Toad in the hole
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Toad in the hole is a traditional British<ref name="Ayto2012">Template:Cite book</ref> dish consisting of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with onion gravy and vegetables.<ref name="Baines2014">Template:Cite book</ref> Historically, the dish has also been prepared using other meats, such as rump steak and lamb's kidney.
HistoryEdit
18th century originsEdit
Batter puddings became popular in the early 18th century.<ref name="Davidson2014">Template:Cite book</ref> Cookery writer Jennifer Stead has drawn attention to a description of a recipe identical to toad in the hole from the middle of the century.<ref name="Stead1985">Template:Cite book</ref>
Dishes like toad in the hole appeared in print as early as 1762, when it was described as a "vulgar" name for a "small piece of beef baked in a large pudding".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Toad in the hole was originally created as a way to stretch out meat in poor households.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Chefs therefore suggested using the cheapest meats in this dish. In 1747, for example, Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery listed a recipe for "pigeon in a hole", calling for pigeon rather than sausages.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
19th centuryEdit
In 1852, Charles Elmé Francatelli wrote in his A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, of "a cheap dinner" made from "6d. or 1s." worth of bits or pieces of any kind of meat" baked in a nutmeg-seasoned Yorkshire or suet pudding batter.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management of 1861, listed two recipes: "a homely but savoury dish" from rump steak and sheeps's kidney, and another made with cold mutton with kidneys, oysters or mushrooms.<ref name="Beeton">Template:Cite book</ref> In Pellegrino Artusi's La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well) of 1891, this dish was described as "lesso rifatto all'inglese" (re-cooked meat in the English style) or rospo nella tana, which was mistranslated as "toad in the bole".<ref name="Artusi2015">Template:Cite book</ref> In this recipe from the first modern Italian cookbook, after being browned, the seasoned, thinly-sliced meat was sprinkled with Parmesan cheese before being cooked in batter.<ref name="ArtusiBaca2003">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Artusi2015"/>
20th centuryEdit
During World War I, school children were often fed toad in the hole for the midday meal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
21st centuryEdit
In 2017, a marketing survey found that 23% of British people had never tried toad in the hole.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In the 21st century, vegetarian and vegan versions of toad in the hole appeared. These included vegan versions made with Linda McCartney Food's vegan sausages<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and a vegetarian version published by Ravinder Bhogal that combined toad in the hole with cauliflower cheese.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
NameEdit
The dish with left over meat was originally not called toad in the hole. In the 1787 book A Provincial Glossary by Francis Grose, for example, "toad in a hole" was referred to as "meat boiled in a crust", though a 28 September 1765 passage in The Newcastle Chronicle reads, "No, you shall lay on the common side of the world; like a toad in a hole that is bak'd for the Devil's dinner". The first appearance of the word "hole" in the dish's name, not counting Pigeons in a Hole found in the cookbook by Hannah Glasse, appeared in the 1900 publication Notes & Queries, which described the dish as a "batter-pudding with a hole in the middle containing meat".<ref name=":0" /> Despite popular belief, there is no record of the dish ever being made with toad.<ref name=":0" />
The origin of the name is unclear, but it may refer to the way toads wait for their prey in their burrows, with their heads poking out, just as sausages peep through the batter.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="McCorquodale2009">Template:Cite book</ref> It may also derive from the "living entombed animal" phenomenon of live frogs or toads supposedly being found encased in stone, which was a popular hoax / false belief of the late 18th century.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The term is sometimes used for "egg in the basket" (an egg fried in a hole of a slice of bread).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>