Milk Toast

Whenever I got sick when I was very little, my mom would try to feed me milk toast. My refusal to eat it had nothing to do with disease and lack of appetite and everything to do with yeeeechh! As I recall milk toast was simply that: plain toast with milk poured over it to make it mushy, maybe with a little butter or sugar, but generally just mush. My 1940 copy of The Hamilton Ross Modern Cook Book by Camille Den Dooven has a recipe for milk toast that involves making a white sauce instead.

Milk Toast
2 cups milk
2 T butter
2 T bread flour
1/2 t salt
1 T sugar
Add enough milk to the flour to make a thin smooth running paste. Bring the rest of the milk and sugar to a boil; when boiling, add the flour, stirring constantly. Cook until thickened, then add the salt and butter and cook for about two minutes. Dip slices of toast in sauce and when soft remove to a serving dish. Serve with the remainder of the sauce poured all over.

Compare that to the next recipe in the book which is for French Milk Toast.
3 eggs
2 T sugar
1/4 t salt
1 cup milk
Beat the eggs with a whip, add salt, sugar, and milk; then strain in a flat dish. Cut six slices of stale sandwich bread, soak the bread in the mixture until soft, and bake on a well greased hot griddle, or in a frying pan, until nice and brown, then turn the bread on the other side and brown again, and serve. This may be served with a sauce for a dessert course.

Sounds like French Milk Toast would be plain ol' French Toast these days. This helpful book also has a recipe for Buttered Toast (Cut a slice of bread, remove the crust, toast on each side, butter it.) and Bran Flakes a la Reine (Place some bran in a dish, slice a banana on top, sprinkle with sugar, add milk: I'm summarizing here.)