A trip to Paris recently changed my breakfast routine forever, and there were zero croissants involved. I’d booked an Airbnb in St.-Martin; my host was an elegant woman in her late 30s who seemed to have walked straight off the set of Call My Agent. Her cozy yet tasteful apartment put my Brooklyn hovel to shame. I took note of her linens and skin-care products, but what made the biggest impression was a pair of wooden tongs tucked into the slots of her vintage toaster.
I suppose I’d encountered toast tongs before, but a Parisian context suddenly made them a lot more alluring. The French, I deduced, refuse to endure pain while extracting their pain. After failing to find my host’s cute yellow tongs in local stores (even a visit to hallowed halls of Merci proved fruitless), I purchased some plain bamboo ones upon my return home and haven’t stuck a fork into a live kitchen appliance since. (I’ve now tracked down my host’s exact pair, linked below.)
If you’re eating toast with any regularity, toast tongs will be a gently life-changing purchase. Touching hot bread with your fingers is a small unpleasantry that adds up over time — why not put an end to it? And toast tongs also help you dislodge smaller slices that fall deep into the slots, which is especially relevant if you bake and slice your own bread (brag), or are buying fancy farmers’ market loaves.
Over time, I’ve found that the secret to toast tongs is keeping them in the toaster. I own other kitchen tongs for cooking and serving, but my toast-removal pair never leave their post, which is key to their convenience. If they happen to stray to the sink or utensil drawer, I immediately feel tempted to turn my toaster on its side and stick my fingers in, scattering crumbs all over the counter — a deeply unsophisticated and American approach.
The simple bamboo toast tongs I use every day, in a two-pack so you can use the other pair for cooking or serving.
The exact tongs from my Airbnb can be shipped from France.
I wedge my tongs into the slots of my toaster for storage, but the idea of a magnetized pair also appeals — you can stick these to the sides of your toaster or on the fridge.
Wooden tongs tend to wear out over time and can also show burn marks; these sleeker silicone ones are a nice upgrade.
And I’m very taken with these duck-shaped tongs, featuring a grippy beak. They’d make a great gift for any toaster power users you know.
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