No gherkin
Something momentous has occurred. Today I ate a sandwich without pickled gherkin in it.
You have to have lived in Switzerland to understand how momentous that is. Gherkins are something of a Swiss national obsession. It is a practical impossibility, anywhere in the nation, to buy a sandwich that doesn't have gherkin in it. Ham and cheese sandwich?-look for the slice of gherkin. Tuna fish?-you bet there's gherkin. Bacon, lettuce and tomato?-gherkin. Chocolate brownie butter butty?-don't ask. About the only exception is the ham-and-cheese toastie from the local bar. That comes with pickled onion.
I used to be able to take gherkins or leave 'em, but under the Swiss regime I've developed a kind of post-traumatic aversion to the things. Whenever I buy a sandwich I leaf suspiciously through it like a Jehovah's-Witnesses pamphlet, fishing out all the bits of green acid slime and dumping them in the nearest bin.
Today, though, I bought a ham-and-egg sandwich for my breakfast and it had no gherkin in it at all. I had to 'read' it twice before I really believed it.
Then I ate it and it was kinda boring and tasteless.
You have to have lived in Switzerland to understand how momentous that is. Gherkins are something of a Swiss national obsession. It is a practical impossibility, anywhere in the nation, to buy a sandwich that doesn't have gherkin in it. Ham and cheese sandwich?-look for the slice of gherkin. Tuna fish?-you bet there's gherkin. Bacon, lettuce and tomato?-gherkin. Chocolate brownie butter butty?-don't ask. About the only exception is the ham-and-cheese toastie from the local bar. That comes with pickled onion.
I used to be able to take gherkins or leave 'em, but under the Swiss regime I've developed a kind of post-traumatic aversion to the things. Whenever I buy a sandwich I leaf suspiciously through it like a Jehovah's-Witnesses pamphlet, fishing out all the bits of green acid slime and dumping them in the nearest bin.
Today, though, I bought a ham-and-egg sandwich for my breakfast and it had no gherkin in it at all. I had to 'read' it twice before I really believed it.
Then I ate it and it was kinda boring and tasteless.