Hi, I'm Eggs Benedict, but that's Mr. Benedict to you.
I am a dish consisting of two halves of an English muffin,
usually topped with ham
or smoked bacon,
poached eggs,
and the crucial ingredient, hollandaise sauce.
With contemporary eating habits trending toward the heart-healthy, however, the meat is often replaced with seafood, often smoked salmon.
My origin is not known with certainty. Two different accounts seem to have some support in the historical record.
One account claims that I was created in the late 1880s for financier LeGrand Benedict or his wife, by Charles Ranhofer, the chef of Delmonico's restaurant in New York City after one of the Benedicts complained there was nothing new on the menu. The Epicurean, Ranhofer's comprehensive 1894 cookbook, covering thirty years' worth of Delmonico's fare, contains a recipe for an essentially identical dish under the name of "Eggs à la Benedick."
Other sources state I was the result of an order placed by stockbroker Lemuel Benedict one morning in 1894 at the Waldorf Hotel when he had a hangover. Benedict claimed in an interview in The New Yorker shortly before his death that his order of dry toast, crisp bacon, poached eggs and a side of hollandaise sauce had been noted, usurped and warped by Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel there. Oscar substituted English muffins and Canadian bacon, and added truffles.
I am not named after Benedict Arnold, despite the coincidence of name and that he was "English underneath".
