Notes From the Wrong End of Life
In Praise of Toast
When you wake up in the morning and the black dog has you in its grasp. It is raining and cold, even though it’s August. You stumble down the stairs knowing you must eat but what? Then it hits you. Toast. Then you do and the taste and texture of that crisp morsel transformed by the alchemy of fire forces the black dog back a few steps.
You glimpse a possible shaft of sunlight in the grey everything and realise toast has worked its magic. It’s a simple thing is toast but it possesses some magical property that enables it to lift the spirits. It is the apotheosis of bread. A doughy slab transformed into a steadfast crunchy companion for both the hungry and the soul-searching.
Consider the curious appetites of Charles Bukowski. The grizzled bard of the barstool, who found solace in a diet fuelled by toast and whisky. Such a choice sustenance, one might think, for a man who poured life’s raw essence onto pages like bar tenders filling glasses with liquid desolation. Picture him fumbling to fill the toaster slot, bleary-eyed and toasted around the edges.
His soul a charcoal crust of pointless prose. Yet, Bukowski was not alone in his affection for toasted simplicity. Recall the legendary Ernest Hemingway who embraced the world with his rugged words that mirrored his macho existence. He, too, understood the grace of toast. Legend whispers of his “Hemingway Special,” a dance of butter and sugar upon toasted bread.
A concoction as prosaic as the man himself, bridging the gap between sweet and savoury. Much like the way he bridged the gap between what is and what isn’t. Orwell too, would surely have crumpled sans his daily routine of strong tea and toast. Dickens found fellowship with his toasted cheese and Austen’s eloquence owes a debt to marmalade on toast. And where would Roald Dahl’s imagination roam without that toasted dream fuel? No, toast is no humble sidekick — toast is a muse, lifeblood and inspiration divine!
Bread in my humble opinion should rarely be eaten raw. Perhaps when it is fresh from the oven and still warm. When I was a child there were bakers in the town and the bakers' van would arrive, every other morning stuffed to the brim with baked goodness. But, by and large, raw bread has little going for it and my oh my how I pity my American friends for the stuff they have which masquerades as bread.
How could the crumbly, nutrient-devoid American excuse for dough ever hope to emerge from the flames as anything more than crunchy cardboard? I pity the poor toast carved from spongy store-bought slices in that beautiful but be-knighted country. Leached of nutrition by Big Sugar and Big Grain colluding in their high fructose cesspit.
Those corporate communists name it bread, but one bite unleashes a cardboard taste more akin to sugary styrofoam. The American Big Bread bandits rely on high fructose corn syrup solvents and chemicals to slacken their substandard gluten. We in Europe benefit from generations of crafting proper fermented, yeast-leavened loaves that need no sweetening. Their flour offers robust, earthy flavour before even a single turn in the toaster. Imagine the heights such quality whole grains can reach when toasted!
But sadly, most Yankees know no bready bliss from bakeries devoted to honest baking. No, they accept their plastic-wrapped slices of pulped grain-like musty mattress stuffing without question. The box says bread, so bread it must be. Unless they happen to venture into the overpriced artisanal bakeries which turn the stuff of a food staple into high-priced commodities.
The wholesale addition of sugar to bread is nigh on a crime. It’s bread not cake and cake never benefits from being toasted. However, we must thank the good old US of A for the electric toaster from a time before their bread was so adulterated. The toaster was given to an, as yet not grateful, world by a Frank Shailor in 1909, on behalf of General Electric company.
The toaster, named the D-12, was the first commercially available electric toaster. This little device probably helped to shape our modern world — for good or ill. After which there was no stopping them. The pop-up toaster was invented in 1919 by a mechanic from Minnesota who got fed up with cafeterias serving burnt toast.
So, he patented the pop-up toaster in 1921 and started selling them to restaurants because his main goal was to sell his toaster to restaurants to improve the quality of their service. But in 1926 an updated version of the toaster was released and made available to the public.
It’s known as Toastmaster 1-A-1. The first four-slice toaster appeared in about 1958 but there’s no reliable information on who actually invented it! Who would have thought such a mundane mystery could surround as ordinary a thing as toast?
Now one might think that the best thing to happen to sliced bread was the toaster, but in fact, the best thing to happen to sliced bread was, well, sliced bread. On July 6, 1928. Frank Bench the founder of Chillicothe Baking Company, in Missouri, took a chance on a mechanized bread-slicing machine invented by Otto Rohwedder. Just one week after introducing the world to pre-sliced bread his sales increased by two thousand per cent! The rest, as they say, is history…
Toast is bloody marvellous. A hot slice will bring butter to melting point and one could if so inclined spread other things on it as well. In the UK we have something called Marmite which is, to the best of my knowledge, made from the sludge left in the bottom of beer brewing vats. Disgusting? Yes, but so delicious. In the Antipodes they have their own version of this spread called Vegemite and the Americans, well they have a thing called Peanut Butter.
This odious substance should never be placed on a slice of toast or anywhere else for that matter. The only thing worse is mashed avocado. Nonetheless, I recognise allowances must be made for personal taste. Who am I to dictate what someone else may place upon their toast? I have even heard reports that some people put a form of chocolate spread onto toast. Shocking, will the decadence never end?
Any type of proper bread will make for good toast although tradition dictates it really should be white bread, either machine-sliced or hand sliced. It should be toasted until medium brown and immediately covered with a thick layer of unsalted butter. Other toppings may be added but for me, they only detract from the sublime pleasure of eating a freshly buttered slice of hot toast. The tactile, sound, and taste sensations combine, for a moment at least, to whisk away one’s troubles replacing them with a visceral pleasure which is difficult to match.
Toast is so magnificent that Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba has a toast named after and specifically created for her by the chef Auguste Escoffier. It was designed to help her maintain her slender figure while enjoying the delicious snack. While Melba toast is a well-known type of toasted bread, there are many other variations around the world.
From the Italian “bruschetta” to the Scandinavian “rugbrød,” each type of toasted bread has its own distinct flavours and uses. But if you seek toasting perfection, look to Japan, where puffed, pillowy slices become works of umamic art. Or India, where street vendors press tandoor-baked naan into service sopping up rich curries and chutney. Now that’s transcendence!
In the grand tapestry of food history, toast occupies a unique place. It’s simple, yet versatile; unpretentious, yet capable of eliciting immense satisfaction. It’s a testament to human ingenuity — the ability to take something as basic as bread and turn it into a delightful culinary experience. And while its origins might be shrouded in mystery, its impact on our lives is crystal clear.
Toast offers solace from this chaotic world. Even just gazing at its crisp, comforting form will dissolve disturbing matters of the mind.
