Toast is a marvellous thing, isn't it? Crispy and warming, it lights up your soul as it cuts the inside of your mouth to shreds. This got me wondering though. What is the perfect slice of toast? I admit that I prefer white toast to brown (call me racist) as I've always found most brown bread smells of onion after it has been toasted, so I'll stick to white for the purpose of this investigation.
For me, the toast has to go well with a glass of orange juice, as I drink very little else in the morning, along with perhaps lager if I've had a particularly long night out. Luckily, toast is usually quite bland, so to make things more interesting, the perfect slice has to also take to marmite well, as we all know marmite is the zenith of all toast toppings. They're in ascending order to make it easier for all your stupid people out there.
So, without further ado (and to quote one of the greatest programmes of all time):
Three...
Two...
One...
ACTIVATE!
Mass-produced luxury supermarket brand
A lovely slice of bread. Not a good slice of toast, though. Flimsy, uneven cooking, and it smells of onion even though it's not brown. Butter soaks in too far and drips through onto your lap, which is never good when you're wearing a fluffy maroon dressing gown.
>2/10
Mass-produced economy supermarket brand
A standard, plain, thin, plate of disappointment. Holds heat terribly so by the time you're wrapping your chops around it, the butter will just sit and congeal on top. It must be said, though, that it does hold a very good crispy shell to a fluffy, e-numbered centre, so it's gained a few extra marks there.
>4/10
Mass-produced standard supermarket brand
A solid, reliable slice of toast. You can expect one slice to be exactly the same as the next, which is always good if you know you like one type and one type alone. I, however, enjoy a little bit of variety and unpredictability, so I'm taking that into account. It retains heat a fair amount, but don't make a plate of it to share around. The bottom slices will be soggy and the top slices will have all gone by the time you can get to them.
>4/10
Supermarket bakery
This is the toast I have most often, and it's a fair contender amongst everything else. The only major downside to it, and that's that it is cooked by 'hand' and en masse. This means that one loaf toasts drastically differently to another. It also has that problem that occurs with fresh-baked bread, being that it changes it's Toastability™ with every day that passes, and because each loaf is different, it's very hard to judge effectively. On the whole, though, they take to butter like a (living) duck to water, even if their hand-cut texture can leave scratches in your mouth.
>7/10
Independent bakery
This is of course completely impossible to judge due to every bakery being different, but I'll try and summarise all of my experience with these. On the whole, the toast is very good, it holds butter well, has a nice, crispy crust, and the flavour is generally superior to supermarket bread. There is always one thing that I love most about it though. The smell. I don't know why, but the smell of real bakery bread being toasted is right up there next to your girlfriend's cheap perfume. Others will appreciate it, but because you've bought it with your money from a little bakery off the beaten track, it smells of where you bought it from, which is a wonderfully sentimental scent, and let's face it; you don't want to smell a supermarket first thing in the morning.
>8.5/10
Farmer's market sourdough
Ok, it was always going to come down to this. Alex Olney with his love for farmers' markets comes out on top as usual. It's true though. Go to one and buy a loaf of sourdough. Take it home, wait a day, and then toast it. Sourdough toast is unlike any other toast, in the sense that it is unlike any other toast. I know I repeated myself. Shoot me. Anyway, on to the judging:
A thick, crunchy piece of bread in the same league as pork scratchings for keeping teeth in place. Butter just melts, soaks and yet still sits on top, something you don't get with any old bread. It's also very useful in the sense that it is very difficult to overcook, due to its incredibly dense nature, so no problem if you end up making Gilly-toast most of the time (sorry mum). I can't really explain how good it is, you have to test it for yourself. Prepare to bring a chequebook though, as sourdough is the most expensive bread you'll find outside of Fortnum and Mason, and for good reason, for it takes seven days to make a loaf (as Mr. Guinness always says, good things come to those who wait). It really is the perfect slice though, so give it a go.
>10/10
