Eggs Benedict Day

Photo by The Curated Feast

It’s National Eggs Benedict day! And here’s the history served up with a big side of sauce!

Although, as usual, there are a few competing origin stories for this dish, the most colorful one starts with an 1894 hangover at the NYC Waldorf Hotel.

This shady start is how we meet our main character, Lemuel Benedict, a broker on Wall Street, who was apparently a “dashing ladies man”, and whose name appears in the Society columns quite frequently.

On that fateful morning, he ordered “some buttered toast, crisp bacon, two poached eggs, and a hooker of hollandaise sauce.” I can’t find any further comment on the questionable sauce reference, except that it was sometimes just cited as a “pitcher” of sauce.

Apparently his obituary made no mention of this delicious creation, and his widow, Mrs. Benedict, explained why: that to talk about breakfast in the context of an aristocratic family, let alone a hangover, would be an embarrassment.