Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Toast

My greatest opponent, my legendary adversary. O toast, will you always tempt me with your crumby delights? But I must stand firm. Too often has a once-promising project been derailed though a sudden desire for toast, only for my blood-sugar level to crash, leaving a random collection of letters and symbols where my forehead has suddenly encountered the keyboard.

And yet.... perhaps, o toast, you are the only one who has ever understood me? The controversial glories of Marmite are well-recorded, there is no need to dig up old battlegrounds. As the adverts so clearly expounded: some people quite like Marmite, others don't like it quite so much. A sizeable group of the population doesn't really care either way. But the delights of granary toast with chunky peanut butter and a thin layer of brown sauce... The world is not ready for such marvels. Oh the terrible bitter irony that my arch-nemesis, my greatest foe, is the only one with whom I can share my soul, my inner secrets, my true self.

But perhaps we are not so very different, you and I? Ah that times were not as they are, and my metabolism sturdier. Is it too much to hope that under those rarified circumstances, we could be... comrades? Brothers in arms? Perhaps even... friends?

But I fool myself. You and I, o toast, are locked in a hateful cycle of combat from which we can never escape, doomed to fight together through eternity. I, who am fated to devour you, will become in turn your victim. The roles we play spin and merge and weave. We fall through time, destinies forever entwined.

Bollocks, I'm hungry now.

Ooh, I got an oaty cob from the farmers' market on Tuesday.

Yum yum yu-





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38 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had a sandwich in my hand. There are bits and crumbs and spit all over my desk now. Splendid post.

Do you believe in toast reincarnation, then? I always kinda thought of toast more as an infinite army of small entities that one had to battle in sequence, rather than as one large endlessly-regenerating entity. Or is it that the master toast consciousness controls all the individual slices?

(Or am I thinking too hard?)

James Henry said...

Toast as gestalt entity: discuss.

Miss Moon said...

Suddenly my box of sushi and organic blue berry yogurt pale into nothingness...toast rocks. Especially with melted butter and a nice cup of tea. Your post makes excellent lunch time reading. x

surly girl said...

we have a toast mouse in our house.

Anonymous said...

"chunky peanut butter and a thin layer of brown sauce"?

Dear god man, what kind of a daemon spread combiner are you, exactly?

jpxmnn: ld prsntr on Nwsnt

James Henry said...

I like to think of myself as being on the forefront of toast exploration, going where no-one else would dare. Probably for good reason.

Also, throughly approve of spelling of 'daemon', which has a nice archaic sort of feel.

'mmzra' : ancient babylonian daemon, thought to have been summonedby lighly carbonising various granary products.

Anonymous said...

are you pregnant james?

Anonymous said...

.. sounds as if you were violated at that farmer's market.

James Henry said...

What a sad world where the simple namecheck of an oaty cob leads to thoughts of violation.

Not pregnant as far as I know, although it would explain the wild mood swings, constant weight gain and odd dietary tendencies of the last... ooh... fifteen years?

Anonymous said...

I always thought 'Junior' was a documentary.

Abaculus said...

What a wonderful post. Though I must say I've never known anyone Faint From Toast before. If the baddies in Films Noir had known that, they wouldn't have had to splash out on expensive drugs with which to lace the whiskey they give to the detective. They could have just given him a rarebit.

Dave said...

I had to Go And Make Some Toast (with crunchy peanut butter) halfway through reading this. Don't know why, it just came over me.

Occasional Poster of Comments said...

Some years ago in my home town of Stafford I overheard a girl defending the merits of coleslaw on toast to her friend. Being a big fan of said unusual combination, and having yet to meet anyone who shares my enthusiasm, I have often wondered what could have been had I spoken up in support that day [sigh].

Occasional Poster of Comments said...

Oh, hang on a minute. That's a lie. She was advocating white toast, as I recall. It would never have worked.

Ah, but what if she could have been brought around to my way of thinking? Maybe (perhaps due to some terrible privation) she had merely yet to experience the joys of a nice granary or country grain? Maybe she was some kind of toast novice just waiting to be guided by a more experienced hand? How she might have flourished in the brave new multi-grained world I could have offered her. Sadly I shall never know. Damned hastiness of youth, etc... [sigh, again].

Anonymous said...

Coleslaw is great on toast! It goes best with some nice pate. Mmmm....

I once had a discussion with a friend of mine who thought it was really weird to put cheese on crumpets instead of jam.

I didn't get where she had a problem - I mean, you have jam on toast or cheese on toast - it's not like you only restrict yourself to just the sweet or savoury option! And crumpets are the same really.

Besides, cheese on crumpets is brilliant - you can create very mini pizzas... right I've suddenly got to stop writing and get the grill on...

