Jane Austen's Favorite Dinnertime Dish Is Still A True Classic

Some famous authors are known for their extravagant tastes — such as Mark Twain, who was known to devour oysters in it many forms, and Ernest Hemingway, a noted gourmand who was known for his larger-than-life appetite, including a New York strip steak, which ended up being his last meal. Others had more humble tastes. In the case of Jane Austen, her favorite meal for dinner was a cheese toastie, even though she grew up having ready access to meat, vegetables, and fruits in Steventon Parish in Oxfordshire, England.

Based on a recipe from Martha Lloyd, a close friend of the author who lived with Austen and her family from 1798 to 1830, Austen preferred her cheese toastie to be made with grated cheese, an egg, mustard, and a bit of butter grilled on toast. As she once wrote in a letter to her sister, Cassandra, about her friend Edward Bridges, "It is impossible to do justice to the hospitality of his attentions towards me; he made a point of ordering toasted cheese for supper entirely on my account," via The Guardian.

A cheese toastie is a classic dish that's essentially the English version of a grilled cheese sandwich. A quintessential comfort food, it finds countless fans in the U.S. and the U.K. A YouGov survey conducted in the U.S. found grilled cheese to be the most popular sandwich in the country, favored by 79% of the 1,223 adult respondents. Meanwhile survey conducted by the Yorkshire Creamery in the U.K. found cheese toasties to be the most popular lunch option with more than 37% of the vote.

Martha Lloyd's recipe does not specify the type of cheese to use, and there are hundreds of cheeses in the U.K. that could have been used. The Austens made their own cheese, and that very well could have been what was used in Jane's cheese toasties at home. But then the beauty of a cheese toastie or a grilled cheese sandwich is that you can customize it the way you want, including the type of cheese you use (though you'll generally want to pick a cheese that melts well for the ultimate gooey texture). As for the question of whether sliced or grated cheese is the best option in a grilled cheese, grated cheese was clearly the preference of Jane Austen for her beloved cheese toasties.