TC2

In 1894, a hungover Wall Street stockbroker walked into the Waldorf Hotel in Manhattan and ordered something that was not on the menu. The maître d' liked it so much he put it on the menu immediately. One hundred and thirty years later, it is on every brunch menu in the Western world. Lemuel Benedict was, by every account, a man who knew how to have a good time and was occasionally required to deal with the consequences the following morning. A retired stockbroker, heavy partier and generous tipper, he walked into the Waldorf Hotel one morning in 1894 in urgent need of a hangover cure and ordered something that did not exist yet: buttered toast, crisp bacon, two poached eggs and what he called a hooker of hollandaise sauce. A hooker in 1894 American slang meant a generous pour or a slug, not whatever you are thinking. The maître d' Oscar Tschirky, the same man credited with inventing the Waldorf salad and popularising Thousand Islands dressing, was so taken with the combination that he immediately put it on the breakfast and luncheon menus, substituting ham for the bacon and a toasted English muffin for the plain toast. He named it after the hungover banker who had improvised it at the table. We know this because Lemuel Benedict told a reporter from The New Yorker in 1942, less than a year before he died, and the Talk of the Town piece that resulted is the primary documented source for the story. There are competing claims. There always are with origin stories this good. A Mr and Mrs LeGrand Benedict, completely unrelated to Lemuel, reportedly requested something similar at Delmonico's restaurant sometime in the 1860s and chef Charles Ranhofer published a recipe called Eggs à la Benedick in his 1894 cookbook The Epicurean. A Commodore E.C. Benedict claimed his mother had the recipe before anyone else. The American Egg Board, which apparently has opinions on this, backs the Lemuel version. © Eats History

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