Milk toast is a breakfastfood consisting mainly, though not entirely, of toastedbread dipped in or covered in hot milk into which a small amount of butter has been melted. Cinnamon and raisins may be added. Milk toast was a popular food throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century, especially for young children and for the ailing, for whom the food was thought to be soothing and easy to digest. Although not as popular today, milk toast is still considered a comfort food.
The celebrated food writerM. F. K. Fisher called milk toast a "warm, mild, soothing thing, full of innocent strength," and wrote, of eating milk toast in a famed restaurant with a convalescent friend, that the food was "a small modern miracle of gastronomy." She noted that milk toast was "an instinctive palliative, something like boiled water."
Milk toast's soft blandness inspired the timid and ineffectual comic strip character Caspar Milquetoast, drawn by Harold Webster from 1924 to 1952. The term "milquetoast" is still used today to refer to a timid, shrinking, apologetic person.
Milk Toast in Asia
There is a dessert called milk toast which is served in many Asian milk tea cafes, including in Asia and the US. It consists of bread or toast with condensed milk on top. Often the condensed milk is flavoured, such as fruit, taro, or green tea flavors.
