The Food Historian Blog – THE FOOD HISTORIAN

Eggs benedict is a classic brunch dish consisting of a toasted English muffin, a thin slice of lean ham (often Canadian bacon), a poached egg or two, and hollandaise sauce. Although I disdained it as a child, as an adult I have come to love eggs benedict and all of the variations that seem to crop up on the menus of brunch and breakfast places across the country. When planning this brunch, I knew I wanted to attempt a version of it. And although I sadly didn’t have the time or energy to do poached eggs (someday!), I did tackle a historic hollandaise sauce (recipe below) that worked marvelously. 

But before we get to the recipes, we of course have to look into the history! The history of eggs benedict is somewhat disputed, so I did my customary dive down the rabbit hole to see what I could find.

Eggs and ham have long been served together for centuries, and one of the earliest references I could find to poached eggs and ham comes from Hannah Glasse’s 1796 cookbook The Art of Cookery for “Collops and Eggs,” which calls for broiled bacon (English style, which is closer to Canadian bacon than American style), beef, or “hung mutton” topped with poached eggs. 

Hollandaise sauce likely dates to the 17th century, developed in France and named after the Dutch probably because of the use of butter but also because it may have been developed during the Franco-Dutch War. A version of it is mentioned in Pierre August Varenne’s cookbook, Le Cuisinier Francois (or, “The French Chef”), originally published in 1651. In this 1655 edition, we have a recipe for Asparagus with White Sauce (page 149), which includes instructions for the sauce, “make a sauce with very fresh butter, a little vinegar, salt, nutmeg, and an egg yolk to bind the sauce, which take care that it does not turn” (translated by the yours truly, with the assistance of Google Translate). Anyone who has tried to make hollandaise sauce knows that curdling the egg yolk is the biggest risk, as it can “break” or “turn,” in the words of Varenne.  

Although Delmonico’s claims to have invented what we know today to be eggs benedict as early as the 1860s, as is often the case, they present no hard evidence to support their claim. Gastro Obscura tackled the competing origin stories, but I have not been able to verify any of them. Suffice it to say that by the 1890s, eggs benedict was showing up in cookbooks. The 1897 Hood’s Practical Cookery contains a recipe for eggs benedict, which is mostly instructions for making hollandaise sauce, and then telling the reader to top a piece of toast with fried ham, a poached egg, and to cover with the sauce. An issue of Table Talk magazine, also from 1897, appears to lift the Hood’s recipe wholesale. 

Eggs and How to Use Them by Adolphe Mayer, published the following year in 1898, has a whole host of recipes using poached eggs, including eggs benedict and many variations, such as:

• eggs Blanchard, which is identical to eggs benedict except it calls for truffle sauce, instead of hollandaise
• eggs Celestine, which is identical except it calls for white sauce with cheese, and is then broiled
• eggs Coquelin, which is eggs benedict “garnished with quartered artichoke bottoms tossed in butter”

The list goes on and on, including several using croquettes or chicken forcemeat, which made my decision not to use ham all the more interesting. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first, the hollandaise!

I had never made hollandaise sauce before, but with my usual learn-by-doing verve, I tackled this 1905 recipe from the Boston Cooking School Magazine.  

This recipe for Eggs Benedict came from the October, 1905 issue of the Boston Cooking School Magazine, in the “Seasonable Recipes” section. The original recipe called for thin slices of ham and poached eggs. Alas, between making everything else, I did not have the energy for poached eggs, and I decided to substitute the ham with walnut sausage (recipe below). But the hollandaise sauce recipe was an interesting one, so I decided to give it a go. Here’s the original:

“Make the sauce by beating one-fourth a cup of butter to a cream and, after beating in the yolks of two eggs, with a dash of salt and pepper, cooking the mixture with one-fourth cup of boiling water and a tablespoonful of lemon juice over hot water until it thickens.”

Normally hollandaise sauce is made by whisking melted butter, lemon juice, and egg yolks directly over a double-boiler or bain-marie – without hot water. This recipe intrigued me, and although it was extra work, it did not break and turned out very well indeed. Here’s the modern version:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 egg yolks
salt & pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup boiling water

Using small glass bowl and an electric mixer, cream the butter until soft and fluffy, then add egg yolks, salt, and pepper, and beat well, scraping down the sides of bowl as necessary. In the meantime, heat a saucepan of water over medium-low heat until steaming, but not boiling. Separately, set an electric or stovetop kettle to boil water. When the water in the saucepan is simmering, place the glass bowl over the saucepan and whisk in the boiling water and lemon juice. Continue whisking until the mixture (it will be very watery at first) is thickened. When done, remove from heat and prepare the rest of the eggs benedict ingredients. 

The original recipe says it makes enough for three eggs, but we found it made enough for more than four, as we had four eggs between we three, and we still had hollandaise sauce left over for seconds of the walnut sausage. I would say this recipe would easily cover 6 eggs (or three peoples’ worth of a typical eggs benedict serving). 

Although it was finicky to beat the butter before adding the egg yolks, even with an electric mixer, it turned out very well. The addition of the boiling water did not overcook the egg yolks, and even though it probably took longer for the sauce to thicken over the double boiler, it did not break. It is important to remove the bowl from the double boiler when the sauce is thick enough, so it doesn’t continue cooking. The sauce also held well, requiring only an occasional whisk before serving.

