September 8th, 2007 
Deepak Luxury of a loaf
With the mushrooming of cafes, bakeries and confectioneries in the city, the customer is certainly spoilt for choice. For one, the product is far superior in quality, it is mostly healthy and, the rest is packaged so invitingly, I’d buy it anyways. Be that as it may, we finally have available a doughnut, light and airy enough to be dunked in a steaming mug of black coffee. What’s more, it is spongy enough to soak in the hot liquid without leaving traces akin to an oil spill in the mug.
Also, the variety of breads is mind boggling. No longer do you have to make do with the customary milk or caramelised brown bread, nor the special sandwich loaf from the neighbourhood bakery. No longer do you juggle the garlic baguette and the cheesy one for your ‘continental‘ evenings; you can now experiment with loaves garnished with olives and oregano. As for the ingredients, ‘you have a choice of breads prepared with atta, bran, soya, whole wheat, wholemeal, wholegrain; multi-grain, seeded… the list is endless.
As a result, the once lowly sandwich, has suddenly acquired a certain air about itself. Given that it is essentially made up of leftovers disguised as exotica, it is quite the fashionable option to be caught eating with your cappuccino. Toasted, grilled or otherwise; hot or cold; open or layered, the fillings are as many (oftentimes as desi) as the toppings being offered by pizza companies. Depending on where you are eating, these carb-laden delights are served with good, bad or sour coleslaw. Potato crisps, tomato ketchup and mustard (or is it?) make up the rear end, unfailingly.
Even as I fall victim to this food fashion, I am reminded of the ones my cousins, siblings and I created during our midnight feasts many summer vacations ago. Since this activity required utmost stealth, we could not rummage through the larder and had to make the most of easily available ammunition. Invariably, that comprised tough bread curling at the edges left out for feeding birds the following day!
The fillings consisted of unbelievable (sometimes unidentifiable) material. Still, they were our mainstay when hunger pangs struck the instant the domestic help retired for the night.
I’m not so sure how my insides would react to a banana, cheese and walnut sandwich today, or, apple and ginger on a layer of cream and sugar. While great pleasure was derived from biting hard into a chocolate slab on bread and butter, the real desperate attempt had to be the one with plain sugar between the same dry slices mentioned earlier.
It required artful manoeuvring to ensure the crystals stayed between the slices and not gather at our feet…
Shredded pineapple with cream, coffee essence with cream and sugar, molten marshmallows with lemon juice and sugar were some of the other flavours that our insides resolutely, and routinely, digested. One thing is certain, though. My childhood was made up of plenty of fruits, cream and sugar, but the bread, now that left a lot to be desired!
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