The humble sandwich…

Not to trivialise relationships, but I honestly think about a sandwich I had when I was nine with the fondest of memories. It’s never faded into the background. It was from a small store whilst on a holiday. A simple curried egg sandwich, but it was sweet and spicy, not at all what I expected. I think I’ve managed to replicate it, yet I rarely make it for myself.

All my other favs have been ham, salad, cheese combos.

Our salad sandwiches in Australia are different to the rest of the world. To Aussies, salad in a sandwich consists of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, canned beetroot (healthier option, grated fresh beetroot), onion and sometimes grated carrot, salt and pepper. Add cheese, ham and mayo and boom, the sandwich that should have its own postcode.

This is my go to sandwich. It’s a meal on its own. It’s always good, but on occasions it has been exceptional, worthy of michelin star rating.

Our hamburgers are different as well. The mandatory, lettuce tomato and canned beetroot (not optional, just added, it’s a staple) fried onion, bbq sauce (which we refer to as barbie sauce) meat patty and if you’re lucky, it’s on a freshly toasted crusty bakery bun. You can add cheese, bacon and egg, and it becomes a works burger or a burger with the lot. A fairly messy affair, but well worth the ensuing hand wash.

Some barbarians add fried pineapple, on occasions this divides the country, a lil like the pineapple on pizza conundrum.

Like I said I’m not trivialising relationships, but when I saw the meme, I was like, that’s actually true. Food is a constant, it’s part of everything we do.  And a lot of our fond memories are associated with the comfort it brings.

The meme seems lighthearted, sassy, even funny. The intricacies of a lived relationship being compared to a simple sandwich. But it is true, there are relationship that we never really think about again. And there are relationships that hold less than fond memories,  then there’s the sandwich.  A humble sandwich that gives rise to a whole nostalgic trip down memory lane. And even if it’s a bad memory, that sandwich still comes out the victor.

*************************************

I’m compelled to add a footnote…It seems pretty privileged to write a blog about food, given the suffering of others and the lack there of. But for the grace of God I have been blessed with an abundance of food.

It’s sad that I can’t write a blog without feeling I might be judged on the triviality of the content. That I feel a sense of shame for writing my innocent memories. If this was a social media post, I would be attacked, called out on my privilege, my inability to read the room, by angry virtue signalling individuals who do nothing more than rant about the injustices.  Of course I agree with the injustices, but my blog is in no way responsible or contributing to atrocities, it makes no impact on the world. It just serves as a momentary distraction.  The reality is, everything we refer to could be seen as inconsequential when set side by side with any type of bigger picture.

So this is me acknowledging the unjustness of the world we live in. I’d prefer that I didn’t have to, that it would just be an obvious prerequisite, a benefit of any doubt, but we live in a world where people are all to ready to dissect and obliterate.

A lil later, I was just washing the dishes and I was thinking, wow, how did I get to a place where I felt compelled to justifying an innocent blog.

We are no longer a village, a community, a source of reassurance, encouragement … we are essentislly becoming adversaries, until proven innocent.

I just separated the end of my sandwich blog from the footnote, because to be fair, they are two blogs, that should not even be together, but that’s where reality has landed, well mine anyways.