the best known of such honors are Melba toast and peach Melba. Auguste Escoffier, the famous chef, is thought to have had a hand in both. Melba toast is said to be derived from the crisp toast that was part of Dame Melba's diet during the year 1897, a year in which she was very ill. The hotel proprietor César Ritz supposedly named it in a conversation with Escoffier. Pêche Melba was said to have been created by Escoffier for an 1892 party honoring the singer at the Savoy Hotel in London, although neither Escoffier nor Melba agreed with this version of events. Peach Melba is first recorded in English in 1905 (in the form Pêches à la Melba) and Melba toast in 1925.

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