Eggs Benedict - My History With Them

Historians give credit to two versions of the origin of Eggs Benedict:

1860 - Credit is given to Delmonico’s Restaurant, the very first restaurant or public dining room ever opened in the United States. In the 1860’s, a regular patron of the restaurant, Mrs. LeGrand Benedict, finding nothing to her liking and wanting something new to eat for lunch, discussed this with Delmonico’s Chef Charles Ranhofer and Ranhofer came up with Eggs Benedict.

1894 - In 1894, Lemuel Benedict, a Wall Street broker, who was suffering from a hangover, ordered “some buttered toast, crisp bacon, two poached eggs, and a hooker of hollandaise sauce” at the Waldorf Hotel in New York. The Waldorf’s legendary chef, Oscar Tschirky, was so impressed that he put the dish on his breakfast and luncheon menus after substituting Canadian bacon for crisp bacon and a toasted English muffin for toasted bread.

1993 - Miriam Hughes, suffering from the effects of a divorce started dating a man, who made it clear Eggs Benedict would be a weekly culinary expectation from a potential wife. Homemade sauce and all. Well, not the muffin part. After months of practicing creating the perfect sauce, Ms. Hughes embarked on a relationship designed to please the man. The eggs were good, the relationship bad. He had a stroke, she got set free and has been drawing and painting eggs far more often than eating them.

If your heart can take it, here is a recipe:

Eggs à la Benedick - Cut some muffins in halves crosswise, toast them without allowing to brown, then place a round of cooked ham an eighth of an inch thick and of the same diameter as the muffins one each half. Heat in a moderate oven and put a poached egg on each toast. Cover the whole with Hollandaise sauce.