Occasional Poster of Comments said...

bewilderment: Glad someone agrees about the coleslaw. There's just something about the way the melted butter combines with the mayonnaise and that hot/cold contrast. Haven't gone down the pate route myself, though... yet. Am in complete agreement on the crumpets as well. Mini-pizza crumpets rock.

Actually, I agree on all of it (and dammit I'm hungry now). I've always been suspicious of the toast is for jam/marmalade/honey only attitude. In my experience it's always been a sign of a closed mind. The way I see it toast and crumpets can be foundations for all manner of weird and wonderful experimentation.

Am off to google for academic research on the correlation between unusual toast toppings and creativity. Mainly to distract myself from the cravings.

Occasional Poster of Comments said...

No real support for the creative mind/unusual toast topping hypothesis, except a New Scientist article '11 steps to a better brain' recommends eating toast, though preferably wholemeal with beans or marmite.

However, I did happen upon the following toast related stuff:

- A blog and a song about toast.

- The scientific formula for perfect toast.

- Research on whether toast always lands butter-side down that won an Ig Nobel Prize for physics.

- Footage and photos of people dropping toast in the frankly wasteful and dubious name of science.

- The role of toast in attempts to prove a theory called resistenialism - the belief that inanimate objects have a natural antipathy toward human beings. See also here.

Sadly that last one's a spoof, but marvellous nonetheless.

(Apologies for the long comment, James. Never too sure if it's bad blog etiquette to comment at this length).

Kirses said...

peanut butter and marmite - with butter underneath on granary!

surly girl said...

wasn't there a theory concerning the facts that cats always land on their feet and toast always lans butter-side-down. something about how if you buttered a cat you could harness the energy created by the hovering cat to power all sorts of things.

or did i dream it?

Mummy/Crit said...

Surly Girl - Douglas Adams, perhaps? You didn't dream it.

James - if post-toast blood sugar is a problem, may I suggest rye bread? Rye has a much lower GI (Glycaemic Index) than wheat so your body absorbs it more slowly, avoiding the spike-and-crash effect of wheat bread.

patroclus said...

Good tip, mummy/crit. All this talk of toast is seriously jeopardising my current wheat-free diet. Rye bread for me, then!

Occasional Poster of Comments said...

Surly girl: Definitely not a dream. Put toast, perpetual motion and cats into google.

Anonymous said...

Cheese and jam on toast.

I rest my case.

surly girl said...

thank goodness for that - i thought i'd gone mad for a minute there.

actually, that happens all the time.

GreatSheElephant said...

rye bread - can anyone recommend a 100% rye bread that doesn't involve the festering abomination known as sour dough. I like the taste of yeast, me.

Anonymous said...

Bread is the staff of life.

Toast, a decadent capitalist luxury.

vefco : The company that sells all these little random collections of letters to Blogger for use in verification.

irony in motion said...

I don't really like toast that much.


*hides*

GreatSheElephant said...

you have inspired me to tag you to list your nine other favourite foods please

Occasional Poster of Comments said...

It's been a couple of days now. Is anyone else worried that James has eaten too much toast?

patroclus said...

Perhaps Cornwall fell off the internet again, and needs some kind of once and future king to...umm...insert a new blade into the...err...server farm to restore normal service.

I liked where that was going, but it didn't really work in the end, did it?

James Henry said...

Just back from London, and, er yes. I have opened a can of toasty worms...

Juggling Mother said...

Do you work for the toast marketing board perchance?

Juggling Mother said...

In case you havn't heard of the toast marketing board - in which case you are obviously living in the wrong quantum reality - I suggest you nip down to your local library & read some Jasper Fforde

Juggling Mother said...

That wasn't supposed to be spam, BTW. did it sound like spam?

It's just that your post seemed very Toast Marketing Boardy:-) There's a good career there for you maybe?

They are very funny books, honestly.

I'll shut up & go away now......

James Henry said...

Ah, only read the first JF book - must regroup for another go some time.

Anonymous said...

41 comments about toast?
puh-leeze!

how 'bout some juicy tidbits from the gw wrap party...?

James Henry said...

Very well. Big Stevey M has a beard. Although he's probably shaved it off now, as I think his new play starts soon.

GSE: don't normally do the tagging thing, but as it's you, and it's about food, my nine favourite foods:

1. noodles, chorizo, mushrooms, tomato ketchup and hot sauce
2. chorizo fried with cubes of potato and halved black olives
3. noodles, smoked mackerel, mushrooms, tomato ketchup and hot sauce
4. lion bars
5. pasties
6. raw carrots
7. pickled onions
8. chorizo, squash, and tomato stew
9. Vimto


Do I have to tag someone else? Not sure of the rules.

GreatSheElephant said...

ooh, there's a bit of a theme there. I'm about to try cooking a chorizo and chick pea stew but using kabanos instead of chorizo, thanks to Budgens' very open minded attitude to its ethnic range. I can buy Polish and Irish food locally, but nothing from anywhere actually known for its cuisine.