Sandwiches
My dad's friend Harry grew up as the youngest of thirteen children - eleven boys and two girls. They didn't have much money and there were so many of them that meals were a matter of go to the kitchen and grab whatever you can find. Often the children made their own food and I suspect that there were some very odd combinations going on. Harry acquired a habit, which he still has more than seventy years later, of opening any sandwich before eating it to see what dangers lurk therein.
I felt a bit like that this lunchtime, looking at the food provided at the student exam I was working for.
Big plates of lots of different kinds of fruit - fine. Slices of quiche - fine - easily identifiable and you either like it or you don't (and I do). Little samosas - fine. Plates of different kinds of cakes - marble cake, gingerbread - - fine.
But the sandwiches! It was as though they had been given twenty entirely random ingredients and told to assemble them in as many combinations as possible. Some were good - though roast beef and raw onion is possibly not an ideal lunchtime combination if the afternoon is going to be at all sociable. It was all Ham and Unidentifiable Green Puree and Cheese with Celery and Something Else But I'm Not Sure What.
The one that really freaked me out was white bread, cream cheese and fresh strawberries. Now no doubt someone out there will think "ooh, yummy!" but to me that particular combination of flavours and textures is a vile and disgusting idea.
A very individual thing, taste. The people who made the sandwiches were clearly trying to make them different and exciting, and at least they were trying - though misguided if you ask me, because a rushed corporate lunch is not the time for culinary adventures.
Different cultures eat things which seem really horrible to us, often because they can't afford to be choosy - if something is full of protein, then it's there to be eaten, even if it is a fried locust: and I expect that if you eat enough fried locusts then eventually you will get to like them.
I have been told, though I find it hard to believe, that there are actually people out there who like mint ice-cream.
I felt a bit like that this lunchtime, looking at the food provided at the student exam I was working for.
Big plates of lots of different kinds of fruit - fine. Slices of quiche - fine - easily identifiable and you either like it or you don't (and I do). Little samosas - fine. Plates of different kinds of cakes - marble cake, gingerbread - - fine.
But the sandwiches! It was as though they had been given twenty entirely random ingredients and told to assemble them in as many combinations as possible. Some were good - though roast beef and raw onion is possibly not an ideal lunchtime combination if the afternoon is going to be at all sociable. It was all Ham and Unidentifiable Green Puree and Cheese with Celery and Something Else But I'm Not Sure What.
The one that really freaked me out was white bread, cream cheese and fresh strawberries. Now no doubt someone out there will think "ooh, yummy!" but to me that particular combination of flavours and textures is a vile and disgusting idea.
A very individual thing, taste. The people who made the sandwiches were clearly trying to make them different and exciting, and at least they were trying - though misguided if you ask me, because a rushed corporate lunch is not the time for culinary adventures.
Different cultures eat things which seem really horrible to us, often because they can't afford to be choosy - if something is full of protein, then it's there to be eaten, even if it is a fried locust: and I expect that if you eat enough fried locusts then eventually you will get to like them.
I have been told, though I find it hard to believe, that there are actually people out there who like mint ice-cream.
posted by Daphne at 6:19 pm
19 Comments:
When I was a kid I was always starving when I got home from school. My mother, however, was always careful that I didn't spoil my apetite for dinner or my young ladies figure. I was therefore allowed only one slice of toast - but the problem was always, what to put on it. With so many delicious spreads and such a devouring hunger, i found it almost impossible to decide on a single topping. The solution to this problem was to cut my toast neatly into 8 equal portions - ensuring there was one for peanut butter, jam, marmalade, cottage cheese, hummous, cheddar, cream cheese and marmite respectively. The real problem then occured on the special and occasional days when there was TARAMASALATA in the house. It was this way that i came across the delicious and enduring combination of peanut butter and taramasalata (well something had to be doubled up). A little cloying at times and rather heavy on the roof of the mouth, but I would highly recommend it as a sandwhich filling for any discerning palate or Corporate buffet platter.
!!!The toast thing!!!
Mum, you've forgotten to put that Harry also eats, when he can get away with it, one spoonful of main course, then a spoonful of pudding etc. Food combinations do not bother him at all; he says "It mixes together in your stomach anyway." A more appropriate, if nauseating, example.
In the heady and youthful days of my sojourne in France, Mumbo Jumbo and I would embark on sandwich competitions. The idea being to create a sandwich that the other person couldn't/wouldn't eat.
Now, not knowing Mumbo Jumbo, you don't know what I was up against, suffice it to say I lost. Mumbo had a cast iron stomach, no scruples and an evil imagination - a winning combination.
Talking of winning combinations after I had prepared [and Mumbo had devoured] a sandwich of sardine, toothpaste and jam I was confronted by a sandwich containing a dry tea bag, marmalade and washing up liquid.
Well we were young.
