Eggs Benedict

Arguably one of the most classic global dishes are the Eggs Benedict. As legend goes, the dish’s invention was by a hungover Wall Street broker in 1894. The incident took place in the esteemed Waldorf Hotel in New York, when Lemuel Benedict gave an order of two poached eggs, placed atop a buttered toast with shavings of crispy bacon and a generous dollop of hollandaise sauce. Its astonishingly high calorific value was hardly a surprising choice considering the alcohol may have worked numbers on him the previous night.

This odd request attracted the attention of the restaurant’s Head Chef, Oscar Tschirky, who immediately ordered for its permanent place in the hotel’s menu. As a hat-tip to Benedict, he named the dish after him. The modern renditions of the breakfast dish comprises crispy toast and bacon instead of the erstwhile English muffin and Canadian bacon.

Another 1860's report related to the Eggs Benedict talks of Legrand Benedict, also a Wall Street agent, who went out to dinner with his wife at the popular Lower Manhattan restaurant, Delmonico’s. The head chef, Charles Ranhofer is credited with the invention of this recipe after Mrs Benedict demanded a change in the menu following a long monotonous spell. Ranhofer narrated this account in his 1984 cookbook titled The Epicurean, and named the dish "Eggs a la Benedict".

The stories don’t end there. An American gentleman by the name of Edward P Montgomery reached out to The New York Times food critic Craig Clairborne in 1967. Montgomery claimed that the Americans were preparing the Eggs Benedict in a completely wrong manner. He cited issues like the dearth of ham shards, an over-poached egg and a sloppy portion of an English muffin. He further stated that the original recipe for Eggs Benedict was invented by Commodore EC Benedict, who was a yachtsman and banker. Benedict, said Montgomery, received the recipe from his mother.

Traditionally, Eggs Benedict is also believed to have been present in the Vaticans kitchens of Pope Benedict XIII dating back to the 18th century. However, the Catholic Encyclopedia, a detailed account of the times, does not mention the presence of any such dish. This is probably why this tale remains inauthentic, since a culinary invention such as this would definitely be one for the books.

Modern renditions of this recipe have gradually gained traction with customers going in for unique options like an Eggs Benedict Pizza, or the Naughty Benny (which essentially swaps the bacon for mortadella and adds a dash of onion jam to the dish), or even the Stakehouse Eggs Benedict (that introduces a buttery soft beef tenderloin to the recipe).