Sour

Dough.

Sourdough.

It's a chewy sour bread, often made with rye rather than wheat, from a batch of lactobacillus souring some dough.

Just because the (hi-top!) loaf of bread has a dusting of flour on top does not mean it is sourdough. If that's how you tell your breads apart, maybe you shouldn't be running a restaurant.

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Briefly, because it's late and I feel my feet swelling as I sit here, had brunch this noon-ish with Indy and GF and as part of my order, I asked for sourdough toast. Indy's sausages and eggs, as specified, came with WHITE toast. My toast looked suspiciously fucking identical to his toast. It was white, soft and had been baked in a tin, so it had a high-top crust. Sourdough, being yeast-free, doesn't rise as much, so it is usually baked as a roll loaf. OK sometimes, it can be baked in a tin, but that's not what I was expecting, classy restaurant, etc...

I figured the waitress (nice girl but vague, worked everywhere around, you know her) had got the order wrong - she'd had to check three times about the coffees and juices - so I sent it back.

White toast is a no-no. a) it's fucking boring, and b) glucose intolerance is on the cusp for me and that slice of toast might have tipped me over. I'm going for a repeat test in a fortnight and had hoped to show an improvement.

The same toast came back, with the girl saying it WAS sourdough.

I shrugged, pushed plate to side, don't worry; I ate my granola with yoghurt and fruit, chatted away... ANOTHER waitress sees there is a problem and takes it away, after I briefly give her the rundown. She comes back with a fresh lot of toast, also high-top, also white, ditto Indy's and she says, "This is sourdough, the cook says it is."

E@L takes a bite. This is white bread.

Whatever. Not one to make a scene, he eats it, if only to get his Vegemite hit.

Sigh.

Then over comes the manager, with the guff about the flour on top, therefore it's sourdough. And finally, the killer line which pinpoints their incompetence:

"It's what they deliver when we order sourdough."

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OK so maybe it IS white high-top sourdough. How fucking white people is that! Point remains that it was identical to the stuff on Indy's plate, and he had ordered a dish with WHITE bread! Identical to the point of being the SAME BREAD probably from the SAME FUCKING LOAF.

What sort of choice is that for a customer, particular one who doesn't just judge bread by the presence of a dusting of flour on top or not, what sort of culinary decision is it to have two white high-top breads that are identical, but one is sourdough (allegedly) and the other isn't.

!!!!!!!!!!!

Fuck, I don't know.

Sturgeon's Law.

E@L

(Bonus question: would you call Vegemite, honey, and strawberry jam, as a group [with toast], "preserves"?)