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10 Sep 06 - 06:45 PM (#1831445) Subject: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Rapparee Azizi's thread on food memories reminded me that I wanted to see if anyone could contribute to this. Growing up in West-Central Illinois, on the banks of the BIG Muddy, my grandmother would sometimes prepare a dish called "Blind Fish." It was tasty, and later I learned another name for it: French Toast (or to you in the UK, Fried Bread). Much later I began wondering why Grandma called it "Blind Fish." My sister-in-law said that the name came from the fact that it was often served when a fisherman would come home empy-handed, or "blind." Has anyone heard of this? Could my SIL's explanation possibly be correct? |
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10 Sep 06 - 06:52 PM (#1831455) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST There is meal I heard about from a Maritime friend. It was Potatoes and Point. When I asked what Point was, I was told it was the bare spot where the meat or fish should have been. |
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10 Sep 06 - 07:03 PM (#1831465) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Bonecruncher Here in UK "French Toast" is usually bread dipped in beaten egg, then fried. I understand it came about during WW11 when food was rationed here. More people could be fed on a small amount of ingredients. Another one was Bread and Pullet. Hold the bread in your teeth and pull the crust! Colyn. |
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10 Sep 06 - 07:04 PM (#1831466) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST LOL Had lots of that when I was a kid. |
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10 Sep 06 - 07:37 PM (#1831493) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Sorcha Shit on a Shingle....chipped beef gravy (white sauce) over toast. |
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11 Sep 06 - 07:04 AM (#1831742) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: s&r Fsh (no i) Stu |
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12 Sep 06 - 07:02 AM (#1832502) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Hovering Bob That's awful Stu! Almost as bad as the 'bread and milk' my grandmother used to make me eat. BobH |
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12 Sep 06 - 07:13 AM (#1832511) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Grab Cooking a pie crust without a filling (you fill with rice or something similar to keep the crust from collapsing, then replace with the proper filling later) is called "blind baking". Maybe that's a link to the origin? Graham. |
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12 Sep 06 - 08:43 AM (#1832572) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Rapparee My mother and grandmother used to bake pie crusts that way (I don't know what they filled them with when they baked them), but they never called them much of anything other than "pie crusts" that I know of. Perhaps "Blind Fish" is too regional? And I've eaten "Spaghetti With Out Sauce". |
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12 Sep 06 - 11:19 AM (#1832693) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: dick greenhaus Back in the 1930s a depression meal was often a Western sandwich--two slices of bread with wide open spaces between thm. |
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12 Sep 06 - 02:50 PM (#1832849) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Uncle_DaveO When I was a kid, my step-father, an oldish Irishman, when talking about hard times and the like, would say, "When I was a kid, lots of times our supper was 'breaded nothing'." Dave Oesterreich |
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12 Sep 06 - 02:58 PM (#1832855) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Snuffy Bacon Shapes: fry a rasher of bacon and press it between two slices of bread. Remove bacon and give a slice of bread each to the kids. Put bacon between 2 more slices and give to father. |
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12 Sep 06 - 03:53 PM (#1832888) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Stilly River Sage Just so you're not scooping up pup fish to slap on the bread, Rapaire! I remember my mom telling us about food rationing and how it was portrayed during WWII. She loved to describe a scene from a wartime Betty Grable movie, in which the person cooking took a fat slice of bread, cut a square hole (maybe 1.5 x 1.5 inches) in the middle, put the bread on a griddle then broke an egg into the middle of the bread to cook in the hole. She said the audience in the theater would sigh with pleasure at the sight of that egg cooking. SRS |
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20 May 12 - 04:58 PM (#3353422) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST I had Blind Fish as a child. It was the same as French Toast. I mentioned it yesterday and nobody had ever heard of French Toast being called that. Glad someone else knows what I am talking about. I live in Missouri and my family is German. |
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22 Feb 13 - 06:33 PM (#3482631) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST,Monica My family hails from Southern Illinois. They are German and Catholic. The secret to the whole blind fish thing is Lent. You eat fish on Fridays, and french toast is an acceptable meatless alternative. In the early days of this tradition, loaves of bread were more elongated,and when dipped and fried looked very fish like. Hence, 'blind fish'. |
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16 Jun 13 - 08:45 AM (#3527004) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST Wow! My Grandmother used to call French toast Blind Fish because her mother did. They were German as well. I never understood why it was called that. Good to know others call it that as well. |
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25 Dec 13 - 10:37 AM (#3586533) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST,Guest Wow! Nobody I know has every associated "blind fish" with French toast! My grandmother called French toast blind fish as well. She was of Italian decent and very catholic. We are also from Missouri. |
