A Musical Sandwich
22/12/2004
(This article forms part of the Journal that I am writing to describe my impressions of America since arrival in September, 2004. To begin reading this Journal from the beginning, click here.)

It snowed last night in Lawton. This morning there is a thin coating of white on the ground and the view from our windows is transformed into a Christmas scene. It is beautiful in an Arctic sort of way for the wind blows strongly, whipping the fallen snow into occasional flurries. The temperature has dipped below freezing and it looks like a good day to stay indoors.

I sit before the computer monitor and ponder my American experience to date. There has been much to enjoy, much that is the same and, just now and then, I come across something that is less than we take for granted in England. The computer magazines I have already mentioned. But, looming over all else, there is a deficiency that I had not expected and that puzzles me still.

The problem is bread. And it is not a problem of lack of choice; the range of types and variations on the bread theme is astounding. Any supermarket has row upon row of loaves, all neatly sliced and packaged for our delectation. Surely somewhere in this infinite variety there must be bread that I can enjoy.

Incredibly, I find that this is not so. The first thing I notice on picking up any loaf is the softness, as though it were some giant marshmallow I were handling. My immediate reaction is to recoil, memories of that silly Danish bread my mother used to buy coming to mind. That was soft, so soft that it was impossible to spread it with anything without it breaking into pieces. I search the shelves, testing each loaf, desperate for something with substance.

And there is none. At some time in the past it seems that American bakers entered a softness race, convinced that the consumer requires this above all else. Now the loaves sit there smugly, each as pillow-like as any other. Eventually I give up and allow Kathy to buy the one she prefers, a fluffy, white loaf that seems to have even less body than the dreaded Danish that I had thought gone forever.

To my surprise, it turns out that this bread is quite spreadable. It does not break up and manages, in some mysterious way, to retain its shape in spite of its airy constituency. I prepare that staple of the English diet, a sandwich. But now I find another problem rears its ugly head. And this is one that will not go away. It's the taste.

American bread is sweet. Sweet like a hamburger bun, like a pastry. This is not bread at all; where is the good, solid neutral stuff we need to make a respectable sandwich? This sweet nonsense affects the taste of anything we spread upon it or fill a sandwich with. To my battered English taste buds, this sweetness is disgusting, an abomination in my staple food. How, oh how, will I sate my bread hunger in this wasteland?

You may think I protest too much, that my complaint is minor and that I should learn to adjust. But I come from a land where bread is indeed the staple food. It is cheap, filling and nutritious and probably good for us too. Without bread the Englander begins to waste away and loses his will to live.

I know the cause of the problem, of course. The American taste is for sweet things first and this has moved the bakers to supply bread that fits that demand. When tasting a new dish the highest accolade an American can give is to say that it tastes sweet. My reaction on hearing Kathy praise food in this way was always to think: "Sweet? Is it supposed to be sweet? And so what if it is?" Nowadays I realize that she is saying, in effect, that it's good.

The problem is exacerbated in that Americans don't get their bread intake from sandwiches. This need is more often catered for by the hamburger bun where any sweetness in the bread is overcome by the multitude of tastes of burger, cheese, salad, mayonnaise, pickle and sauce. There is, too, the fact that wheat is challenged in its position as staple food by corn. It would not surprise me to learn that Americans eat more corn than they do wheat.

There is irony that this should happen in the land that produces more wheat than anywhere else in the world. But it is understandable. Before the arrival of the first European settlers, corn was the staple food in North America. It is only natural that the newcomers should adopt such a food into their diet.

Interestingly, even with corn my taste buds are offended. The Americans like their corn sweet. That delicious and unsweet variety that we knew and loved in Africa as "mealies" is here dismissed as field corn and fed to beef cattle. But corn is not really my problem; I've never been a great fan of it.

I need my wheat!

Desperate for real bread, I turned to the brown variety. Surely, I reasoned, there must be some of this hardened old campaigner that would sate my hunger. I tried the types on offer, one after the other. The uniform softness proved to have conquered here too (how on earth do they make brown bread soft?), and the sweetness spread through brand after brand. Despair threatened to overwhelm me.

But, in the end and at last, I stumbled across a rare and unnoticed loaf. For my compatriots who might find themselves in similarly dire straits, I name the wonder bread here. It is (I read the label as I type) Pepperidge Farm Natural Whole Grain Bread. It further claims to contain nine different grains and is made from 100% whole wheat, three grams of fiber and has no trans fat (whatever that might be). I can vouch for the fact that its slogan is true: Delicious meets Healthy!

Thank you, Pepperidge Farm, for (in a manner of speaking) saving my bacon.

One final comment on the bread situation occurs to me. Subway have good bread. Their sandwiches are excellent and the bread does not ruin the taste of the filling. So where do they get their bread, I wonder. Would it even be possible to go cap in hand to them and ask humbly for their source of supply? It's a project that I might act upon if my need for good, white bread becomes unbearable.

Having had my gripe on the bread front, it would be good if I could balance things by pointing out the good in something American that has always puzzled the Brits. I refer to Country Music.

There are those in Britain who like this form of music but they are few in number. In general, it is looked upon with scorn in the land of my birth. But I have come to the conclusion that this is because we don't understand country music as it is supposed to be. Let me try to explain.

Here in the Southwest it is impossible to escape country music. Turn on the radio and it will, more often than not, be playing a country song. Kathy listens to the radio when we're in the car so I've been educated gradually into this new world.

The first thing I noticed was that there are only about five or six tunes. They might be played slightly differently, sometimes on different instruments and at different tempos but, essentially, the same tune gets done over and over again. And this is the point at which the Brit gets stuck, I think. He or she says, "Boring" and tunes to another station. But I have not had that option; I have to keep on listening. That is how the truth of country music began to dawn on me.

Country music is not about music at all. As long as it keeps trotting along in the expected fashion, that is fine and the real point of the song can be realized. It's the words that count. The lyrics are far more important than the music.

Every country song tells a story. And the stories are common to everyone; they're about our daily lives, loves and tragedies. This is their power - that they reach the listener through shared experience. Country music is, in fact, a form of folk tale for the people of the Southwest and it's in these songs that their stories are written. Some songs might hold a moral or advice, others just tell it like it is without comment. But all, invariably, have their story to tell.

I first realized this when listening to a pleasant little ditty about some guy sitting in a bar. Another feller walks in and starts telling of how miserable he is, how he broke up with his wife and now he hates everything. The first guy buys him a drink and listens to his tale of woe. After a while, the first guy gets up, phones his wife and tells her he's coming home to talk things over and get them sorted out. Then he turns to the miserable feller and says, "Thanks for everything."

Well, I thought, that's a nice little tale with a sting in the tale and a moral to boot. Then I started listening more carefully to other songs. And I found that this thread of story-telling runs through them all. I had discovered the secret to country music's long survival. Now I listen to them all.

The really strange thing is that I've begun to like the music too...

(to go directly to the next entry in the Journal, click here)

Clive

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