This historic writing marks the beginning of my blog, Up Up Down Down. You may think from its title that I’ll be writing about Contra, or any number of other video games produced by Konami. Although I reserve the right to eventually write about classic Nintendo games whose domination was initially made possible by this “secret” code, there are more pressing matters to discuss. Over the course of this blog, I’ll be reporting the some of the most grossly overrated and tragically underrated products/things/ideas/people.
Let’s begin with what many may understandably believe to be one of the most important food developments in history, when considering its frequency of everyday consumption, glorification in the media, and propaganda spread by food pyramid peddlers everywhere: toast.
Toast is overrated.
My friend was recently passively aggressively accused of “accidentally” having taken her ex-roommate’s toaster. It was an old toaster, complete with rust and stains, worth perhaps $10, but managed to create quite a bit of contention among the two of them. Its fun to hear my friend tell the story, but making this story possible is about all that toast has done for me.
Of course, just because toast doesn’t do it for me, doesn’t necessarily mean that toast is overrated in general. People are allowed to have different preferences (although I’d like to believe that mine are pretty good and you should respect my opinion just because of that). But I think that sometimes peoples’ observed choices are affected by misinformation, habit, or just a lack of having fully thought things through. One of the goals of my writing will be to help you thing these things through.
If you think about it objectively, all of the good aspects of eating toast are due to products or characteristics that typically accompany it, rather than the toast itself. Let’s face it. Butter makes anything good. Jam’s good. Peanut butter’s great. I could eat cinnamon and sugar by the spoonful. But plain, dry toast? No, thank you.
I do like the warmth of toast. But you don’t need a toaster to have warm bread. Quizno’s subs are good, but not because they are oven-toasted. Toasting them may make them a little better, but only because it warms the sub overall and melts the cheese.
Finally, let’s consider alternatives. If there is anyone out there that would choose a slice of toasted wonderbread over a warm buttermilk biscuit, you might as well stop reading right now. We have fundamentally different outlooks on life, and you’ll never agree with anything I say. But biscuits are just one alternative. If it’s breakfast you’re after, why not go for a muffin? If it’s lunch time, go for a grilled panini rather than the toasted club. If you’re concerned about the condiment containment abilities of spongy, un-toasted bread, why not go for a pita or a wrap?
Important caveat: I’ve only discussed regular toast. Other toast-related products, such as French toast, toaster streudel, and croutons, differ in their over/underratedness (with French toast and toaster struedel being, if anything, slightly underrated, and croutons being perhaps the most overrated toast-related item of them all – there is nothing worse then biting into a refreshing salad of cool lettuce and crisp, fresh vegetables and feeling that dry, rough texture cutting into the roof of your mouth and the unexpected resistance of a dense cube of crumbling carbohydrates, most of which is left stuck in your teeth. If it’s the seasoning you’re after, go for the non-fat-free salad dressing instead).
Next up: Key Lime Pie flavored yogurt.
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14 comments:
Croutons are what make me want to eat the salad. And biscuits have way more calories than a piece of toast.
you could have just written about condiments in general. food is boring and pointless if not for the things you add to it. ketchup. mustard. hollandaise. wasabi/soy sauce. i mean, as far as i'm concerned, oysters are just a helpful conduit for saltines, horseradish and tabasco. toast is useful for eggs over-medium, sopping up the gooeyness. but toast alone? not unless you're sick and on the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce & toast).
first, i have to assume that thomas isn't from around here. second, i think you need to clarify your theme - are you talking about plain toast or the concept of toast? plain toast does have its advantages: to eat when you are sick, the smell, the texture, but will naturally pale against, say, a grilled panini. but toast as a concept is quite magical, being the carrier of delights both sweet and savory, in addition to its hunger-inducing scent, nice texture, egg-sopping abilities and nutritional values. i have to say toast as a concept is underrated.
by "here", i mean the South. sorry, i just naturally assume all good blogs originate from this area ;)
i think the key issue here is whether toast can truly be separated as a concept from its function as a conveyance for yummy toppings. in this sense, toast is like rice, which i believe you also think is overrated. by itself, not particularly exciting, but its fundamental purpose - its telos if you will - is to soak up the delicious flavors around or on top of it. i think we also have to factor in its extreme convenience of accessibility and preparation. given all these factors, toast is neither overrated nor underrated.
oh...and i forgot that i promised all my comments would be needlessly confrontational and intemperate. so, um.... BITE ME TOAST-HATER!!!
All around the country and coast to coast
People always say what do you like most?
I don't wanna brag i don't wanna boast
so i just tell em i like...
My only quibble with your post is that I'm not certain who rates toast so highly that it qualifies as overrated. Toast is classic peasant cooking, in that it's a means to make food that is of poor quality or nearly spoilt into something edible. This is a noble pursuit. Without this manner of ingenuity, we would be without chicken fried steak and chili, and the world wood be a poorer place.
Unlike the aforementioned examples, toast is a failure. It takes medicore bread and turns it into dry, crispy, mediocre bread. I'll eat plain white rice before I'll eat toast, even toast that's been tarted up with all manner of fruit-based spreads.
