Declaring war on gunge in sandwiches

 Me? I love a good sarnie. When I was a teenager, there was nothing I liked better than a bacon butty at The Travellers Fare cafe at Kings Cross Station on my way to St Pancras for the train home. British Rail catering was often derided, but I used to rather like the unfussy approach. The choices were such delights as cheese and tomato, ham and tomato, bacon, sausage or egg. You'd get two slices of white bread, margarine and a filling. All washed down with a cup of builders strength tea. The whole idea was that it was cheap and cheerful. In 1976 a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich would set you back 36p.

I can't exactly recall when things started to go wrong, but in 1991 I recall, when working in Pall Mall, a new cafe opened up. I wasn't eating meat at the time. They did a hot cheese and mushroom croissant. I'd never had anything so delicious in my life. The cafe was called Pret. A couple of weeks later, they introduced a new sandwich. It was rocket and crayfish sandwich, with delicious mayo on it. It was amazing. I told all my friends to try this new cafe. They were all amazed at the tasty delights on offer. For about six months, I'd go to Pret every day for lunch. Despite the fact that everything was twice as much as the other cafe's the food was just too good to miss out on. 

Then I changed jobs and was based in Aldgate. Here we had Sidoli's cafe. It was back to the cheese rolls and tuna sarnies. I longed for Pret. Over the course of time, it seemed like there was a Pret everywhere. However they no longer did the cheese and mushroom croissants. I excitedly sought out the crayfish and rocket sarnie. To my horror, it was pretty average. Over the next few weeks, I tried a few different Pret sandwiches. What had seemed delicious a few years before now just seemed like a mush topped with gunge. I realised that every single item had mayonaise on. Not only that, but to me, the mayo tasted of nothing and made my mouth taste greasy. Worse than that, it seemed that all of the supermarkets etc had followed suite. No sandwich tasted of anything and everything came with that gunge that was called mayo. 

I realised that the sarnies and rolls made in Sidoli's were far superior and gunge wasn't mandatory. But the trouble is, if you get a train or plane, the little cafe's like Sidoli's are nowhere to be found. Whereas you used to be able to get a freshly prepared bacon roll in a BR buffet on a train, now, if you are lucky, you get something in a box, that they may microwave if they feel like it and costs a small fortune. Whilst the snobs that write newspapers and gossip columns used to laugh at the plain fare of British Rail, the truth is that it was decent food at a reasonable cost. The small cafe's that are rapidly disappearing from our high streets, providing wholesome food at a reasonable cost are being replaced with shiny chains, that produce tasteless food, covered in gunge in factories, to be sold en masse in their outlets. 

There are some things you can be sure of. The cheese in the sandwiches tastes of nothing. Buy some decent mature cheddar from a proper shop and make yourself a sandwich and compare the taste with the gunge bomb that you'll buy in a ready made box. I do love an egg on toast, but try and get that in any chain and you'll be rather disappointed. Sure you'll get a chopped up egg drowned in mayo, but I certainly know what I'd rather have. 

I'm starting the campaign to end gunge filled sandwiches. There was a time when small business owners were just happy running a cafe. Now it seems that unless you have a desire to 'start a franchise' you lack ambition. The world is going mad before our eyes. I don't know who decided that if you want a cheese sarnie, you need a bucket of gunge on it, but it has to stop! I may return to this theme on a Saturday in the very near future!