Story Time: Why I Don't Like Sandwiches · 11:52am Oct 8th, 2020
I...do not like sandwiches.
I don't even eat them, at all. I won't even eat a slice of bread with butter and jam. Only bread-based thing I'll eat is toast or a breville.
This is an odd story that still doesn't make any sense to me, but it's short, so I'll get on with it. As with another personal hate of mine, this story stems from my time in primary school.
I don't know what it's like for you in American, but in England, kids would go to school with a packed lunch. Usually, nothing beyond a sandwich wrapped in cling film, typically jam and butter or just cheese, maybe chocolate spread, a pot yoghurt, some kind of biscuit as a snack and / or a packet of crisps. That's pretty much it. For a drink, we'd either have our school-given water bottles or we'd have a Capri-Sun or Fruit Shoot.
Everyone always started with their sandwiches. Everyone. I did, but I wouldn't finish the first half of a full section. I'd wrap it back up and leave it. Why didn't I eat the whole thing? For starters, I don't like the taste of bread as a general thing. It spent so long wrapped in cling film that I could taste it and smell the plastic. I don't know if any of you know that smell and taste I'm talking about, but if throws me off. Every time I catch a whiff of it nowadays, it takes me right back to those school days.
You think that'd be the end, right? If I didn't want to eat it and I left it, that's fine. Well, you'd be wrong. My primary school pushed two things on students: one) to be forced to brought up Christian in place of anything else because they deemed it inappropriate to believe anything else. (But they weren't mean about it.) and two: the dinner ladies actually searched kids' lunches to make sure they ate their sandwiches. I to this day don't get why that's so important.
I was outside one day after eating lunch and one of the dinner ladies I've seen all my time in that school came out and got me and pretty much asked me to come back inside to finish my sandwich. I don't recall anything after that, but I can tell you that basically being forced to eat a sandwich I didn't want to eat because it tasted like plastic and something else unexplainable completely made me hate sandwiches for good. Not a vendetta-type deal, but I won't be caught eating one. I never pack one, I won't buy them, I won't even consider making one.
I don't understand why they made us eat them. Like, they sometimes even sat in front of you and watched you eat it, just to make sure! I mean, what is the idea here? Do they have the logic like TF2's Heavy that ''Sanvich make me STROOONG!''? Because the last time I checked, eating a jam and butter sandwich sounds more like the fast track to a sugar rush and inevitable crash and being forced to eat it sounds like obesity waiting to happen. So...no, they aren't in good favour with me.
That's the end of the story. I don't know why they did this to literally every kid, going as far to snoop through their pack ups to see who had or hadn't eat their sandwiches yet, but they never explained it. There's no real benefit to finishing a couple cuttings of cheddar cheese, jam and butter or chocolate that's been wedged between two pieces of plastic-scented bread that comes to mind. You know, apart from the need to retch.
So, out of curiosity, did anybody else's school do anything like this, in or outside of England for those of you overseas?
That description of plastic-wrapped sandwiches brought back plenty of nasty memories of the station buffet at Nottingham (which probably served the original sandwiches British Rail issued them in the 1970s).
This is why I am so thankful for my secondary school being so committed to serving fresh food. Rather than letting there's go mouldy, the sandwiches they served were made to order using fresh ingrediants, sourced responsibly of course.
Did you know the sandwich exists because of a gambler?
That’s a valid reason to hate things.
No, at least in my district, we don’t have anything like your sandwich problem. I don’t know why your district has that.
5373511
Oh, dear. 1970's sandwiches were dreadful. You only had two cheeses: red leichester and cheddar. Basically either rubbery dairy or mild bite. Or if you want it worse, have you heard about a salad sandwich? The most blandest thing imaginable made due to poor budgets. They had them in schools during this decade for a while because of poverty issues. Very sad times. That just sounds revolting.
Yeah, my school had a canteen in it. I never had anything from there; not my kind of thing. The slop they served wouldn't be anything I'd allow near me or my body. Not the highest quality, I'm afraid.
I don't even remember what they had on the menu, given one of my friends had hot dinners.
Indeed I do! Said he wanted something to eat and requested something delicious (whatever his exact quote was) and the waiter(?) improvised and came back by sticking stuff between two pieces of bread and thus the sandwich was born! (I think that's how it went? Been a while since I checked my facts, but I believe that's the way it went generally)
5373512
Neither do I. It made zero sense. There was no logic behind it, so it baffles me still why this was even a thing they practically forced kids to do. In the end, I didn't take sandwiches with me anymore, not for the later years of primary or through secondary. Think that's bad, ever been that kid or known other kids to shove crisps in their sandwiches? Oh, god...
Aren't you in America, too?
Another thing that confused me was that there was a catholic school literally next door to our school, separated by a hedge. Meanwhile, my school were religious nuts. But one of the ladies I've known who was my teacher was one lovely woman, so there's that!
5373517
Salad sandwiches? My dad worked as a guard for British Rail in the 1980s, just when it was all starting to go down the pan. He once told me that if given the choice between a salad sandwich or not eating, he'd take not eating. Besides, he could just pop off the train when it called at Harrogate, head over to M&S or equivalent, grab a sandwich there and put it on expenses.
None other than the Earl of Sandwich. That's right people; a British 'delicacy' exists because a man couldn't be bothered to put the dice down for a few minutes.
5373527
Your dad was a wise man. Seeing James May remake a salad sandwich to test it put me off, more so when he layered a tonne of cucumber all over the top of the lettuce and gave it literally a few slices of tomato...ugh. Just looking at it made me cringe. I verbally protested the addition of cucumber.
I've had an Earl of Sandwich before, when I went to France with my performing arts group and we were coming back. We were offered them on the coach before departing the hotel section of Disney Land, and I can't remember if I had cheese and tomato of chicken. I think the first one. Honestly...it was terrible. Dry upon dry. Probably in the process of going stale. They didn't taste as good as they're made out to be, that is a fact.
5373535
Disney food can be wildly variable, especially at Paris. The best food I've had at Disney parks was at Animal Kingdom (the food market in Harambe is fantastic).
Stale sandwiches are even worse.
5373518
Yes, I am American.
My primary school was a religious school who tried to get me to shun the LGBT+ community it failed spectacularly.
5373616
Schools that preach and force their beliefs on others and who discount any body's own beliefs have no right to do so. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. But we both know they're too grounded in their own 'wisdom' for that...
Good on you for holding your ground 👏👍❤️
5373654
I didn’t just hold my ground.
I’m now dating a nonbinary person and identify as a girl.