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October 18, 2007
The Evil Bread does.
The thing I hate most, apart from certain schools of thought whose teachings would have us believe that people who are essentially the same are fundamentally different, is bread crumbs. And I make the distinction here between breadcrumbs, which are an entirely different and mostly harmless ingredient making for a delicious contribution to the topping of, say, a lasagne, and bread crumbs - little fiddly itchy dusty things that get everywhere.
They’re bad enough on the kitchen table, getting stuck to your sleeve or onto the bottom of your mug of coffee, but heaven forbid the dire consequences associated with eating toast in bed. Toast Crumbs – the extreme right of the Bread Crumb League – are the worst, taking the fiddly and itchy elements to new heights of annoyance, in bed, a nightmare.
To make matters worst, like some unstoppable threat to the Human Race in a science-fiction film, when you try and pick one up it shatters into a thousand smaller crumbs, each more deadly than the last.
The problem is not helped by the fact that the better the bread the worse the bread crumbs. Cheap and cheerful bread, the sort of pre-sliced confection that comes in a brightly printed plastic bag hinting at some superlative from your female progenitor’s oven, produces no bread crumbs to speak of, largely because it isn’t really bread in the first place.
But get a loaf from your local baker, or even a Pain de Campagne from Johnny Sainsbury, and it’s crumb city. You take it out of the bag and the crumbs all spill out beginning their relentless advance across every the flat surface in the room.
You approach with the bread knife and crumbs are positively leaping about as you slice through the rich crust. Then, dropping the recently sliced bread into the toaster [which, on being placed on the work surface, has itself just delivered fresh recruits for the Crumb Wars] wayward stray crumbs alight on the wiry heating elements and start to burn.
The resulting cloud of blackened smoke sets off the smoke alarms which alert the fire brigade and before you know it you’ve got big fellas in wellies breaking down the door with axes, smashing windows and slooshing gallons of water about, some of which inevitably lands on the toast making it soggy. And the thing I hate nearly as much as bread crumbs is soggy toast.
Posted by john at October 18, 2007 01:44 PM
Comments
I have heard that the Buddhists believe that all desire leads merely to subsequent pain. I expect that they use the wish to eat toast in bed as a prime example of this.
Posted by: Daphne at October 18, 2007 02:28 PM
Now don't you go blaming everthing on the white bread.
Posted by: PC Crumb, Bread Police at October 23, 2007 09:23 PM