Soft White Sandwich Bread

​There is a lot to be said for soft, white sandwich bread. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it’s bad for you, all that bleached flour. No nutrition. Empty calories.

But a lot of fun food is full of empty calories. Donuts, for example. All sugar and grease. Couldn’t be any worse for you. But, they taste great, don’t they? Not like all those artery-clogging ingredients stop you from having a donut when the right time strikes.
 
Soft white bread, while not in the donut’s taste league, serves a textural and flavor-enhancing function. Due to it’s softness, when you chew on your lettuce, tomato, turkey and cheese, you find yourself more focused on those other ingredients in your sandwich. The softness lets you break right through.
 
And, because white bread doesn’t have much taste (it does have a nice blandness to it), the actual flavors of everything else you’ve slapped between two slices comes out to your taste buds more effectively. Where else could you get bologna and muenster cheese to actually stand out, except between two slices of soft white bread?
 
The world wants us to eat nut breads, wheat bread, bread loaded with vitamins and fiber. I get it. We’re supposed to eat healthy. I want to be healthy.

But, here’s the thing. Some of those exotic, earthy breads are so strong and chewy, that they detract from the sandwich you made. You bite into it, and the crusted nutty wheat bread is all you can taste. You might as well just have those two slices of bread for all the taste it leaves you for your ham and swiss cheese.
 
In contrast, white bread is never going to hide those tastes because it is so bland. It’s blandness is the attraction. If you don’t like strong-tasting foods in general, white bread will be your sandwich bread of choice.
 
Growing up, our mom made us sandwiches almost every day with white bread. Sometime an apple would squash the tuna fish sandwich she wrapped and put in our brown paper sacks for lunch. I always hated when that happened because the sandwich was dented, flattened, squashed.

But, somehow the tuna fish with mayo and chopped celery flavor still came out. Flat as a pancake, but the savory taste remained.
 
I don’t know why I’ve started eating white bread the past few weeks. One day I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich, and thought, “Gotta have white bread for that.”
 
Then, the loaf stared at me from the kitchen counter for a few days, so I made another white bread sandwich with leftover pot roast.  “Hmmmm, this is pretty darn good with mayo and lettuce.”
 
The movement started. Then, so as not to waste any leftover slices, I had to make more sandwiches. I liked them. They were easy to chew. It seemed like the taste of cheese was more evident.

Maybe it’s all my imagination regarding taste and texture. Maybe I’m reverting to my childhood and want to start eating sack lunches again, make myself feel younger. Who the heck knows? I’ve still got over half a loaf staring at me.