How Sharon Cut the Sandwiches

Nine months after my son was born, I returned to the teaching profession. A good friend and neighbour, Sharon, had a little boy, Mark, one year younger. Each day, I left my son with her...she now had twins and cared for them accordingly. She could write many stories, I am confident, about her “boys”. When he was 4, he raved about Sharon's sandwiches at lunch time. I asked him what was so special about them. “They look and taste so good!” he replied. I inquired from Sharon who told me of the fillings she used. Not to disappoint my little boy, I tried to duplicate her preparation. But to him, “they never tasted the same”. It was several years later that I discovered her secret. 

 On Friday August 20, 2010, he wrote from Calgary where he was working:

Dear Mom,

I think we've discussed this point before ~ a certain event from my early childhood.

I would like to remind you that I thoroughly enjoyed staying with Mark all day. I still remember those days very fondly.

One day, whilst Mark and I were sitting at the kitchen table, Sharon (he called her Sherno) took a whole un-sliced loaf of bread. It was a traditional cuboid shape of bread loaf, but it was un-sliced.

Sharon had something you didn't have: she had an electric knife. I had heard of an electric can opener, although we didn't have one. But I had never heard of an electric knife. So I watched in fascination.

You recall that Sharon had some counter space between the food prep area and the dinette. There were cupboards above this space, with their two and a half vertical feet of working area between the counter and the cupboard.

It was upon this counter that Sharon stood this un-sliced bread loaf vertically, upon which she used her electric knife. (It fascinates me to this day that Sharon was only about 21 at the time.)

Using her electric knife, Sharon sliced the loaf into long thin slices.

On each of these long slices, she spread toppings – peanut butter and jam, I think. Then she rolled them up into a cylindrical shape. She did not cut the cylinders into thin slices, but served the sandwich as a cylinder, about four inches long and two inches thick. (That is the size I estimate from today's perceptive recollection. It may have really been smaller than that, as my perception was relative to my own size.)

Although I had had a sandwich before, I had never seen one in such an interesting shape. Because of the unique shape, they were fun to eat.

It may have been a clever moment of ingenuity, and perhaps Sharon did not realize how intrigued I was with the shape of these sandwiches. (One tends to underestimate the mind of a four-year-old.) When I told you of these wonderful sandwiches, I must have been unsuccessful at communicating the distinctive shape and particular method of preparation. Sharon merely told you the ingredients, and when you made the sandwich at home, it had the traditional shape and therefore had no intrigue.

You therefore puzzled at how your imitation had failed to meet the specifications of the original. In discussing the matter over with Sharon you then learned that the novelty was in how it was cut. I don't recall you ever trying to recreate the original properly – after all, Sharon had an electric knife, which greatly facilitated the long, thin slicing of the bread, a critical point in the formation of this sandwich.

As I sit on a little break, I can visualize Sharon slicing that bread loaf vertically, and spreading jam on a long thin slice, using the whole blade of the knife.

I thought you would enjoy reading my testimonial account of the original.

......................................................

My thoughts at the time were that he enjoyed being with Mark and his mother. That he loved her sandwiches, was great. Let this be her “special lunch” ! Why should I “steal her thunder”?

In the past few hours, I posted “Simple Pleasures”.
This is a wonderful addition to supplement the above letter..

How Significant...the Little Things in Life!

Merle Baird-Kerr~ originally written March 27, 2011
Comments to: mbairdkerr@bell.net  or inezkate@gmail.com