Sacked

I cannot tell a lie; my downfall is toast. It's the universal fodder, innit? Sweet, savoury, neutral (but not carbon neutral, not if it's done right), toast is the one thing appropriate to any time of the day or topping of choice.

Except maybe sardines. Horrible things, I never could get to like those.

But while I was just making my toast and deciding what to have on it, I got to thinking (I heard that groan) just how much for granted we take toast. We trot down the road and buy a loaf of bread. If we are feeling flash we get Vogels or some heavily naturalised loaf product in a fancy brown wrapper. If we are feeling impoverished, we might buy cheaper than chips budget loaf. When I was a kid, Nana used to order a white baracuta which came with a piece of brown paper around its tummy before we exchanged it for ours; if we were lucky Mum might buy us a tank loaf. Later on, she would send us to the shop 3 miles away, on horseback to buy bread at the weekend; she must have known full well that we would eat half of it by the time we got home. I guess it was cheap entertainment to get us safely out of her hair. And it worked.

A few thousand years ago would have been different and in wondering how cooking bread to make toast was discovered, I figured out found out that some Caveman must have accidentally dropped the pre-packaged bread mix into the river (hence the hunter/gatherer label thereafter given to men because they sucked at growing wheat) then burnt it whilst drying it out that night. The name "toast" is thought to come from a mispronunciation of his reply to his wife when she scolded him - "toss it" although there is a school of thought that thinks perhaps it was a misheard translation of her shouting the word "Tosser" at him. Either way, toast is terrific. Get yourself some today!

Speaking of wheat, my hot wheat sacks are all ready and in bed with the cat. Time to go!