The Toast Rack Chronicles

JOQ Contributor Brett Scott’s thoughts on The British Toaster Rack: I think the British toast rack is the epitome of pointless and counterproductive control. Why bother to stoically present toast in a rack when you can just ambush it with butter as it pops out of toaster. Strangely …

A Note From the Editor: Ken Aston, who was mentioned in the previous post, was a fair-minded and principled referee. However, there have been some awful referees in history: One of the worst referees were the Clergy in Salamanca, Spain in the 15 Century. The Portuguese …

Everything starts somewhere. I grew up in the oral storytelling tradition and my paternal grandfather told me many stories about his Kuchi Kathiawar village in Gujarat, India when I was growing up in East Africa. My paternal grandfather also told me stories of his travels as a young …

The following is a toast – a tribute – a salute – a homage – to honor my Indian (maternal) grandmother, Shirin Hassanali Gwaderi, a pioneering Nairobi schoolteacher and school principal. – Karim Forward by Paola Gianturco It is possible that the stereotypical “grandmother” never existed? …

Creativity make us feel alive and the more creativity we practice the more alive we feel. — Jeremy Geidt, Emeritus Chairman of the Bored, The British Toast Rack Society Forwarding Note by Professor Robert Calder, Member of the Bored Dear Karim: The beauty of an …

Toast racks — the perfect symbol of the waning days of the British Empire? We had them. I suppose we had adopted a certain amount of British culture. I was probably the most eager Anglophile in the family, being utterly addicted to Beezer, Topper, Cor!, …

In his article entitled Toast and the Brahmin pundit, eminent and erudite Oxford-educated Professor Purushottama Bilmoria explains to the rather overstimulated and excitable Brahmin pundit that one cannot have toast without having baked bread from which to make the toast. I would hazard in similar vein …

Purushottama Bilimoria, PhD is Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He has held fellowships at Oxford University, Harvard University and Shimla University, India. Professor Bilimoria’s research and publications cover classical Indian philosophy, comparative ethics, traditional Indian moral codes of conduct and Indian legal …

Margaret Crumpton and her husband Peter Crumpton are the authors of the book British Ceramic Toast Racks, published by Richard Dennis publications at The Old Chapel on Shepton Beauchamp in Somerset, England. “It is impossible to write about the toast rack without first giving some …

Toast Rack Ode by Marisa Marsey   There’s been much ballyhoo o’er the centuries-old toast rack Comments across the pond – and blogosphere – too numerous to track Seems this quirky and quaint bit of British frippery Famed for keeping toast from getting soggy and …