For Your Amuesment: English Muffins
Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 8:30 am
Something I wrote a few years ago, luckily all of the links are still good!
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It was pointed out to me recently that it is very debatable whether English Muffins come from England. For example, check this quote from http://www.foodreference.com/html/arten ... ffins.html
\"The English deny that they ever heard or saw anything like
it<The English Muffin> until they were imported from America.\"
This set me thinking, Why are these muffins called \"ENGLISH\" muffins if they didn't come from England??? A bit of research produced the following interesting facts:
The ingredients list for English Muffins includes: Mono-Calcium Phosphate, Sodium Acid Pyro-Phosphate, and Calcium Sulfate (see http://www.bays.com/foodservice/nutritional/)
You will note, that's 2 different kinds of calcium and two different kinds of Phosphate. Just where could all of this Calcium and Phosphate be coming from?
Check out the following quote: (from http://www.mgwater.com/rod11.shtml)
\"That is why we have long encouraged the use of bone meal, in
which calcium and phosphorus occur as a phosphated compound in
the exact proportions in which bone can best use them, in
preference to any other dietary or pharmaceutical source of
calcium.\"
So, English Muffins contain Phosphated Calcium, Of which one very good source is Bone Meal. Bone Meal is, of course, ground up bones. Now WHY, I ask you, would Muffins containing ground up bones, which do NOT come from England, be called \"English\" muffins???
The answer, I believe, lies in history so ancient it has been taken up into myth. I offer the following quote:
\"Fe, fi, fo, fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he live or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread!\"
(see http://fairytales4u.com/story/jackand.htm)
The conclusion is obvious. The Giant from \"Jack and the Beanstalk\" threatened to grind up Jack's bones and use them to make bread. Since the giant had never met Jack before this incident, and did not yet know he had any particular reason to hate Jack, I think we may assume that this giant made bread containing the ground bones of Englishman on a regular basis. The story gives us no reason to presume that the Giant was offering a \"Special\" preparation for Jack, nor that he regularly produced any other kind of food product from parts of Englishmen; no \"Englishman Juice\" or \"Englishman Pudding\", just \"I'll grind his bones to make my bread!\". The implication is clear, The Giant's regular breakfast included bread made from the ground bones of Englishmen. The typical form bread took during the medieval period was that of small, flattened, round cakes, known as \"Muffins\".
According to all sources, said Giants wife was of ordinary human stature, and since human women have traded recipes since the dawn of time, it would have been a trivial matter for this unusual bread with its peculiar recipe to have drifted into the human community; a small, flattened, round \"Muffin\" containing the ground up bones of Englishmen, and going by the obvious name: \"English Muffins.\"
One can only hope that, like \"Artificially Flavored\" Vanilla Ice cream, the modern \"English Muffin\" has substituted some other component for the original Englishman's Bones. However, since there is no such statement on the packaging, I intend to contact the bakery and discuss the issue with them. I would encourage each of you to do the same.
---
It was pointed out to me recently that it is very debatable whether English Muffins come from England. For example, check this quote from http://www.foodreference.com/html/arten ... ffins.html
\"The English deny that they ever heard or saw anything like
it<The English Muffin> until they were imported from America.\"
This set me thinking, Why are these muffins called \"ENGLISH\" muffins if they didn't come from England??? A bit of research produced the following interesting facts:
The ingredients list for English Muffins includes: Mono-Calcium Phosphate, Sodium Acid Pyro-Phosphate, and Calcium Sulfate (see http://www.bays.com/foodservice/nutritional/)
You will note, that's 2 different kinds of calcium and two different kinds of Phosphate. Just where could all of this Calcium and Phosphate be coming from?
Check out the following quote: (from http://www.mgwater.com/rod11.shtml)
\"That is why we have long encouraged the use of bone meal, in
which calcium and phosphorus occur as a phosphated compound in
the exact proportions in which bone can best use them, in
preference to any other dietary or pharmaceutical source of
calcium.\"
So, English Muffins contain Phosphated Calcium, Of which one very good source is Bone Meal. Bone Meal is, of course, ground up bones. Now WHY, I ask you, would Muffins containing ground up bones, which do NOT come from England, be called \"English\" muffins???
The answer, I believe, lies in history so ancient it has been taken up into myth. I offer the following quote:
\"Fe, fi, fo, fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he live or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread!\"
(see http://fairytales4u.com/story/jackand.htm)
The conclusion is obvious. The Giant from \"Jack and the Beanstalk\" threatened to grind up Jack's bones and use them to make bread. Since the giant had never met Jack before this incident, and did not yet know he had any particular reason to hate Jack, I think we may assume that this giant made bread containing the ground bones of Englishman on a regular basis. The story gives us no reason to presume that the Giant was offering a \"Special\" preparation for Jack, nor that he regularly produced any other kind of food product from parts of Englishmen; no \"Englishman Juice\" or \"Englishman Pudding\", just \"I'll grind his bones to make my bread!\". The implication is clear, The Giant's regular breakfast included bread made from the ground bones of Englishmen. The typical form bread took during the medieval period was that of small, flattened, round cakes, known as \"Muffins\".
According to all sources, said Giants wife was of ordinary human stature, and since human women have traded recipes since the dawn of time, it would have been a trivial matter for this unusual bread with its peculiar recipe to have drifted into the human community; a small, flattened, round \"Muffin\" containing the ground up bones of Englishmen, and going by the obvious name: \"English Muffins.\"
One can only hope that, like \"Artificially Flavored\" Vanilla Ice cream, the modern \"English Muffin\" has substituted some other component for the original Englishman's Bones. However, since there is no such statement on the packaging, I intend to contact the bakery and discuss the issue with them. I would encourage each of you to do the same.
But yes, that is the dictionary of muffins. I don't know if they're from England or not though, I'd like to think they are! Which leads me onto something else... why do you call this whole country England? It's only a province of the UK 
) for butter to goo into.
