Gone Away ~ The journal of Clive Allen in America

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

Gone Away
Aaarrgghh! Typo! It should be, "sting in the tail" of course.
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Hannah
Glad to hear you've solved your bread crisis. Of course, country music is a crisis of another sort.... Loved the descriptions at the beginning.
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Gone Away
I take it you're not a great fan of country music, Hannah. ;)
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Mad
Hey that's the same problem I had in South East Asia! All the baked products were sweet like puddings. It was truly awful for a British trained palette, I had to avoid all bread related foods. I'd look at something that looked great and my western bread craving would say "buy it, it is bread!" then I would and it was like eating doughnuts regardless of what I'd bought. It was enough to make a grown man cry...

and don't even get me started on the fact that you cannot find real milk for your tea (but that's another story).
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Gone Away
That expresses my feelings exactly, Mad. I love America but they really must learn how to bake a decent loaf. :>
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Boogie
Jolene Jolene Jolene Joleneeeee please don't take my man juts because you can. I have no idea whether that's country, but its in my head.
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Gone Away
That's country all right, Boogie - and done by one of the greats of country music, Dolly Parton. There are worse tunes you could have running through your mind...
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Sam
hello bread isnt sweet!it cant be!!!!bread is bread and thats that!!!
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Gone Away
I used to think that. And then I came to America... :|
Date Added: 22/12/2004

josh
I suppose the first rule in bread availability is also the first rule in real estate: Location, location, location. I guess I am used to living in a metropolitan area. I can get pretty much any kind of bread I wanted, I bet. I went out ot buy stuff for a sushi party a few weeks back. . . turns out I had to choose between 7 brands of nori for my wrapping pleasure. I will also have you know - My local grocery store carries Bovril. ;-)

And as for country music - It died with Johnny Cash. Being a bluegrass musician, I feel slighted by the redneck pop on the radio thesedays; the Dixie Chicks are to country what Menudo was to Rock and Roll.
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Gone Away
I thought it might be a Southern thing, Josh, this sweet bread business. We have an incredible range down here but they're all the same - sweet. But, I ask myself, is it worth living in the frozen North just to get decent bread? ;)

Bluegrass I have always liked, Johnny Cash never. I can get along with "redneck pop" - does this mean I still don't like country?
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Gone Away
And yet.... It might be worth moving North for the Bovril alone. :>
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Ned
I am in total agreement with Josh. For one thing there is a Pepperidge Farm outlet store just down the street, Arnold also makes some hearty loaves, and nearly every large supermarket has its own bakery and they bake every type of bread imaginable, fresh and warm. Not to mention the many eateries based on bread and nothing else, Au Bon Pain, for instance. And further, Johnny Cash was what country music could have been, something with substance. He was also the only man on earth who could talk off-key and what on earth is better than the cut on the Dylan album, Nashville Skyline Rag, the one with Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash singing together (well, as together as those two could manage)? The songs are common to everyone? You must live a very interesting life. Give me some Folsom Prison Blues and a nice loaf of bread and Johnny Cash beside me singing in the wildnerness...
Date Added: 22/12/2004

Gone Away
I should have guessed it - Pepperidge Farm is a Northern thing. But the rest of what you say proves nothing to me, Ned. Every large supermarket here too makes its own bread and, guess what, the bread is sweet! I notice both of you ignore my complaint that is not against the variety on offer but against the fact that everything is sweet, for crying out loud! For all I know, you guys have never tasted real bread in your lives and so imagine that what you're offered is the genuine article. In fact, now I come to think of it, this is highly likely, in view of the fact that you have all accepted meekly what passes for chocolate in this country! I guess I will have to wait until I visit the frozen North before establishing the truth of these claims.

And what am I doing, accepting Yankees' judgement of what constitutes country music? Surely I am better off listening to the Southern view on a Southern phenomenon? For a moment there, you guys, I beg your pardon, y'all, nearly had me fooled! Johnny Cash indeed. Please notice that Bob Dylan, as great as he was musically, was yet another Northerner and therefore unqualified to judge whether Mr Cash was a country singer or merely a tone deaf con artist.
Date Added: 23/12/2004

josh
Wait just one second there. par'ner.

I Was born in Alaska, but moved to North Carolina, where I spend most of my formative years. Although I consider myself at least marginally urbane, I now live south of the Mason-Dixon line. And I do not hold a mandolin like a prop, I play the darn thing. Bob Dylan was the ghost of Woody Guthrie (yes I know they were both alive at the same time at one point), purposefully or not -- embodied in the slight frame of a kosher boi from the village. This paradox I can identify with.

Country music was folk music, believe it or not -- until the usurpers in nashville got dolled up by the focus groups on Madison avenue. Furthermore. . . singing "We'll put a boot in your ass, its the American Way" does nothing but make most fans of real country music nauseous.
Date Added: 23/12/2004

Gone Away
Well you can't get much more Northern than Alaska, Josh. ;) But I jest - the mere fact that you play bluegrass identifies you as Southern in spirit at least. For some reason I thought you lived a bit farther North than the Mason-Dixon line but there ya go. Robert Zimmerman was one of the few heroes of my youth and I will always honor him (actually I think he is better than Woody ever was). And the problem is that country may have been folk music once but it is so no longer (except in the way I have defined it in my blog). It is a new animal now, growing away from its roots and happily accepting influences from pop, rock and who knows what else (there is one current song in which the instrumental intro is a dead ringer for kwela, although I'm sure that must be entirely accidental). And what I wrote of is this new country for that is what I hear on the radio down here.

What do you think of Nickel Creek?
Date Added: 23/12/2004

josh
They could use a little less grooming, but the spirit is there. ;)
Date Added: 23/12/2004

Way
I am forced to "borrow" a slice from you, Clive.
Date Added: 23/12/2004

Way
Very tasty, btw.
Date Added: 23/12/2004

Gone Away
Never mind a slice, Way - have a sandwich. ;)
Date Added: 23/12/2004

Way
Got coon?
Date Added: 23/12/2004

Gone Away
Umm that'd be the Roadkill Restaurant down a block from here. Have a look at Mad's blog today... ;)
Date Added: 23/12/2004

Way
The demon struck again? (advance to mine again, also)
Date Added: 23/12/2004

Gone Away
Wilco.
Date Added: 23/12/2004

paige_pie
Hi, and welcome to America. Your son sent me here, cause I too blog, he thought I would enjoy your wit and outlook on things. I must say he was correct. Might I make a suggestion? Harris Teeter grocery stores have what is called "bauerbrot" its a hard dark german bread that either you slice or they slice when you purchase it. perfect for liverwurst and cheeses. Go find some, you wont regret it. P.S. its wonderful with just butter.
Date Added: 24/12/2004

Gone Away
Hi Paige and thank you. I have not noticed any Harris Teeter grocery stores in Lawton but I shall keep an eye open for one now. How did you know I love liverwurst and cheeses?
Date Added: 24/12/2004

josh
Is that bauerbrot, or sauerbrot? ;)
Date Added: 25/12/2004

Gone Away
I'm guessing sauerbrot... ;)
Date Added: 25/12/2004

Hermann Z Schermann
Nein. Bauerbrotchen ist der korrektes wort. Bauerbroten ist der brot den bauer! :>

Flughafen, Ausfart, Gummibaren!

Frohe Weihnachten, und Frohes Neues Jahr!

- Josua
Date Added: 26/12/2004

paige_pie
I didnt, i assumed everyone in the world liked it. dont they? right its called Bauerbrotchen. try a german deli
Date Added: 06/01/2005

Gone Away
Ahah, good thinking, Paige! I shall do just that.
Date Added: 07/01/2005

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