rack 'em up

What keeps my attention is the fact that every now and then, the author Tim Bray will take a sidestep into something like beer, music, his regular flower photos, or trips to Hong Kong, and he usually has something interesting to say and I usually end up agreeing with him. The toast piece is a case in point, with lots of good stuff about the right kind of bread, using butter instead of marge* and timing being of the essence.

However.

We then get to this.

“There are places in the world where they use “Toast racks” in which are propped up dried-out room-temperature lovelorn joyless slabs of dead cooked bread. (Britain, I’m looking at you.)”

Oh dear.

Bray’s argument is that the bread must be buttered and ready to eat in the shortest time possible after leaving the toaster. I couldn’t disagree more. A good, fresh, perfectly cooked piece of bread will still be steaming when it comes out of the toaster. It is essential in my view to allow the steam to disperse for a few seconds before laying the bread down and buttering it, otherwise it simply becomes too soggy, and with a thick slice (which is what toast should be)**, the structural integrity of the toast will be compromised and the bread will collapse.

A couple of seconds – in a toast rack – allows the steam to escape and the bread to hold itself together much better while you butter it. This will give you a culinary experience that simply cannot be bettered. Hot buttered toast that is crunchy on the outside and moist and steaming on the inside.

*I know it’s marge in the photo, but only because I have to get my cholesterol down and it’s one of the ones with bits of plant in it.
** I know it’s thin toast in the photo, but it’s rye bread and that’s different, ok?