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Sandwiches
Sep. 5th, 2008 11:26 amSongofnewday asked me to blog about Sandwiches...
I don't know, Novembergirl gets posed with controversial topics like feminism and I get the result of some drunken Earl's whim involving the placement of some meat between two slices of bread. Hardly comparable. Mind you, I suppose there is always the Paddington/marmite controversy to give it some kick... :)
Bread and me don't get on. You all know that and I suppose this takes this topic back into my normal blog territory by bringing up the evil spector of gluten. Frankly, however, it is difficult for me to talk about food without summoning up that spector and until they find a way to make edible gluten free bread (or get that magic drug which supposedly innures you against gluten up and running) I will never again have a truly nice sandwich.
But then me and sandwiches were never what you would call comfortable with each other. I always hated them as a child and I do wonder now if it was not with good reason. Its not just the bread though (and I realise now that what I truly hated was white bread not bread in general) its what people put in sandwiches that annoy me. Mayonnaise is one. I hate the stuff. With a passion. It has VINEGAR in it. Vinegar which is not only a dilute form of Ethanoic (or acetic to give it its old fashioned name) acid but is also the result of the worst of crimes imaginable - letting alcohol go off. Who condones such a crime in this supposedly fair and free society? Its apparenly not covered by the Geneva conventions, the American constitution does not mention it, there is no precedent in the entire body of British law to forbid it. Even the French, those proud supporters of decent alcohol every where, do not forbid the creation of vinegar. In fact, they heartedly support it because they invented Mayonaisse!
How someone could take something derived from alcohol, add it to some decent oil and put in some eggs and make something so vile is beyond me. Three nice ingredients to start with but combined they make something horrendous and you have to let at least one of the ingredients go off before you use it!
Mayonaisse, by the way, is French for 'sloppy white crap we smear on bread to make the English grimace'. At least it is in my French dictionary. Not sure which one you are using. Mine must be right cos I am French. Well, by ancestry anyway... though I suspect the Normans left before Mayonaisse was invented otherwise I would be gentically required to like the vile stuff.
And yet, if you search the shelves of Boots or many other sandwich shop you are hard pressed to find something that is not slavered in mayonaisse. And why are Boots selling them anyway? They're a bloody chemists not Subway!
And don't get me started on coleslaw, salad, lettuce or anything else that supposedly must go on a sandwich to make it edible...
So what is a good sandwich for me? Easy. Bread and meat. Maybe some butter or humous. Thats it. There was a sandwich shop I used to go to in Manchester (in the days before the evil) that would do this for me. You go in, ask for a sandwich and they say 'what would you like on that' and they would give it to you exactly as you asked. There are a few shops in Birmingham that still do that and I assume the one in Manchester is still there. They even ask what sort of bread you like.
Oh, and it has to be nice meat. Proper meat that looks like it came from an actual animal instead of a mould. Real meat has a grain to it from the striated muscle tissue used to make it. If the bread has to be processed to hell and back so I can eat it, I prefer that the meat isn't similarly processed. Though I am also fond of pate as a sandwich filling. Again, its those darn French genes again...
I don't know, Novembergirl gets posed with controversial topics like feminism and I get the result of some drunken Earl's whim involving the placement of some meat between two slices of bread. Hardly comparable. Mind you, I suppose there is always the Paddington/marmite controversy to give it some kick... :)
Bread and me don't get on. You all know that and I suppose this takes this topic back into my normal blog territory by bringing up the evil spector of gluten. Frankly, however, it is difficult for me to talk about food without summoning up that spector and until they find a way to make edible gluten free bread (or get that magic drug which supposedly innures you against gluten up and running) I will never again have a truly nice sandwich.
But then me and sandwiches were never what you would call comfortable with each other. I always hated them as a child and I do wonder now if it was not with good reason. Its not just the bread though (and I realise now that what I truly hated was white bread not bread in general) its what people put in sandwiches that annoy me. Mayonnaise is one. I hate the stuff. With a passion. It has VINEGAR in it. Vinegar which is not only a dilute form of Ethanoic (or acetic to give it its old fashioned name) acid but is also the result of the worst of crimes imaginable - letting alcohol go off. Who condones such a crime in this supposedly fair and free society? Its apparenly not covered by the Geneva conventions, the American constitution does not mention it, there is no precedent in the entire body of British law to forbid it. Even the French, those proud supporters of decent alcohol every where, do not forbid the creation of vinegar. In fact, they heartedly support it because they invented Mayonaisse!
How someone could take something derived from alcohol, add it to some decent oil and put in some eggs and make something so vile is beyond me. Three nice ingredients to start with but combined they make something horrendous and you have to let at least one of the ingredients go off before you use it!
Mayonaisse, by the way, is French for 'sloppy white crap we smear on bread to make the English grimace'. At least it is in my French dictionary. Not sure which one you are using. Mine must be right cos I am French. Well, by ancestry anyway... though I suspect the Normans left before Mayonaisse was invented otherwise I would be gentically required to like the vile stuff.
And yet, if you search the shelves of Boots or many other sandwich shop you are hard pressed to find something that is not slavered in mayonaisse. And why are Boots selling them anyway? They're a bloody chemists not Subway!
And don't get me started on coleslaw, salad, lettuce or anything else that supposedly must go on a sandwich to make it edible...
So what is a good sandwich for me? Easy. Bread and meat. Maybe some butter or humous. Thats it. There was a sandwich shop I used to go to in Manchester (in the days before the evil) that would do this for me. You go in, ask for a sandwich and they say 'what would you like on that' and they would give it to you exactly as you asked. There are a few shops in Birmingham that still do that and I assume the one in Manchester is still there. They even ask what sort of bread you like.
Oh, and it has to be nice meat. Proper meat that looks like it came from an actual animal instead of a mould. Real meat has a grain to it from the striated muscle tissue used to make it. If the bread has to be processed to hell and back so I can eat it, I prefer that the meat isn't similarly processed. Though I am also fond of pate as a sandwich filling. Again, its those darn French genes again...