As mentioned earlier, I decided not to poach the eggs for the benedict, and so on an electric skillet I fried two eggs over hard for the husband, scrambled the two leftover egg whites for our friend, and fried one egg over easy for myself (I like a not-too runny yolk). I had toasted whole wheat English muffins earlier and they were kept warm in the oven, along with the walnut sausages. I topped the muffins with the sausage, eggs, and then poured the hollandaise sauce over. Because the eggs were not poached, they were a smidge dry. I should have buttered the English muffins first, but overall it was delicious!

So why didn’t I use ham? Let’s explore some of my favorite food history…

Vegetarian meat substitutes were becoming increasingly popular in the 20th century. John Harvey Kellogg, as a Seventh-Day Adventist, was a vegetarian, and he and his wife Ella Kellogg wrote a number of treatises and cookbooks on vegetarian food and healthful eating. But starting in the 1890s they also produced mock meat commercially, including nuttose and protose, the former made from peanuts, and the latter from peanuts and wheat gluten. In the 1920s apparently they even introduced Smokene, a ham variant that was closest in texture to deviled ham or SPAM. 

But it wasn’t just religious people and health nuts who were interested in meat substitutes. The advent of the First World War increased interest in meat alternatives as Americans were asked to go “meatless” in addition to “wheatless” on certain days of the week. “Mock” meat had been a popular budget-extender in the 19th century, particularly with croquettes, mock oysters, mock duck, and bean-based dishes like “Boston Roast,” a kidney bean and cheese loaf that gained popularity during and after World War I. Most vegetarian mock meats were reliant on combinations of legumes, nuts, grains (usually breadcrumbs), and cheese. Many were relatively flavorless, as with “Boston Roast,” recipes for which generally call for no seasonings other than perhaps some onion, and to be served with tomato sauce. Some, such as mock sausage, did. In the immortal words of my husband, “sausage is just sh*tty meat with spices,” and therefore, it stands to reason that the spices make up most of the flavor. I’ve expressed my love for leguminous sausages before (lentilwurst, lentilrizo, lentils wellington, etc.), but I wanted to try a new historical recipe.

Enter Chef Arthur Wyman, with a recipe for walnut sausage from his 1927 cookbook, Chef Wyman’s Daily Health Menus. Wyman had two entire sections on meat substitutes, one of which included this recipe.

Chef Wyman’s original recipe reads:

One-half cup dried lima beans, one-third cup bread crumbs, three tablespoons milk, one-quarter teaspoon pepper, one-quarter teaspoon poultry seasoning, one-quarter teaspoon salt, one teaspoon vinegar, one egg, three-quarter cup walnut meats.

Pick over dried lima beans and soak over night in cold water to cover. Drain and cook in boiling salted water until soft; again drain and force through a puree strainer. Add fine, dried bread crumbs, milk, pepper, poultry seasoning, salt, vinegar, egg slightly beaten and finely chopped walnut meats. Shape like sausages, sauté in bacon, pork or sausage fat, browning on all sides. Serve with fried apple slices. Three-fourths cup left over fresh beans or mashed potato may be used in place of dried lima beans.

And here’s my adapted recipe:

1 can (14 oz) butter beans
1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
3/4 cup walnut meats
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of dried sage
pinch of dried thyme
pinch of dried marjoram
olive oil & butter for frying

Pulse walnuts in a food processor but do not puree, and set aside. Drain and rinse butter beans, then puree in food processor. Mix walnuts, bean puree, egg, vinegar, milk, salt, pepper, and herbs until well combined, then stir in panko breadcrumbs to make a stiff dough. Form into patties and fry in butter and olive oil until brown on both sides. 

Lima beans and butter beans are close relatives, and the recipe called for replacing dried and cooked with fresh cooked. However, 1/2 cup of dried beans equals 1.5 cups cooked, so I’m not sure why Chef Wyman called for replacing them with only 3/4 cups of fresh beans, unless he meant before they were cooked? At any rate, most 14 ounce cans of beans equals approximately 1.5 cups, so I decided to use those. I also decided to use panko breadcrumbs, because they are the closest to breadcrumbs actually made from bread (panko is usually just wheat flour, water, and salt) and are available unseasoned. I did not fry them in pork fat because I wanted to keep them vegetarian, but definitely make sure you have plenty of olive oil and butter in the pan when frying. The second batch got a little dry. 

We served our eggs benedict (although perhaps with the replacement of ham with walnut sausage we should take a page from Adolphe Mayer and call them “Eggs Wyman!”) with some leftover grilled asparagus, which only seemed fitting given Varenne’s original 1655 recipe for Asparagus with White Sauce. They added color and delicious smoky flavor to the plate. Both the walnut sausage and the hollandaise sauce recipes I’ve shared here I recommend highly. Definitely give your own version of “Eggs Wyman” a try!

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for the final installment of our 1920s Health Brunch recipes series, as we’ll finish with recipes and some history for Fruit Puffs (1917) and stewed apricots with cream.

​Until next time!