We all have our quirks and preferences. Luckily mine are mostly harmless.
But having figured out what my preferences are, I do like to indulge in them if I can. I want my cider without ice. I want my peanut butter crunchy.
Nobody will be maimed if I don’t get these things but I will probably make a face.
This isn’t generally a problem. I’m not in the habit of making outlandish requests.
But I do have a thing about bread. I often like to eat it … untoasted. Sandwiches, rolls, bagels, croissants. I eat them all in an unheated, room-temperate state.
I used to think that this was a more or less normal thing to do but I’ve come to suspect that I am somewhat bizarre in my preferences because try as I might, I struggle to be served untoasted bread items at cafes.
Take the ham and cheese croissant I ordered a while ago. I never asked for it to be heated and so was surprised when it turned up on my plate having been squashed into flatness in a sandwich press. Why would you do that to a croissant?
The whole point of them, I thought, was that they are light and airy. But there it was, about two centimetres thick with all the lightness and airiness of a cinder block. A crime against patisserie.
It still tasted good, but damn, did that croissant really need to be subjected to the sandwich press? Won’t someone think of the buttery crescent-shaped baked goods?
Another aspect of my insane and ill-advised “raw bread” predilection is in the form of smoked salmon bagels. I just like them not to be toasted. Partly because I like smoked salmon cold, partly because they often have lettuce or other greenery in them that it seems weird to heat up.
You would not believe how hard it is to get cafe staff to serve me a room-temperature smoked salmon bagel. Take last week. Upon ordering my bagel I gave the following instruction.
“Under no circumstances should it be put into a sandwich press.”
The chap serving me seemed amused but uncertain.
“But do you want it toasted?”
Hmmm, it seems like I may have stumbled into an episode of Red Dwarf.
Just to be sure, I said “no heat to be applied” whilst waving my arm across the counter in a “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” kind of motion.
“That should do it,” I thought, stupidly.
When my bagel arrived it had a suspicious tan and when I touched it, it was hot. HOT. I made incredulous faces at the Silver Fox. The waitress noticed.
She whisked the bagel away and, to her credit, brought back a non-toasted one very quickly. I fancy I then heard conversation behind the counter about who was going to eat the rejected hot bagel.
Now, I’m not allergic to toasted bread. Nothing bad will happen if I eat it but lordy, what do I have to do to get served a untoasted bagel or croissant? Do I need a court order or something? Am I not speaking clearly enough? Am I asking something so out of the realms of the normal that no one can quite believe it?
Have I missed the boat? Are we living in a time of unanimous toasting and I just never realised?
Has anyone else had this problem? Does no one just eat bread anymore?
Originally published on Stuff 03/07/2015
Featured image, Lox on bagel, by Pug50 on Flickr.