English muffins - they are NOT American

"I have been pretty sniffy about muffins in my time, and especially their name. A true muffin, the split, toasted and buttered sort, is a thing of bliss on an autumn afternoon and has nothing to do with the overblown fairycake from other shores. " Nigel Slater

Well we've done the 'overblown fairy cake', which does indeed seem to be American, and now I'm doing the 'true' muffin - the English muffin. Which, it turns out the Americans also claim to be an American invention. Which is rubbish.

This is how their story goes:

"In 1874, Samuel Bath Thomas emigrated to the United States from Plymouth, England. He invented "toaster crumpets" at his bakery in New York City. They were thinner than a traditional English crumpet and pre-cut (or fork-split) so they could be pulled apart easier. This gives the inside a rougher surface ... The term 'English Muffin' began and was trademarked in 1926. It states the name was first used in 1894 so that's when Thomas' English Muffins were officially born." Just a Pinch

Now this may all be true in the sense that Mr. Thomas did produce them and that he did coin the name 'English muffin' - after all, to the English it would just be a muffin would it not? But as to him inventing it, not so. Definitely not so.

Interestingly in a British article which also refuted the American story, the writer - a Brit - did say that the American ones were better (the Thomas company still makes them).

"without exception, present-day British English muffins DO NOT have ‘nooks and crannies’. Our crumpets have stolen them all. Which is, frankly, a national disaster. Our English muffins are good America, but yours are even better." The BS Historian

And when I was reading Elizabeth David's chapter on muffins and crumpets I found a similar sentiment but from as far back as 1899:

"It has been claimed for the British baker that he alone can make a muffin; but it is almost to be feared, if this ever were so that the prestige has passed over to America, where muffins are made of various flours, and so light and digestible that it is a question if they are not rather an American dish." Theodore Francis Garrett, - The Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery, 1899

Well I don't know about that, but the ones you buy here are perfectly fine it seems to me. And besides the Americans didn't always like them either:

"a great disappointment, tough and tasteless, with a flavour about them as of scorched flannel" What Katy Did Next

I am basing my dispute with the American story on Elizabeth David, who has a whole chapter on muffins (the English kind), crumpets and pikelets in her learned tome English Bread and Yeast Cookery. I found it really interesting, so excuse me for potentially boring you here. First of all she maintains that they are ancient.

"Although both muffins and crumpets must be of considerably earlier origin, recipes for them do not appear to have reached the published cookery books much before the eighteenth century." Elizabeth David

But even the eighteenth century is well before the 1894 American origin story. Besides what about that children's nursery rhyme 'Have you seen the muffin man?' There is quite a lot of pictorial evidence of muffin men selling their wares well before 1894 - I thought this one was the best.

Mind you she also seems to think that muffins have disappeared from English shops.

"Muffins one rarely sees - although Sainsbury's sell packets of a thing they call a muffin - and hears about only when the spasmodic wave of nostalgia for bygone popular specialities breaks over the British Press and its cookery contributors, when there is much talk of the muffin-man and his bell from feature writers far too young ever to have heard that bell or eaten the wares which the muffin-man cried through the streets."

Mind you - she was one of those cookery writers too. But before she launches into her list of examples, she succinctly describes the problems of talking about any 'traditional' recipe.

"Should muffins and crumpets be split and/or toasted or should they not? Are muffins and crumpets made from identical ingredients? If so, what are they? Flour, yeast, water, salt? Or flour and yeast plus milk, fat and eggs? Or flour, fat and eggs with a chemical raising agent? Anybody who knows the answers to more than two or three of these queries is wiser than I, although not necessarily more certain of their own beliefs than professional bakers, cooking-school teachers, contributors to Women's Institute recipe anthologies and such redoubtable authorities on English household cooking as Florence Jack, Florence White and Dorothy Hartley." Elizabeth David

David then goes on to reproduce various recipes beginning with the very first printed one from Hannah Glasse in 1747.

I'm going to reproduce that recipe here in full, not for the recipe so much but more as a demonstration of how skilled those early cooks must have been to produce good food with such primitive equipment. You can skip this if you like.

TO MAKE MUFFINS AND OATCAKES, 1747

To a bushel of Hertfordhire white flour, take a pint a nd a half of good Ale Yeast, from pale Malt, if you can get it, because it is whitest; let the Yeast lie in Water all Night, the next day pour off the water clear, make two gallons of water just Milk-warm, not to scald your Yeast, and two Ounces of Salt; mix your water, Yeast and salt well together for about a Quarter of an Hour; then strain it and mix up your Dough as light as possible, and let it lie in your Trough an Hour to rise, then with your Hand roll it, and pull it into little pieces about as big as a large Walnut, roll them with your Hand like a ball, lay them on your Table, and as fast as you do them lay a Piece of Flannel over them and be sure to keep your Dough covered with Flannel; when you have roiled out all your Dough begin to bake the first, and by that time they will be spread out in the right Form; lay them on your Iron; as one side begins to change Colour turn the other, and take great care they don't burn or be too much discoloured, but that you will be a Judge of in two or three Makings.

Take Care the Middle of the Iron is not too hot, as it will be, but then you may put a Brickbat or two in the Middle of the Fire to slacken the Heat.

When you eat them toast with a Fork crisp on both Sides then with your Hand pull them open, and they will be like a Honeycomb; lay in as much Butter as you intend to use, them clap them together again, and set it by the Fire. When you think the Butter is melted turn them, that both sides may be buttered alike, but don't touch them with the Knife, either to spread or cut them open, if you do they will be heavy as Lead, only when they are quite buttered and done, you may cut them across with a Knife."

The general opinion as to how to eat them is not to split them until after you have toasted both sides - then split them and butter them.

"Muffins should not be split and toasted. The correct way to serve them is to open them slightly at their joint all the way round, toast them back and front, tear them open and butter the insides liberally. Serve hot." Marian McNeill - The Book of Breakfasts, 1932

Most of the photos I found though obviously split them and then toasted them. And you must split them by hand - that way the surface is rougher with the 'nooks and crannies' that everyone talks about. Elizabeth David even found somebody recommending our way to 'refresh' them if stale.

"Muffins, rolls or bread, if stale, may be made to taste new, by dipping in cold water, and toasting, or heating in an oven, or Dutch oven till the outside is crisp." Maria Eliza Rundell - A New System of Domestic Cookery, 1806

And that definitely does work.

Having read all this I think the main things that distinguish a muffin from flat rolls, say is that they are not baked in the oven but cooked on a griddle and second that the outsides are dusted with something. According to one of Elizabeth David's recipes this is rice flour, but I did also see a reference to maize flour/polenta somewhere. I suspect the ones we can buy here use rice flour, or maybe semolina. Whatever it is is it's more grainy than ordinary flour but not as yellow or flavourful as polenta.

The other thing is that nowhere did I see how they made them split so easily. The ones you buy in the shop already have a sort of cut all around the side. Do they do this when they have been cooked or when you shape them? Do you do anything at all?

I confess I'm not about to launch into making any, but I do like them every now and then. These days I suspect their use is mostly in the making of Eggs Benedict and other such breakfast dishes, or as mini pizza bases. But they are nice with butter and jam.