I Fucking Hate Ciabatta
Fucking ciabatta. I can’t stand this stuff: mealy, floury, flavourless, inedible rubbish. I don’t mean proper ciabatta of course, but it’s been so long since I had one of those that I barely remember what they’re supposed to taste like.
Basically, we in the UK have done to the ciabatta what we long ago did to the baguette: made it ubiquitous and inedible. The texture is repellent, it dries your mouth out to eat the fucking things, and they are to be found in every shitty sandwich shop on these bloody islands. The bread itself is so overpoweringly joyless that it completely overwhelms the ingredients of the fucking sandwich as well, and all you end up tasting is one tortuous mouthful after another of indigestible, mealy, thousand-chew garbage.
Stop with the fucking ciabatta, already. If you can’t actually make ciabatta properly, leave it the fuck alone.
Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Cold Bread
Eels – Hospital Food
This is the post I’d love to write about salad. You win. However, I must disagree and say that ciabatta is at very least lovely when it plays ends to a crunchy, grilled sandwich containing mozzarella, tomato and roasted peppers.
Or the kind of sandwich with those mediterranean fillings but that you make hours before you eat it,l drenched in olive oil so it’s virtually falling apart. Nigel Slater somewhere called ciabatta ‘the pitta bread of our generation’ which is pretty good, I think. Slice it thinly across the loaf to make a kind of canoe shape and it becomes more bearable too. But getting particularly cross about the little things? Definitely. Bread is one of those things it really is worth spending and not saying your money on. Surely, though, in Edinburgh, you can buy good ciabatta if you try? Or is there no point when you can buy other bread which is always better?
It’s the “if you try” that pisses me off actually. It’s casually buying something and ending up with a carnival of shit that is so frustrating. You’re not thinking about it, you’re all innocent, and thent BOOM! a mouthful of jobbies.
Matthew,
I understand your middleclass rage. I also find my diamond shoes are too tight and I can’t get any change from a fifty pound note!!!! What is the world coming too… However I know where you’re coming from. Having worked many shitty jobs, where going to get a sandwhich is the only plus point in an eight hour day, the dissapointment can be excruciating!
Pint is on for Thursday, I’m meeting Ed at Doctors I think, which might be good for your gigging antics. Let me know either way.
A curious post, indeed. On one hand a chest beaten wail for the rustic Italian folk & their simple wares, on the other a Middle Class yelp at declining standards at Marks & Spencers.
” I sound my barbaric yelp across the antipasto counters of the city centre”!
Don’t you dare moan about my moaning, dammit!
Then don’t bother with something Italian, have something Scottish – oatcakes or whatever.
In the States the current trend is toward bread, ciabatta and otherwise, that has such a firm crust that you can barely eat it without a mouthfull of blood and torn gum tissue. I literally pulled a jaw muscle the other day. I blame the French.
We in Britain blame the French too, C&B, but mostly for winning your independence. As part of the colonies we reckon you and your sort would be far less uppity.
Ctel, they are not Italian by any measure, which is the problem. If they bore even a superficial resemblance to anything that the Italians might recognise as ciabatta then they might actually be edible. Unfortunately, nowadays they seem to resemble something British Rail invented.
Have you considered using slices of ciabatta as paving stones in your back garden? They have the dual advantage of being impregnable to moisture while also attracting birds.
Actually there is an urban myth that ciabatta was invented by M&S as a supposedly rustic Italian product which was really nothing of the sort. Although food that cuts your mouth – that’s Ortolan isn’t it? The idea is that you eat the birds whole and their bones lacerate your gums, and the salt from your blood seasons them as you eat. Lovely.
I actually think ciabatta might be on the verge of causing a global fresh water crisis. Each one can probably absorb a couple of gallons of water with no notable change in texture.
Ortolan? What madness is this, Adam? *Off to Wikipedia*
Ew, that’s minging!
every time you said “inedible” i read it as “indieable” hahahahahahah. garlic bread is the only variant of bread i truly like. hurrah for garlic bread.
And indieable sandwich. What would that be, then?
I feel the same way about naan breads abd bagels.
The real things are sublime.
The monstrosities that impersonate them in supermarkets and fast food outlets are criminal.
If only so much vigour was put into responding to the music posts…
I feel that the monstrosities that impersonate my favourite bands in supermarkets and fast food outlets are criminal, too, DC…
i think an Indieable sandwich would be like a tomato ketchup sandwich except filled with the blood of mediocre ‘indie’ popstars like Luke Kook? sprinkled with ground up powder made out of skinny jeans?
matthew – pamela heard some girl on the bus saying that she wanted dancing in the moonlight by toploader as her first dance at her wedding……………
I hope she pushed the bitch into the oncoming traffic.
DC said “If only so much vigour was put into responding to the music posts…”
As if we come here for the music…pfft
We you certainly don’t! If your own blogging represents your musical taste accurately, then you must think 90% of the stuff here is shite. But then it seems like a bit of a stretch to suggest that the witty repartee is what does the trick. Actually, Ctel, why do you come here?
Ah, the death of the great british sandwich.
What happened to fish paste smeared on some bleached Mother’s Pride? (the tall scottish one with blackened crust like, none of your English nancy square sliced bread with healthy shit in). Slabs of chedder and onion – yellow onions, nae red shite – with a wisp of 6 day old iceberg and a smear of salad cream? Tinned corned beef with vinegary pickle?
What is the world coming to? Stone baked ciabatta with fresh mozzarella, peppery rocket and basil laden pesto? Crazy. Crazy. Is this what the spirit of Dunkirk has wrought – Italianate sandwiches? Is there no shame?
I blame Gordon Brown and the Guardian myself.
Tinned corned beef with vinegary pickle. Mmmmmmmmm…!
Suddenly I crave a breath mint.
Stop being lily-livered and try some corned beef, you pussy!
Heinz Sandwich Spread.
Only a Brit would consider releasing a food product that so precisely resembled puke.
And only the British public would lap it up.