This is proof that I am not exactly what you would call a gourmet. Each morning when I wake up I make my way downstairs to make myself a cup of coffee. While the coffee is being made, dripping through the filter to fill up the pot slowly, I prepare two slices of wheat bread with butter and jam. Clapping the two slices together into a slightly skewed sandwich, I produce the healthy breakfast meal that gets me going in time. Sometimes I just stand in front of the sink while I am eating, trying to lick away the excess jam coming out the sides and threatening to fall on the floor. Or I will meander my way to the back window and look outside at nature while I chew and swallow. So why does this make me a gourmet? Well, after I finished my healthy meal, slurped down my coffee and took a shower, I was dressed and ready to go to work when Thea stopped me. "Didn't you notice anything (different)?" She asked me with a slight half-grin on the left side of her mouth, the word different coming out between right and left parentheses. Hmmm, I had to think but for the life of me I could not notice anything (different). "That bread you ate was for the ducks!" You accidentally opened the bag with stale bread, that bread was more than a week old." Hmmm, hadn't even noticed. Tasted just fine to me. What does this say about my food preferences. Probably not much more than the fact that it is the quantity and extra substance that matter more to me than the actual taste. Do I have taste buds or quantity buds? I am not a true gourmet, but rather someone who bites once and chews once before swallowing, someone who chug-a-lugs his drinking cup without a blink of the eye. Kind of embarrassing this whole episode but that is the way I am. Stale bread is good enough for me. And the ducks.
Maybe you should take some on the train with you next time! :)
As for stale? Modern bread can last quite a while - personally the only time I don't eat the bread in our kitchen is if it's moldy.
It's also good to see someone else that has such an amount of jam in their sandwich that it squelches out the sides when they are eating it. My wife doesn't understand that the whole point of a sandwich is the filling and you HAVE to taste it or why bother!
That's what I thought, so why run off and waste it on the ducks prematurely when folks without fully developed taste buds can enjoy it nonetheless? Your wife would relate well to mine. She keep reminding me about the ten or so jars of jam she has to buy a week and lug home. Here's to all fine squelchers out there!
There's no point to a sandwich unless it's leaking something. ::smile:: Jelly is only good if it's overflowing from my bread and out the back and dripping down onto my plate.
I agree with you wholeheartedly! A slight enhancement of overall stickiness is a pleasure beyond all pleasures. The art is keeping it from smudging your dress-up shirt and tie before going to work.
Ah ha - the trick is to work from home so you can eat breakfast naked and just hop into the shower when mishaps occur ;)
"She Don't Use Jelly" - nevermind, it's a Flaming Lips song that pops into my head anytime I read or hear "jelly."
Our bread goes stale after about 4 days. But then we're picky. If it doesn't feel as fresh as it did when we bought it, we won't eat it. I require only the highest of quality in my bread. :-)
Well Tom, then it is obvious that unlike me you ARE a true gourmet when it comes to eating the socially acceptable bread sorts. Highest quality? I think that that is left to personal interpretation.
"stale bread" seems to be such an unfair term. It is all relative to the type of bread that you start out with and what your preference is. Just try slapping some cold butter on a fresh slice of wonderbread. That event always turns into a crusty execution. Let that same slice sit around for a few days and you might have some better luck. Besides, stale bread to one person is croutons to another!
According to the official definition, stale means "Having lost freshness, effervescence, or palatability." There is also a remedy for stale bread which goes something like this: "Brush stale bread all over with warm milk and bake in a moderate oven for 15 minutes. It will come out nicer than a new loaf." You can even make seasoned croutons out of stale bread. So in that regard you could say that the word "stale" is not an exact definition in terms of days, chemical composition, whatever. So what then that the bread is stale or not?