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25 Dec 13 - 10:49 AM (#3586535) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST,IanG "Bobbies be some 'ot water and bread and sugar, sugar was 2d a pound and yo' could buy 'a'porth. We'd have bobby every mornin' only we knowed it was no good for we. It was bread and waiter but it was a banquet" George Dunn, chainmaker and singer, Quarry Bank, Dudley 1970 |
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25 Dec 13 - 11:36 AM (#3586542) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Rapparee Missouri and Illinois, in an area directly across from Missouri, and linked to those of German descent and possibly Catholic. Hmmm...Watson, there may be a clew here! |
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25 Dec 13 - 02:45 PM (#3586596) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Q (Frank Staplin) German Wikipedia article- Toast- "for a version made with spiced wine instead of milk: versoffene Jungfrau. or Drunken Virgin. blinde Fische, blind fish, for savory toast. reiche Ritter, rich Knights, toast served with jam or sauce. |
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25 Dec 13 - 06:28 PM (#3586616) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Joe_F There are actually blind fish. They live in the pools in caves. (That brings up a question I have never seen answered: Plenty of animals make light, but always to be seen by, never to see by. Why? A fish with a lamp might do very well in one of those dark pools.) French toast in the US means what Colin says it means in the UK (except that some milk is usually mixed with the egg). I had some this morning & did not consider it short rations. On the contrary, I have always considered it a luxurious breakfast. |
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25 Dec 13 - 07:06 PM (#3586619) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Reinhard I know this from my childhood as "Arme Ritter" (poor knights) as it was a way to make stale bread eatable. Maybe not short rations but definitely making good usage of available food. |
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31 Mar 14 - 10:20 AM (#3613963) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST,Karen My mother made "blind fish" on Fridays when I was growing up in Cincinnati. I never heard it called French toast till I was in high school. My family is also of German Catholic origin. |
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31 Mar 14 - 10:32 AM (#3613966) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Ebbie Back in 1880 when gold was first discovered in Juneau, Alaska, most of the miners went 'home' that first winter but some stayed over. Supplies were skimpy and one miner reported they had subsisted mainly on "snowballs and pepper." |
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02 Dec 14 - 01:03 PM (#3681842) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST, Dayton Ky/Cincinnati other side of river my parents full German on father, German/Scottish on my mother side. it was always call blind fish in our house and it would be served at suppertime on rare occasions , I liked it cause it was a sweet meal with the maple syrup. As being the youngest I spent the most time living with my Grandparents before going to school, I dont remember ever eating this there. Bread ( the heal was the best part for me.) dipped in scrambled egg no milk added. 2 second dip & flip and out into pan. none of my friends at school ever heard it call that so I always assumed it was a Scottish descent term rather than a German phrase, but I only had 1 Grandfather that served in WWI he got his citizenship by serving for the US Army from Scotland. He never made it to the front line but was stationed in France for the last 6 months of the war.. So did he bring the term with him and where did he get it from ..... hows that for guessing where the term originated |
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02 Dec 14 - 01:39 PM (#3681856) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Jack Campin I've never heard "blind fish" in Scotland, it's always "French toast" (though it's not very common here). |
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02 Dec 14 - 01:46 PM (#3681858) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST,Fred McCormick I've only just noticed this thread, so apologies if this has been said before. Here in Liverpool, the staple diet of the labouring poor was scouse, aka Irish stew or Lancashire hotpot. However, when times were particularly bad, the woman of the house would often find that she couldn't afford the price of meat - a very necessary ingredient. When that happened she'd serve up what was known as blind scouse, because you'd lose your eyes looking for the meat. |
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18 Jan 16 - 10:54 AM (#3766512) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST,Vicky Schmidt I am so glad to find this site.I was beginning to think I was crazy. My parents were both of German decent and I grew up calling french toast "blind fish". When I went into nursing and was passing out food trays I had the hardest time remembering to call it french toast. I would love to find out the origin of the term "blind fish". |
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19 Jan 16 - 03:27 AM (#3766600) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Harry Rivers "French toast"? Too posh! In our house (Black Country, UK) it was Eggy Bread. Harry |
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10 Feb 16 - 03:17 PM (#3771894) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST,Susan Cole We frequently had blind fish for dinner. I didn't know it was really what others call French toast until I left home. I come from a German family. Third generation. Still love blind fish. |
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10 Feb 16 - 06:07 PM (#3771921) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: Stilly River Sage Send a question (call or write) to the radio program A Way With Words. They love these kinds of regional imported phrases. |
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27 Oct 20 - 10:52 PM (#4077056) Subject: RE: Folklore: Blind Fish From: GUEST,Betty In our family we grew up eating "Blind Fish" for breakfast. Just bread dipped in egg and milk mixture and fried. Served with butter and syrup. When my sister and I had the opportunity to go to a week camp they had French Toast on the menu and we were surprised to see that it was nothing fancy - just our plain old "Blind Fish". |