GranolaBox

Elvis Costello begins one of his old classics with the line “I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.” I’ve got a half loaf of bread on my counter that’s at least a month old, yet it shows no signs of aging.  The problem is, I don’t know whether I’m disgusted, amused or impressed.

In my younger days, before my wife awakened me to the virtues of more natural foods, I used to be really impressed with what we were able to accomplish with chemicals.  “Better living through chemicals” applied to more than my misspent weekends in college.

I don’t know what to think of this bread though.  The hamburger rolls, probably as equally laden with preservatives, were ready to leave my kitchen of their own volition weeks ago. 

Not the bread.  I looked for mold, and found nothing.  The bread is hardening slightly on the ends, but in the middle it’s still perfectly fresh.  It passed the smell test with as many flying colors as store-bought bread possibly can.

The bread raises some interesting questions.  Could this bread, with a seemingly endless half-life somehow bear clues to solving the world’s food crises?  Will my continued consumption of this bread keep me looking, feeling and smelling fresh while my contemporaries meet the same fate as those hapless hamburger rolls?

All I know is that I had some serious doubts about using the bread in a sandwich.  That’s why I only used it for toast.

Filed under: Food on November 7th, 2006