Thomas' Best

A month or so ago my mom sent me some cookbooks, among them this pamphlet from 1988 of recipes using Thomas' English Muffins.

It's an effective marketing tool. I about rushed out to buy myself some English muffins after taking a look, and truly it's an unique item--half bread, half bun. A flexible gustatory instument. And lots of these recipes look pretty good, in a stuff on a muff sort of way. Vanilla yogurt, some granola and sliced stawberries--it's an "Earthly Delight." Lot of hamburger variations on a muffin. The Shrimp Louis Muffin is elegant party fare.

It's when the recipe calls for you to pervert the simple muffin in such a fashion as to turn it into a "souffle" that it becomes ridiculous. And the height of absurdity is the "Thomas' Baked Alaska," which calls for a raisin(!) muffin topped with ice cream, meringue, and baked at high heat. It's the raisin muffin that gets me. Thomas' doesn't make anything else that could substitute for a piece of cake?

It strikes me that a "This Is What I Can Do With An English Muffin" would be an excellent idea for a party. The company's already done the contest.