In defense of toast
groundbreaking post about jam and toast
I’ve had a lifelong love affair with toast and jam. A couple of months ago I put up on social media whether I might write about jam in a future Substack, and the response was a resounding yes. I’ve rarely had so many people respond to something. I never knew how passionate people are about jam (or perhaps it’s that people need some distraction from the horrors).
As a kid, my mother would send me to school with honey and butter sandwiches, which is such a funny and strange packed lunch in retrospect, but I requested and even demanded it at times. It was my favourite lunch item and bread with butter and honey remains one of my favourite things to eat to this day. My love of toast must be hereditary, and I like to think of bread as distinctly Irish. I’m not particularly connected to my Irish heritage, but when I discovered Irish soda bread about 7 years ago, my cells never felt so pleased. It was like an invisible force moved my body to the Irish cafe in Clerkenwell where I discovered it. I simply had to ingest the elegant thick slices as an offering to my ancestors. It was a return, I recognized each bite as it rolled around in my mouth as something I should have been eating all my life. I am in the habit of coming up with million-dollar ideas at least weekly (if not daily), and I’m pretty sure that opening a cafe in NYC that serves exclusively Irish soda bread and lentil soup could make us millions (us = potential investors reading this newsletter).
I’ve been interested in and studied food and nutrition for the better part of 15 years, mostly driven by both a perverse love of food and also a perverse need to control my eating (which was historically disordered, in pursuit of being skinny). I truly hate how demonized bread has become by nutritionists and wellness influencers alike. There is the sad truth that the way wheat is farmed, especially in the United States, can result in digestive distress but it’s also clear that the gluten-free product explosion has gone way too far. It’s out of control when your dried mango is labelled gluten-free. What do they take us for, suckers? Fools? Chumps? But this post is not about me evangelizing bread, it’s about bread paired with butter and jam and the joy it brings.
When my parents moved to Hong Kong we lived in a hotel for a month whilst my mother found us a place to live. This accustomed me to room service far too young. We stayed at the Shangri-La hotel, which made me feel like Eloise who lived at the Plaza, and breakfast was the best part of my day. My mother and I, beside ourselves with excitement, would order the toast which came with all different types of bread and small glass containers of jam. The toast came in a silver rack that made me feel very refined. In my very early childhood, we read Eloise before bed and my mum took me to the Plaza Hotel for tea. I envied Eloise’s life in a hotel, it seemed like an endless party. Now, I got to have my Eloise moment and enjoyed morning after morning with toast, orange juice, jam, butter and fruit. It was heaven.
Strawberry, raspberry, and marmalade were the standard. In the 90s there was none of this apricot or blueberry nonsense, you just got your standard jam varieties. When I think of it now, I remember exactly the different types of bread they used, the way the butter came chilled, and the ratio I preferred of butter to jam. The distinct pop of the tiny jam jar as I opened it. The crunch of the toast on first bite, the crumbs strewn across the white tablecloth and my belly full in a matter of minutes.
What is it about a toasted piece of bread layered with butter and sweetened, stewed fruit that makes me feel so safe and satiated? Still now, I keep a loaf of bread in the freezer, and I eat a piece of toast at least once a day. I eat it when I’m feeling overwhelmed, or like I need a hug, if I want to feel happy, or if I feel lonely. I eat it if I’m not feeling anything at all. I regularly eat my feelings, and I feel good about that. There are worse things I could do with my feelings. There’s really never a bad time to choose to eat toast with butter and jam.
If you speak to a nutritionist, they’ll likely tell you that it’s not good practice to start your day with bread, butter, and jam. I understand that it spikes your blood sugar, and it may mean you’ll crash throughout the day. I get it, I do. The French seem to be doing just fine with that approach, though. The approach that I take to this dilemma is elevenses, which I believe we need to bring back into mainstream culture. I keep raspberry jam or marmalade in my fridge, depending on how I’m feeling in the supermarket when I’m in the mood to buy jam. Around 1130 am or 12 pm I make myself a piece of toast, liberally apply butter and a thin layer of jam.
This is an important point. I do not think it’s dignified to put a large amount of jam on your toast. The only time it’s acceptable to put large amounts of jam on anything is if you’re eating a scone and clotted cream is involved. Conversely, it is always acceptable to put more butter than you think you need and/or deserve on your toast. That is the law. You wonder how you can bring back elevenses in an office. You say that’s only possible if you work from home. That’s where you’re wrong. When I worked in an office, there was a toaster in working order, and I would regularly use it with the thick, German rye bread that I felt was healthy (skinny) at the time and dollop almond butter and honey on it when I’d inevitably need to stave off the boredom I felt from working in an office and have a chance to eat my feelings around midday, before lunch. That was 10 years ago, and I haven’t changed.
I don’t know many details about the machinations of jam. I don’t know how to make it, and I don’t have any interest in learning how to. I have looked at recipes occasionally and promptly closed the browser window or recipe book because it seems very involved. Plus, artisanal jam makers need my money. As a kid, we always had St. Dalfour or Bonne Maman in the cupboard. One was in the fridge, and one was for backup when the jar ran out. When my family moved to the UK, I discovered that my friends had Nutella on toast for breakfast, and I forced my parents to let me eat chocolate spread for breakfast in addition to jam. This was not hard to convince them of, though they didn’t really approve. We lived in close proximity to some excellent bakeries and we always had good bread on hand. Bread was a hot commodity in our house, and it didn’t last particularly long, but it was consistently appreciated. The endless supply meant that we had to find new and exciting toppings, which we never seemed to run out of (cheese, cured meats, olive oil, hummus, and chutneys entered the equation, too).
And these days, though I will never denounce gluten-full bread entirely because I think it’s pretty much a part of my religion, I also can’t consistently eat it without some serious digestive consequences. So my workaround is to get some good gluten-free bread and eat it to my heart’s content.
There’s a frivolity and whimsy available in toast with butter and jam that feels necessary to me, crucial even, to staying sane. Stay with me here. In a world where we have ‘experts’ who tell us how to optimize for longevity and the 20 best breakfast bowls and your super pimped out avocado toast and best practice fasting from 7 pm until 12 the next day, I love how simple the prospect of a warm piece of bread is lumped with butter. It’s uncomplicated and easy, and there are very few things that feel uncomplicated and easy these days.
I hope you get yourself a big hunk of bread and lather it in butter with whatever sweet topping takes your fancy this week. Be easy with it.
Nora x
Brilliant post! I would die without toast. I wasn't even trying to rhyme, but when I talk about bread, poetry happens. In our household, we're fans of a delicious sourdough boule from our local bakery that often sells out. We monitor the number of slices left like life-saving medication, paranoid that we'll run out before we can restock. This was such a fun and relatable read. I lol'd in several places. So happy to find another bread head and excited to read more of your posts.
Haha I actually learned how to make bread partly because so few bakeries here make breads that toast up properly.
And I usually "underbake" them deliberately, taking them out before they get too dark or crusty because most of the bakes are meant for the Big Toast Transform.