How to eat toast and jam.

[Anna N]

Here.

“The toast needs to be spread liberally with butter, but the jam should be a 1-2mm screed across the top. No pools, no lumps, no hillocks. If you overdo it, the jam will create an overbearingly sweet mouthful. The flavour should be butter, underpinned by toast, the jam a restrained spritz of fruity sweetness up top.“

 

I think @Kim Shookmight get a chuckle from this. 

 

 

 

[JeanneCake]

There is only black currant jam to be had on toast.  Well made toast. 

Woe to the child or husband who thinks it belongs in a peanut butter sandwich.

[Anna N]

4 minutes ago, JeanneCake said:

There is only black currant jam to be had on toast.  Well made toast. 

Woe to the child or husband who thinks it belongs in a peanut butter sandwich.

My favourite jam!

[heidih]

Oh lor - tell me how to eat - nah  And I won't tell you either

[jimb0]

just slice the loaf open, slather on a pound of butter and a whole jar of jam

 

i'm there for it

[gfweb]

If jam , no butter. If butter, no jam.

 

In any case, I'd rather have a nice bitter marmalade

[jimb0]

3 minutes ago, gfweb said:

If jam , no butter. If butter, no jam.

 

In any case, I'd rather have a nice bitter marmalade

 

oh man i love the interplay of jam and butter, though

[Anna N]

3 minutes ago, gfweb said:

If jam , no butter. If butter, no jam.

 

In any case, I'd rather have a nice bitter marmalade

I was raised in postwar Britain and it was certainly either bread and jam or bread and butter but never bread and butter and jam. Now it is mood-dependent rather than ration-dependent. But the guilt never fully disappears.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

24 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I was raised in postwar Britain and it was certainly either bread and jam or bread and butter but never bread and butter and jam. Now it is mood-dependent rather than ration-dependent. But the guilt never fully disappears.

 

How about jam and butter?

 

[liuzhou]

30 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I was raised in postwar Britain and it was certainly either bread and jam or bread and butter but never bread and butter and jam. Now it is mood-dependent rather than ration-dependent. But the guilt never fully disappears.

 

I'm still toast and jam OR toast and butter - never both!

[jimb0]

tbqh i’m kinda into butter and peanut butter. and butter and peanut butter and jam. the jam may be substituted for honey. 

[weinoo]

I like to offer butter in a little side dish (if butter is being offered at table) in order to not suffer the indignities of anything ending up in the butter writ large.

 

Otherwise, if I'm prepping the toast with butter and jam/jelly/marmalade/etc. in the kitchen, I am impeccably careful with the butter, and then I use a little spoon to remove said additional topping from its jar and onto the toast.

 

I also do have a ridiculous number of jams/jellies/etc. in the fridge and cupboards.

[Maison Rustique]

1 hour ago, weinoo said:

I like to offer butter in a little side dish (if butter is being offered at table) in order to not suffer the indignities of anything ending up in the butter writ large.

 

Otherwise, if I'm prepping the toast with butter and jam/jelly/marmalade/etc. in the kitchen, I am impeccably careful with the butter, and then I use a little spoon to remove said additional topping from its jar and onto the toast.

 

 

I can't stand it if someone gets crumbs in the butter. It gives me the jim-jams!!!

[Anna N]

10 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

How about jam and butter?

 

And the substrate would be?

[Anna N]

2 hours ago, weinoo said:

I use a little spoon to remove said additional topping from its jar and onto the toast.

That is my best practice! I use a spoon for the topping. 

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, Maison Rustique said:

 

I can't stand it if someone gets crumbs in the butter. It gives me the jim-jams!!!

Are the jim-jams worse than the heebie-jeebies?

[Anna N]

I found the whole article to be so much fun. As if one can lay down laws about how to eat toast and jam! Nevertheless I was intrigued by the concept that toast with a topping should always be cut on the diagonal. It is very logical in my mind. 

[chromedome]

1 hour ago, Maison Rustique said:

 

I can't stand it if someone gets crumbs in the butter. It gives me the jim-jams!!!

Yes, but if you're having jim-jams do you butter the toast as well? or is it just toast with jim-jam?

 

My father was not one for the delicately fine scraping of jam over the toast. He grew up in a large family in a remote part of Newfoundland back in the day, and the only sweets they saw with any regularity (jam and molasses) were rationed strictly, as the thinnest manageable scraping over the bread (or toast, or whatever). As an adult, he mounded on as he could fit for that most human of all reasons...because now he could.

 

I fall into the un-triangled camp, myself...on the (rare) occasions when I have breakfast in a restaurant, I'll invariably request that my toast not be cut. The jam (or marmalade), like the butter, must go from crust to crust.

[liuzhou]

24 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I found the whole article to be so much fun.

The whole series is fun.

[Anna N]

2 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

The whole series is fun.

I must delve into the series because this is the first I have seen. Thank you. 

[liuzhou]

1 minute ago, Anna N said:

I must delve into the series because this is the first I have seen. Thank you. 

 

It has been running for months - a different foodstuff each week.

[jimb0]

4 hours ago, weinoo said:

I like to offer butter in a little side dish (if butter is being offered at table) in order to not suffer the indignities of anything ending up in the butter writ large.

 

Otherwise, if I'm prepping the toast with butter and jam/jelly/marmalade/etc. in the kitchen, I am impeccably careful with the butter, and then I use a little spoon to remove said additional topping from its jar and onto the toast.

 

I also do have a ridiculous number of jams/jellies/etc. in the fridge and cupboards.

 

yeah i tend to leave a block of butter out for cooking and things (since we buy the big blocks, it stays fresh (thanks to the higher volume:surface area ratio) as dehydration and oxidation only happen on a sub-millimetre scale at the rate we use it), and if we need some to put on bread, a chunk gets deposited into one of the mise bowls or something

Edited March 6, 2021 by jimb0 (log)

[Kim Shook]

17 hours ago, Anna N said:

Here.

“The toast needs to be spread liberally with butter, but the jam should be a 1-2mm screed across the top. No pools, no lumps, no hillocks. If you overdo it, the jam will create an overbearingly sweet mouthful. The flavour should be butter, underpinned by toast, the jam a restrained spritz of fruity sweetness up top.“

 

I think @Kim Shookmight get a chuckle from this. 

 

 

 

What about preserves?  Any preserve worth the spread is going to have lumps and hillocks!  Case in point (those are tiny whole strawberries):

[heidih]

28 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

What about preserves?  Any preserve worth the spread is going to have lumps and hillocks!  Case in point (those are tiny whole strawberries):

 

I tend to preserves and I like variety so welcome the crunch at the corner and the lumps and bumps. 

[Anna N]

44 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

What about preserves? 

Of course. This is just a lighthearted take on the food and how we choose to eat it. The writing is extraordinarily good and the food knowledge is deep. I am enjoying every single column and do wish they had been assembled into a book!

 

Here for those who are interested.
 

“How to eat

How to Eat is our attempt to settle on the ideal form of classic dishes. The aim is not to establish rules, but to identify an informal code of good gastronomic conduct and have some fun while we're doing it.”