National Eggs Benedict Day is this Thursday – April 16 – and it’s a day to celebrate and enjoy the classic American dish that consists of a poached egg, an English muffin and Canadian bacon covered in Hollandaise sauce.
I can get on board with that. As a little girl, I can remember eggs Benedict being one of my grandmother’s favorite breakfast dishes – kind of a special occasion type breakfast dish. I was well into adulthood before I began eating eggs Benedict, but once I gave it a chance I became a fan as well. I don’t cook it at home because I can’t poach an egg to save my life. I’ve tried multiple times and just can’t seem to master it. But that’s okay. Having it in a restaurant on our travels makes it more of a special treat anyway.
According to nationaltoday.com, the dish is surrounded by a misconception with many assuming that the name originated from Benedict Arnold, the American Revolutionary War traitor. However, its origins are a lot more complicated than they appear.
There are multiple stories about who first invented eggs Benedict and one of the earliest was in the eighteenth century. Pope Benedict XII was obsessed with eggs. He loved one egg dish so much that he repeatedly ordered it on a consistent basis. It was said that despite his illness, he still had cravings for it and his love for this egg dish never diminished. From that point on, his name and the dish were bound to one another.
Another story, also per nationaltoday.com, claims that eggs Benedict came about in 1894 when a Wall Street broker named Lemuel Benedict created it in an attempt to rid himself of a hangover. He was staying at the Waldorf Hotel and he ordered buttered toast, poached eggs, bacon, and Hollandaise sauce in hopes of concocting a remedy. The chef at the restaurant, Oscar Tschirky, was so impressed with the dish that he added it to the menu and named it after Lemuel Benedict.
However, another origin story was created for eggs Benedict in 1967. A man named Edward P. Montgomery wrote a letter to The New York Times Magazine with information about the man responsible for the dish prior to his death in 1920. He said Commodore E.C. Benedict was the inventor and that the recipe came from his mother, thus further complicating the true origins of the dish.
Today, there are a plethora of ways to make eggs Benedict that vary by location. It’s seen a change from Canadian bacon to regular bacon and from English muffins to toast, but the concept very much remains the same. Nonetheless, eggs Benedict remains as popular as ever, no matter who actually created it.
While there’s certainly nothing wrong with the original version, I especially enjoy the various iterations I’ve experienced during our travels – everything from a smoked salmon Benedict to a crab cake benedict to a Cuban Benedict and even a Texas Benedict that featured Texas wagyu beef and cornbread.
