Between the bread

For many years my lunchtime diet consisted primarily of sandwiches. That, and fruit and/or yoghurt. I lived through what seems like a lifetime of sitting in classrooms and working in a newspaper office fuelled by the bread-and-betweens that I concocted in various kitchens, for myself and my former roommate (Karen, who still speaks of my creative expressions in a vaguely awed voice) and a parent or friend or assorted acquaintance or three. And I did pretty well, except that the older I got and the more sandwiches I made and ate (not always the same thing, you will understand) the more picky I got about what I could find to make my culinary synapses happy, or at least cheerful. So now if I am given a ’wich made with mundane white sliced bread and easy-filling, I will more likely than not revolt, objecting occasionally violently to whatever is shown to me under the title of: sandwich.

It started out with no complications. I was able to eat the packaged white bread and enjoy it, especially slathered with butter and anything from sliced cheese to peanut butter to jam to tomatoes to leftover sabji to boiled egg to ham to bologna to – on one memorable occasion – tomato ketchup. And then I saw a film called The Breakfast Club. In it, one of the actors (I think it was Molly Ringwald) smashed handfuls of crunchy potato chips between two slices of soft bread. Watching that segment for the umpteenth time made me wonder what it would be like to bite into that. I tried it. It was heavenly. Delicious. Delightful. Divine. Just plain yummy. And the experiments began.

Soon after that, I was introduced to the wonders of bread that was not white, not sliced and not packaged. It had to be bought at a bakery or made at home, had lots of interesting nuggets of whole grains or nuts and seeds and flavours in it and not only tasted better, but felt better in my mouth, too. Gradually, that genre of bread took over my life. Today, if you ask me to take a bite of plastic-bread, as I call it with characteristic disdain, I shrink, I quail, I plain refuse. Put a slice of plastic cheese between two of these slices and I go pale (or as pale as my nicely tanned skin can possibly get), shudder not too gently and reach blindly for a sharp object with which I can drive whoever is doing the offering away.

To me, a sandwich has STUFF in it. I prefer the three-slice formula, starting with slabs of rough-textured bread, the darker and more fibre-rich, the better. Then I slather on home-made mayonnaise (with the fishes tails, Papa!) and, if I have it, a smear of the mustard that makes your eyes water, your nose sting and your sinuses sing out loud in sharp soprano. Then comes the fun part – pile on the ham, chicken, roast beef, salami or whatever other cold cuts you have. Or, if you are going veggie, heap that bread with pesto and lettuce, hummus and falafel, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, even carrots, potatoes, onions and more. Then gently place another mayo-ed slice of bread on the top, and repeat with other fillings, this time perhaps cheeses and leaves. Put the lid on the whole with the last slice of bread and press down very lightly, just enough to make sure that everything stays together coherently. Slice diagonally with a very sharp knife – this makes sure that you get a cross section of the contents and you get those corners of bread with crust that are especially delicious as they absorb all the juices even as they help keep the sandwich together long enough to be eaten without too much mess.

In all this, perhaps the best sandwich I ever ate was one afternoon in a small town in England. I was strolling through downtown Tunbridge Wells with close family friends when we decided to stop to eat. We sat in a small café with very painful wrought iron furniture (my ankle bones got severely dented on that trip) and ordered sandwiches. Mine were water cress on brown bread. They came, a huge serving, with thinly sliced pumpernickel, a fine shaving of lightly salted butter and a thick layer of leaves, bitter-fresh and crispy clean in taste and texture. As I chewed happily, my back warmed by the sun and my heart by the affection of almost-family, I thought of sandwiches past, present and future. And planned for the execution of many more…