How To Make An Australian Sandwich

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

How To Make An Australian Sandwich
In Germany, if you wish for a quick snack, someone is sure to fix one up within minutes of your asking. With Teutonic precision, German sandwich-makers will butter a dozen slices of pumpernickel, fill them with Berliner or Bismarck which are always kept in the fridge at the ready, and cut them neatly into halves. It's a fast and uninterrupted blitz.

  Naturally in Australia such speed is frowned upon. In a nation of rabid individualists, people like to give their sandwich-making that personal touch. Therefore preparing a snack becomes not so much a laborious chore as an expression of the snack-maker's inner thermos.

  I mean, ethos.

  Once you too have decided to be an individualist, you're ready to make an Australian sandwich. Once you've mastered this, improvisation and mayonnaise may freely flow. Here then are the basic steps to follow.

  Remove Tip Top from Westinghouse. Take two to six slices out, keep them in hand, and wander around kitchen trying to locate a Noritake plate. Place slices on edge of stove to answer the telephone. Back in kitchen, remember tin of Golden Circle stored in corner of colonial-style smooth edge cupboard. Place Golden Circle on top of New Idea.

  Pick up bread from edge of stove and rummage for Staysharp knife behind stack of Tupperware. Spread Norco on bread. Light a cigarette. Catch glimpse of interesting article in New Idea lying on table. Take Golden Circle from top of magazine stack and place on edge of stove, buttered slices on Knebel bench, unbuttered ones on K-tel Kitchenmate, loaf of Tip Top back into Westinghouse, Staysharp on table.

  Finish reading New Idea.

  Transfer buttered slices from bench to table. Move stack of Women's Weeklies and old New Ideas to sideboard to make room. Transfer boiled eggs from fridge to edge of sink. Notice patchily buttered slices and spread Norco to same evenness throughout. Transfer Staysharp to bench.

  Take plate off table and move it closer to buttered slices on bench. Locate last Vegemite jar behind tins of Pal. Hold Vegemite under hot water to loosen lid. Look around for Staysharp to prize lid open. Transfer magazines from sideboard to sink, convinced that knife has fallen behind them. (In fact it's under the plate on the bench.)

  Mix Lea & Perrins curry powder. Look for eggs. Salvage from under stack of Women's Weeklies on edge of sink. Attempt to light another cigarette. Replace flint in Dunhill lighter. Move buttered bread, Vegemite, squashed eggs and Golden Circle to table. New Ideas back to sideboard, Staysharp into sink.

  Sit down exhausted. Get up again. Put teaspoon of Nescafe into cup, add sugar and Longlife milk. Put into Toshiba microwave, sit down again, and watch the boiling coffee turning slowly around.

  You're now ready to make that sandwich.

Copyright © 1991-2002 - Robert Treborlang

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

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