It is more familiar than you think!
Eggs Benedict is a dish that consists of two halves of an English muffin, topped with ham or bacon or Canadian bacon, poached eggs covered with a Hollandaise sauce.
Does this sound familiar? The McDonald's Egg McMuffin breakfast sandwich is a take-off of Eggs Benedict, my mother used to say. It consists of a piece of Canadian bacon, egg in a round shape with a slice of American cheese in a sandwich of English muffins.
The Egg McMuffin was invented by the late McDonald's franchisee Herb Peterson (1919-2008) in the late 1960's; it was introduced nationwide in 1972 and become a McDonald's breakfast signature item. The inventor ate like a half dozen a day! Peterson was said to like Eggs Benedict, so he worked to develop a breakfast item which was similar to it. Peterson eventually came up with the Egg McMuffin, which was an egg sandwich consisting of an egg formed in a Teflon circle with the yolks broken, topped with Canadian bacon and a slice of cheese. Originally, the Egg McMuffin was served as an open faced sandwich on a buttered and toasted English muffin and later became a sandwich for convenience.
There are three various accounts of the origin of Eggs Benedict, including:
#1 Lemuel Benedict, a retired Wall Street stock broker, claimed that he had wandered into the Waldorf Hotel in 1894 and, hoping to find a cure for his morning hangover, ordered "buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon, and a hooker of hollandaise." recorded from an interview in the "Talk of the Town" column of The New Yorker in December 19, 1942. Oscar Tschirky, the famed maître d'hôtel, was so impressed with the dish that he put it on the breakfast and luncheon menus but substituted ham and a toasted English muffin for the bacon and toast.
#2 Craig Claiborne wrote a column in The New York Times Magazine (September 24, 1967) about a letter he had received from Edward P. Montgomery, an American then residing in France. In it, Montgomery related that the dish was created by Commodore E. C. Benedict, a banker and yachtsman, who died in 1920 at the age of 86. Montgomery also included a recipe for Eggs Benedict, stating that the recipe had been given to him by his mother, who had received it from her brother, who was a friend of the Commodore.
#3 Mabel C. Butler of Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts in a letter printed in The New York Times Magazine (November 26, 1967) responded to Montgomery's claim by correcting that the "true story, well known to the relations of Mrs. Le Grand Benedict", of whom she was one, was: “Mr. and Mrs. Benedict, when they lived in New York around the turn of the century, dined every Saturday at Delmonico's. One day Mrs. Benedict said to the maitre d'hotel, "Haven't you anything new or different to suggest?" On his reply that he would like to hear something from her, she suggested poached eggs on toasted English muffins with a thin slice of ham, hollandaise sauce and a truffle on top.
(Source: Eggs Benedict consisting of “English muffins topped with Canadian bacon, poached eggs & hollandaise sauce” with their house potatoes in the background, as served at Orange in Chicago, Illinois, Wikipedia; McDonald's Egg McMuffin, jefferyclark.net; Herb Peterson, fastfoodweblog.nl; Eggs Benedict, blog.mainefoodandlifestyle.com; The Waldorf Hotel's current name on the awning over the Park Avenue entrance, nyhotelblog.com; Elias Cornelius Benedict circa 1913 aboard his yacht Oneida, Wikipedia; Dinner in honor of Admiral Campion at Delmonico's in 1906; Wikipedia; smoked salmon eggs benedict, thebitessite.com)
