There’s bread, and then there’s Toastie.
Before I begin this love letter to my favourite bread (and that’s an important accolade—bread means everything to me) I want you to know that I got in touch with them to ask to visit one of their factories. I was pretty excited about the prospect. Unfortunately they didn’t get back in touch—I don’t think I’m famous enough, and anyway, blue hairnets don’t really match my Deftones hoodie aesthetic. It’s fine.
I think what I wanted to see was hundreds of loaves of bread pre-slicing. Its squareness, its slices, they’re so perfected that it’s hard to relate a loaf of Warbies to a traditional loaf. They might be the same thing genetically, but like Darwin’s finches, they have developed different coping mechanisms, new attributes, that better suit each of their surroundings.
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Take their crusts. Compared to a tin loaf baked at home, the crust of a loaf of Toastie might as well not exist. The top crust has always been my favourite one, the bottom one the worst. I like the shiny texture against my tongue. I used to like Kingsmill Top Grade for the same reason. “Proper” bread, made by hand and potentially with fresh yeast or even sourdough, is different in every way, and you don’t need me to tell you that. The crusty, chewy texture, the thick, yeasty smell, the tangy flavour. It’s like comparing an eagle owl to a pigeon.
But pigeons are only pigeons because of man’s intervention. We wanted them docile and unafraid. We trained them to be obedient and let them become reliant on us as far back as 5000 years ago. Then, at some point in history, we decided we didn’t want them anymore. Common grey pigeons (closely related to Rock Doves, but not exactly the same bird anymore) have been anomalies ever since—unable to make proper nests or live without close proximity to humans. Does this mean they are not birds? It strikes me as unfair that we blame them for everything that they are, when it was us who created them.
Soft, white, processed bread might be the enemy of so many diets, but it only exists because we wanted it. Correction: we want it. According to UK Flour Millers, Nearly 11 million loaves are sold every single day in the UK, and wrapped and sliced bread accounts for 85% of UK bread production. Sliced bread is everywhere because of us, and I think that’s rare. Usually processed foods are pushed on us through marketing, as additions to our diet we didn’t ask for. Processed bread just exists around us, as something we once hailed as the ultimate convenience, now taken for granted and slightly vilified. Even I find myself feeling guilty when I choose it over a local bakery’s seeded batch. Is that progress or diet culture or something else entirely? What I will say is this: It feels a little unfair to me to have all this wonderful bread around and for all of us to pretend it isn’t as nice as the healthy stuff.
Why do I love Toastie? There are so many reasons.
It is ethereally soft. When you pick the freshest orange packet, it’s like biting into a cloud.
Making toast with it makes the whole house smell like a delicious bakery.
Dry Toastie toast is the approved post-sickness test food to see if you feel well enough for the next step—tinned tomato soup.
It is always there for me. No matter when I get back from being away, or how unreasonable my brain is being, or how lazy my day is, there is a squishy, freshly-baked loaf of Toastie waiting for me at the shop.
If you roll it flat, brush it with olive oil, sprinkle salt on and toast it under the grill, it becomes instant crackers for a makeshift cheeseboard.
My grandad’s house smelled of toast, and curry powder. He lived off curries and occasionally goulash, or pea and ham soup simmered until it was the colour of army issue fatigues. I don’t think he ate toast himself, he would just make sure there was Toastie and marge in the house for when we went round to stay, a small but meaningful act of service. Even now, the smell reminds me of him—strange, since as I say, this was not a food he ate. He drank John Smiths and loved a Dopiaza. I love you grandad. Thanks for the toast.