My apologies to the gluten intolerant among us. This introspective exercise may fall short, given the unlikelihood you’ve recently eaten a sandwich. But the wisdom may transcend.
I think we can all agree there are good parts of a sandwich and not-so-good parts. One may think a customary sandwich is cut in half to make it easier to hold, but I believe it’s so we can instantly enjoy the best the sandwich has to offer.
That centre bite always has the most. It has the most meat, the most cheese, the most roasted vegetables (if that’s your fancy). Occasionally it feels like an over-promise, as all subsequent bites don’t fully measure up. Yet each has its own strength, a distinct balance of ingredients. Perhaps we can learn to value them all.
I tend to eat the centre bite, then work in from the edges, preserving the centre-adjacent bites until the end of the half sandwich. Inevitably, however, I end with a small bit of crust, that being my handhold. This is tolerable for the end of the first half, but certainly not, for me, for the second.
The joy begins afresh for the second half. Oh, that centre bite. Every reason you chose to eat that sandwich explodes in bountiful plenty once again. It’s like meeting someone who finally ticks all the boxes, like mail-order clothes actually fitting, like pulling off an event or nailing an assignment. It seems so perfect, bathed in a sense of universal justice. It all feels right.
You know your journey has peaked if you eat a sandwich as I do. But those side bites have their own joy, a sense of exquisite austerity in their humbleness. They don’t offer abundance, but they offer all you need. They boast of not too much, of adequacy, of restraint and common sense.
And this is where I ask you to reflect on how you eat a sandwich. Do you simply work your way to the crust, popping that dry morsel in at the last moment, accepting that what was once great, so full of promise, is now simple sustenance? They say the most nutrients are found in crust, a Puritan finale to your gastronomic journey.
Or do you do as I do: leave that last bit of crust sitting alone on the plate, its nutrients rejected, its plainness and arid nature ostracized? Denied the final leg of the race, that piece of crust is left with potential unfulfilled, with the quiet knowledge it sparks far less joy than its mid-sandwich counterparts.
Sometimes I give that last bit to my dog. She appreciates it. But I refuse to end a sandwich on that note. Why, as a good friend of mine once waxed philosophical, would I want that to be my last bite?
So the question of how you eat a sandwich is not just one of taste, pleasure, and sustenance. It is a question of how you approach life. Do you stay entirely in the centre sandwich utopia? Do you see the worth of the side sandwich? Do you end on a high note, or see the whole thing through to its dry end?
This column is inspired by Backseat Life-ing, preferably with a picnic basket full of sandwiches. Next edition I hope to have some Tlellian news to actually report. I missed the Official Community Plan meeting, so, my bad.
