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At some time or another we are all asked to give a toast. According to Dr. Robert Small, Chairman of the L.A. County Fair Wines of the World competition, the best solution to stage fright and unseemly faux pas is to have a few quotable toasts memorized and at your beck and call. First a little history: The term "toast" comes from the Roman practice of dropping a piece of burnt bread into wine. This was done to temper some of the bad wines the Romans sometimes had to drink. The charcoal actually reduces the acidity of slightly off wines making them more palatable. In time, the Latin "toastus" meaning roasted or parched, came to refer to the drink itself. By the 1800s toasting was the proper thing to do. Charles Panati reported that a "British duke wrote in 1803 that 'every glass during dinner had to be dedicated to someone,' and that to refrain from toasting was considered, 'sottish and rude,' as if no one present was worth drinking to." Don't make the mistake of coming off "sottish" -- try some of Dr. Bob's most memorable toasts at your next event: Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and
soda-water the day after. To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it
with. I drink to your charm, your beauty and your brains, which gives you a
rough idea of how hard up I am for a drink. Give me wine to wash me clean from the weather-stains of care. George Bernard Shaw, was once asked by his host to offer a toast to sex, something that in Victorian England was clearly a taboo dinner topic. He replied with this short toast: "It gives me great pleasure." May the State of Kentucky forgive me! Here's hoping that you live forever, and mine is the last voice you
hear. Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough, |