Very glad we are to see you've been turning to your Escoffier – who, we will freely admit, does not always make things easy for Americans (Canadians, the British, Aussies, even the French!) cooking in the 21st century.

Raspings is an archaic term for dried bread crumbs.

The verb rasp, meaning to scrape, is no different today, but came by way of Old English to Old French to Old German. Raspings, as a noun, also still exists, but is more likely to refer to saw dust or metal shavings than to food. We suppose anything your grate with a box grater or especially the wonderful Microplane kitchen tools that wandered from the wood shop into the kitchen, could correctly be called raspings – chocolate raspings, Parmesan raspings, etc. Only no one says that.

In Escoffier and other old cookbooks, though, it's scraped dried bread. It can vary in size. In one place, Escoffier calls for "very fine raspings," which we assume is not unlike what we scrape off of toast on some mornings – only not burnt.