Probably this is pretty close to how it happened, as all of the reasonable creation stories I could find in ten minutes on Google mentioned either the Waldorf or Delmonico's**, a posh restaurant in New York that closed in 1923 but existed in various forms here and there since then, since the name passed into the public domain when the family closed the last place. There is still one in New York, but it opened in 1998 and is owned by the Ocinomled partnership, whatever the hell that is.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." 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.
Anyway, my point is that this Oscar Tschirky guy also worked at Delmonico's for a while, so most likely he had something to do with the creation of Eggs Benedict. He also created the Waldorf Salad and Veal Oscar, and all this even though he was a maître d’ and not a chef. He even had a cookbook, which was probably pretty ballsy back in the day. I mean, today anybody who has an accent and large forearms and maybe cooks with mayonnaise all the time gets at least a cooking show and book deal. You know who I mean.
The goal of this blog will be to taste and review Eggs Benedict throughout the city of New York, and probably elsewhere also. It is a rich meal, and I eat it as much as possible, so maybe we will also have a Waistline Watch. I don't know. We'll see how it goes.
At the bottom of each post, I'll put the price of the dish, a score (out of 10), and a summary.
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* HAH
** Delmonico's is also credited with creating Lobster Newberg and Delmonico Steak
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