Honestly, imagine having a type of toast named after you. Not just any toast, but a toast used around the world, adored and inherent; one that pairs so elegantly with potted shrimp and various pâtés. The great chef Auguste Escoffier boasted a catalogue of culinary triumphs. His 1897 conjuring of melba toast out of yesterday’s bread — sustainability and all that, nothing new — is one of the more famous. In one kitchen years ago I was required to construct little toast bowls, each one a patchwork of triangle-cut sliced white, to be filled with crab mayonnaise. Tedious work, but good work.
I didn’t know then that melba toast was named after the Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, real name Helen. She’s been honoured again, this time by Jeremy King with Nellie’s Tavern below Simpson’s in the Strand. Find it in the basement, under the Grand Divan and two floors beneath Romano’s, which incidentally is the latest London establishment to put the Hemingway daiquiri on the menu. Have it before the Pink ‘Un, or crayfish and tomato soup. Works well.
