Down with Toast!

Bad days always started with toast for breakfast. After first being ordered to wake up (and being already awake) by a bossy older sister, then having to wait for the bathroom because one was the second to youngest, and finally making it downstairs after dressing in a cold, dark bedroom, there was nothing worse than discovering that breakfast was toast. Toast + anything = terrible. It's like multiplying by zero. You get zero. Every time.

Toast and peanut butter? Terrible. Toast and scrambled eggs? Terrible. Toast and cream tuna? Terrible. Toast and poached eggs? The most terrible of all terrible things that could ever possibly be terrible. The very worst days of growing up dawned with poached eggs on toast. Whose genius plan was it to cook bread and then slosh a sopping wet slimy egg onto the crispy bread thereby fully negating the action of toasting it? Someone who hates children, I imagine. Probably one of the Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang villains.

Brian and his family disagree with this stance. Brian's loving but curt assessment came out as, "You're crazy." Followed by long, confused stares from him, his mother, his sister, his other sister, and their cat. This summation of my insanity was the termination of an incident I refer to as The Toast Misconception. Brian offered to make everyone omelettes and asked if I would like one since he was making one for everyone else. I knew he was making one for everyone else, having been present when he asked everyone else, but nobody had verified the presence of rice to go with the eggs. Eggs cannot be served without rice, so I asked, "Is there rice?"

Brian: "What?"
Maile: "Is there rice?"
Brian: ". . . "
Maile: *Questioning stare*
Brian: "What?"
Maile: "Rice. Is there rice?"
Brian: "What do you need rice for? I'm asking if you want an omelette."
Maile: "I know. But you need rice for an omelette."
Brian: "What kind of crazy omelettes are you making? I'm putting eggs in the omelettes."
Maile: "I know how omelettes are made. But, what, you just going to eat the omelettes with nothing?"
Brian: "No. We have toast."

The conversation by then had attracted the attention of the family at hand (but not the cat yet) who all paused here to nod along in silent support of Brian. I had to shake my head. This would not stand. Gone were the days of my childhood where I had to suffer through toast being served at a meal because a sibling had failed in the all-important duty of cooking rice. I was twenty-three, by heaven! I no longer wore rice-bowl bangs, and I certainly! no longer ate eggs with toast. Ever.

I carefully explained to Brian that eggs, as a protein, begged a balanced and delicious staple on the side. That side must be rice. Rice is delectable, palate-cleansing, warm, wonderful, fulfilling, and in short everything that a standard egg-accompaniment should be. Toast, by contrast, was terrible.

The words were no sooner out of my mouth but I was bombarded with speculations against my taste, rearing, well-being, and sanity. I held firm then; I continue to hold firm six years later. Eggs with toast is an affront to humanity. Toast has this terrible way of cutting the roof of one's mouth and leaving crumbs everywhere─everywhere! One never eats a bite of toast without having to follow up with a vacuum cleaner. And it's practically impossible to take a bite of eggs and toast at the same time. What is the use of having the toast with the eggs if the only way to consume it is with alternate bites or the ever-hopeful attempt of nipping off a corner of toast and holding it lightly in one's mouth in the hopes that it doesn't get saturated before the forkful of eggs can arrive too?

Toast dries out the whole meal. Why do you think they keep inventing stuff to put on toast? Because it's absolutely no good alone! They sell the bread in stores next to the stuff to put on it to make it better. Whenever people make toast, it's never just toast. Nobody wanting some toast just goes and pulls the toast straight from the toaster and sits down to consume it warmly, comfortably, lovingly all by itself. It is forever slathered in butter, jam, peanut spread, Nutella, cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, salad dressing, anything, anything! to change the texture from that of crusted flour to one more palatable. It's so dry that people have to dream up how to make a meal excessively moist to compensate for the square of compact sand they're serving along with the main course.

People are constantly inconvenienced by the nature of toast without ever giving it much thought. How often has one desisted from enjoying a salad because the crunchy purpose of the toasted bread cubes has been lost in the tossed depths of the lettuce mix? 

Why not just serve rice? Rice is sublime. Subtle and unassuming but surprising. Rice is friendly. It never attacks the inside of your mouth with razor-sharp edges or inflicts wounds down your throat should you accidentally swallow a portion just a little too large. Rice fits nicely and neatly in the tidiest and most artistic of piles in the corner of one's plate without crashing unceremoniously down the slope into the center or requiring quarantine on a separate plate. Rice is mild enough to accompany any flavor of dish but bold enough to carry its own when included as an ingredient. It keeps its texture over time even when swimming in soup or thrown in with fajitas. 

Rice is so remarkable an entire nation estimated a man's wealth in how much rice his arable land could produce. Who ever introduced King Henry V as the master of a thousand bakeries? Nobody. That's who. Just remember. The punishing phrase has always been, "Glass of water, crust of bread." Not, "Glass of water, bowl of rice."

I have embarked on a quest and my quest is this: to enlighten the Western world to the marvel of rice. A rice cooker in every home. Rice as a side in every restaurant. Rice served as the staple in cafeterias. Onigiri as the standard for lunches instead of sandwiches. Rice crackers for snacks. Mochi for desserts. No more burnt toast setting off smoke alarms. No more sad mornings full of drenched bread under waterlogged eggs. And absolutely no strange stares from handsome husbands when an innocent wife queries, "Rice?" There will be no need. Because everyone will know not to offer eggs without rice.

There will likely be resistance, but I'm not doing away with toast altogether. We'll throw bread crumbs at weddings. There will still be plenty of day-old bakery goods to throw to ducks in the park. I'll need operatives to help deal with the toaster-factory hired stooges. Rice-aware nutrition operatives to properly introduce rice to cafeteria menus. Rice-minded marketing operatives to present rice as the next All American main dish. Rice-creative artist operatives to take rice from its fettered repetitive appearance only in sushi bars to the fundamental key in haute cuisine. And a small core of rice-loyal assassins to remove the toast-indoctrinated rabble-rousers. 

Then when I ask Brian to fix breakfast and he smirks and says, "Poached eggs on toast?" I'll just put my finger to my ear and say, "Take 'im down, boys."

Pew!

Forward the Rice Revolution.