Our family horror (imaginary, not tested) was a cold sardine in a cup of warm lard. Sounds a bit tame after jam and toothpaste. But, Daphne, how could you not love mint ice cream??
Ooh, a fresh crusty granary roll, spread with a thick layer of quark, then crammed with strawberries. If only I hadn't developed milk intolerance...
Quark? Quark? I thought that was the next up from a Higgs Bosun.
Quark is the Ferengi bartender in Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
Think crunchy peanut butter, then think smooth peanut butter
Think low fat cottage cheese, then think quark.
Therefore a milk product. Therefore on my 'may not consume' list,.
(sulks)
What is it with some people and the whole 'fruit and bread' thing?
I shudder at the thought of your strawberry sandwich, Daphne, just as I trembled with disgust at my mother's delight in white bread, spread thick with butter and then interleaved with chopped banana. As a(nother) milk-intolerant, for whom butter is particularly intolerable, digestively speaking, the very idea of a wodgy layer of said product is itself a recipe for nausea. But why take a perfectly good banana and pop it in there? Surely two pieces of toast followed by the banana (or vice versa) would be a better use of the ingredients?!
Perhaps it's an extension of the fruit-jam thing - you know, when does really chocka-block-with-fruit-packed jam or marmalade become what's near-enough just bits of fruit on bread?
Or could it be that it's actually a lead-up to that most cruel and unusual of British punishments - Summer Pudding?
Don't get me started on Summer Pudding.
You take perfectly good red fruits and turn them into a sort-of compote, but cover them in soggy white bread? WHY? WHY? WHY?
What was wrong with fruit and yoghurt, or VANILLA ICE-CREAM?
Whoooooah! Let's not knock mashed banana sandwiches.
Place your peeled banana on a plate and set about it with a fork. First stab the whole length repeatedly to lossen things up a bit, then turn the fork to offer it's back to the white flesh and squish away.
Be careful: squish too much and things get kinda liquid, so stop just before the whole thing is in danger of turning into a drink, and spread on thin sliced bread. Cover with a second piece of the bread and there you are. With a glass of milk, a feast fit for a fourteen year old just returned from building dams across the Colorado in the field next door.
Sorry, Rebecca, I'm with John on the banana sandwiches front.
Banana mashed on toast is good too: you don't even need to have built the Colorado dam. All you have to have done is got out of bed and staggered downstairs.
I find banana on toast is accompanied by a loud whining noise and cries of "ooh, disgusting, yuck!" This comes from my daughter who thinks all bananas are akin to a cold sardine in a cup of warm lard.
Bananas and Quark sounds promising, though I haven't tried it. Bananas and a Higgs Bosun is probably not so good.
But then again I have to agree with Rebecca - - Summer Pudding, oh yuck!
No! my vote lies with Rebecca Stephens when it comes to banana sandwiches. Disgusting! in fact squished bananas in any form are simply gross. Unlike many women in the early stages of pregnancy, I wasn't prone to morning sickness but my one projectile vomit incident was caused when happening to spot a small child eating a squashy banana with snot running down his upper lip such that the puce green of the snot and the yellow brown of the banana happened to meet at his mouth. Unforgetable horror. Just thought i'd share that with you.
Does Robertson really like mint ice-cream?
As a child, when Daphne ate mashed banana sandwiches, I would be overcome by waves of nausea and have to leave the room. Meanwhile another fascinating fact from your Dutch correspondent: here sliced strawberries on bread with sugar are a summer breakfast favourite - sort of instant jam, I suppose.
Finally, Daphne, what makes you think one would have to get used to fried locusts? They’re probably quite delicious the first time. Given that or a mashed banana sandwich, I know which I’d choose anyway.
Mint ice cream is horrible... Truly vile... Absolutely the worst substance man has ever invented including mustard gas and maybe even the "squished banana".
here's a Mint Icecream Hand Grenade of the type used on the Western Front by the Prussian Army.
Glad to see the squished banana divides its critics...
To cast my vote on the mint ice-cream, I must admit that I've never been able to really see the point of it. They just seem like the sort of flavours that are all wrong together.
Like lime milk-shakes. (Well, for me, any milk-shakes, to be honest. But lime was the one I least liked watching my brother drink.)
Or fruit fondant chocolate centres.
I repeat - they just seem wrong. Unnatural.
We all know there's one special flavour for ice-cream, and that's vanilla. Closely followed by rum&raisin or coffee.
COFFEE ICE CREAM!!?? Call the Council!
Fer goodnesssake, what d'you want to go spoil two perfectly good things by combining them?
Now I know I'm going out on a limb here, but that's like chocolate cake. Cake is great, chocolate is good [when left alone], why mix them together? It's like trying to watch film and read a book at the same time.
Chocloalte cake with coffee ice cream.. I can think of very few desserts that I would enjoy more.
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