BTW, a few years back, Chuck Klosterman wrote a list of bands that were "accurately rated" for Spin. Bands like Van Halen, Matthew Sweet, and the Black Crowes, who are neither over- nor underrated. I'm tempted to put toast in this category, but you convinced me. Nice start.
Wow, I'm overwhelmed with everyone's enthusiasm and willingness to engage in some healthy dialogue regarding such an important topic!
My next blog entry will be posted in the next couple days, but for now I thought I'd just briefly reply to some of the comments...
Betty t., if you only eat the salad because of the croutons, then maybe they have their purpose. But there are many better things you can put in a salad to make it more desireable. Take, for example, "the best salad I've ever had", which I frequently talk about because it was so great. It was at the Lantern in chapel hill, NC. It had lettuce (of course), strips of steak (medium), onion strings (fried), mandarin oranges, and a great citrus vinagrette dressing. It may have even had croutons, which I of course pushed off to the side.
(By the way, "the second best salad I've ever had" is almost as good. It's the Thai Cobb salad at the beauty shop.)
Thomas, you and others have well articulated my main beef with toast -- the texture. And while I know you to be a southerner (of sorts) by birth, I have to agree with Elizabeth in that you clearly have no southern flavor left in you. Biscuits, on their own, are clearly better than toast.
Is grilling different from toasting?! It's a good thing no italians have seen your post.
You do seem to have some good ideas for future posts, a couple of which I had already thought about. Perhaps sometime you can be a guest blogger (assuming I agree with you..... in terms of your list, I would say, without too much thought: left, right, up, down, down, down, down, down, up).
fieldguide.... I'm going to have to disagree with you. Food is not pointless if not for the things you add to it. There are a lot of things even less processed (you still have to make bread) than toast which are unambiguously better on their own. Pretty much any fruit, most vegetables, and meat for that matter.
fearless, good point about convenience and ease of preparation. But, once again, I'm not trying to argue here that bread is overrated (although, if pushed, I would have to say that it clearly is). What I'm arguing is that toasted bread is overrated. So, if you're looking for something easy to prepare, bread is easier than toasted bread.
Jake: I like you. Mainly because you seem to support my position. I know that there aren't many visible pro-toast touters out there holding up signs in support of their cause (oh, there are some out there, more than you would think). But, in terms of its frequency of consumption and the number of households that have toasters (I don't have numbers here, but it's safe to assume that a lot do), toast is overrated. Plus, Even if something is rated lowly, it could deserve an even lower rating.
Wow, there are a lot of toast-related comments here. I told you I would post a link to the toast song, but I see that Gregg already posted lyrics.
I'll post it anyway:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=GrF_K1w2haE
Ignore the video, it's superfluous. But the song is awesomely absurd, cracks me up and makes me appreciate toast in a new comedic way.
Realistically, it's not the warmth of toast that makes it good. It's the crispiness. Yes, I enjoy the texture. The texture of toasted bread is infinitely better than that of untoasted bread. This is also why I love croutons (I make my own. Take that, crouton dissers) and over-fried french fries.
That said...I never eat toast alone. Wait...I mean, I never eat toast by itself. Not that I never eat toast while alone. Anyway, to me, toast is boring by itself (even with a topping) but is an absolutely necessary crispy envelope for sandwiches.
That's my toast post.
Iowaboy, I’m afraid you’ve missed the point of toast completely. I was about to go protest Bush’s veto of SCHIP, but this is clearly more important.
First of all, I have to echo fearlessvk’s comment about toast as a vehicle for that which is spread upon it. There is no finer accompaniment to a good cheese, tapenade, or even a daub of simple olive oil with garlic. What would we do for bruschetta without toast?
More fundamentally, I think your lack of appreciation for toast may largely stem from a lack of experience with good bread. You’ve forced us to limit our discussion to “regular toast” and use the terms wonderbread and toaster “streudel” (sic) in your post, both of which, I’m sorry to say, raise a few concerns about the likely contents of your kitchen and the sophistication of your palette.
Good toast is made from great bread, the kind that was baked from scratch yesterday in your local bakery, comes from organic flour, has a lengthy fermentation from a small amount of yeast, and with each bite delivers depth of flavor and texture.
Good toast is part of a lifestyle in which you grab some fresh bread on the way home from work to accompany your dinner, and have a little bit left for the next morning, topped with marmalade and alternating turns with sips of fresh brewed coffee.
In a world of processed, pre-sliced American breads, so loaded full of preservatives that they stay soft for a week and then go moldy, you may be right; there would be no point to toast at all. Toast would be a cultural vestige of an era in which bread was baked fresh and didn’t come encased in plastic, an era in which strudel’s main ingredients were fruit and cheese and not corn syrup.
Is toast really the problem here?
In my rush to defend toast, I misspelled the word palate.
In sum, toast serves as a pallet for transporting a palette of taste sensations to your palate.
Neurozone-I'm afraid I don't buy it. While toast made from good bread is, without question, superior to that made from poor bread, I am not of the opinion that it is superior to the non-toasted version. It is my humble opinion that fresh, quality non-toasted bread is much tastier than toasted bread. I suspect this goes back to my earlier point that the whole purpose of toasting bread is to mask its shortcomings.
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