A cold sausage and bacon wrap. That’s what I had for breakfast today. The two meats were leftovers from yesterday’s Mother’s Day celebration breakfast.
I was going to chop it up and turn it into the filling for an omelette. But this morning, a little voice in my head reminded me of one of my favourite childhood lunches: sausage sandwiches. They were always cold because they’d been cooked the night before and kept in my school bag until lunchtime. The sausage was sliced in half lengthways and often coated with a layer of tomato sauce. It was sandwiched between two slices of white bread spread with margarine.
They were my dad’s invention. Mum usually gave us polony and cheese, or peanut paste and jam. Sometimes even vegemite on thickly buttered bread, which I loved then but can now only tolerate once or twice a year.
Mum would have our lunches ready for us to grab as we walked out the door. But when she got a job and had to leave early in the morning to start her Silver Chain rounds, things got a little less predictable. Dad had stopped working early due to arthritis and took over much of the housework and school prep, so Mum’s load was lighter.
Dad did things differently. His speciality for school lunches was sausage and tomato sauce sandwiches. Cold, of course. We would never have had the luxury of bacon AND sausage in the one sandwich, but even if we’d had a bacon sandwich, it would have been cold.
Dad also introduced me to prawn sandwiches. We were somewhere on an outing, and dinner time hit. He grabbed some prawns from the fish shop, secured a loaf of bread from the nearby deli, and put the two together while we sat in the front seat of the car. I can still remember the happiness in his voice and on his face as he introduced me to another of his much loved, make-do meals. For me, it was love at first bite.
I was one of those daydreamy kids, often wandering around with my head stuck in a book, and sometimes, I walked out the door without my lunch. Sometimes, it wasn’t ready in time for us to catch the bus that circled through our rural settlement, collecting kids for the high school located in a nearby, larger town. Either way, Dad would bring it to me later.
I loved seeing my tall, tanned, dark haired Dad on the doorstep of my class, with my food in a brown paper bag. What mystery lay within? Sometimes, it was just a polony sandwich with an apple or orange. But sometimes, it was sausage sandwiches, and I was in paroxysms of delight as I unveiled Dad’s speciality.
This morning’s concoction tasted as good as I remembered, even though it was just two different meats rolled together inside a low carb wrap. The days of sliced bread are long gone here. I no longer cover food with sauce, and Dad passed away two days short of 2019. But today, that memory was as alive as 40 years ago, dancing in front of me as I bit down and tasted cold saltiness combined with a plain bread product.
I ate my breakfast slowly, relishing every bite. I even cut the wrap in half to extend the enjoyment of the experience. It was only a sausage, a slice of bacon and a wrap, but it transported me to those days of childhood delight, lunches eaten with schoolfriends and a father’s love, shown through food. I suspect it was the topping of nostalgia that made my meal so delicious.
A Glorious Mess 