Roger Rabbits with Jim Bunny

Ey up! How you doin’ my old sausages? And I am talking traditional Cumberland sausage here, chunky with a variety of herbs and spices and fit for a school lunch.

There’s 500 years of British tradition in a Cumberland sausage – coiled, roasted, sliced and sandwiched up for a school lunch pack. Perhaps a dash of sweet and sour chutney, or a lick of Dijon.

I am writing because of all the bru-ha-ha about your school lunches. The Gummint, as you say, trying to save pennies and the electorate grumbling that parents should be responsible for feeding their own kids at lunchtime. Seems some parents don’t, won’t or can’t – but you can’t have little bellies rattling empty and education compromised. So I am going to loan 260 years or so of accumulated family wisdom and experience that might help resolve the school lunch debacle.

I am the Right Honourable John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. Like Churchill, I was First Lord of the Admiralty, also Postmaster General and Secretary of State for the Northern Department. So there’s cred.

Of course, there was all the scuttlebutt about me being a compulsive gambler and a dandy. But that’s how I came to make a significant, enduring, contribution to mankind. And maybe the answer to your school lunch problem. Because I am sandwich by name and two slices of bread and filling by nature.

In 1762 I ordered up bread and meat so I could eat and carry on playing at the gaming table. And voila! The simple, the portable, the versatile sandwich was born. Since then the family name has been sandwiched into virtually every Western cuisine for 263 years. So when considering school lunches, think of me and thank me. Think sandwiches – splendid, sublime, sandwiches, nourishing and sustaining sandwiches. Beats burned plastic and butter chicken. Beats late lunches, sloppy lunches and no lunches at all.

Where there is smoke there is fire. And where there is extra mature cheddar, mayo, good firm tomatoes and salt and pepper, there are sandwiches! I feel a song coming on …

“Sandwiches, glorious sandwiches. We’re anxious to try it. Three sandwiches a day, our favourite diet.” (Apologies to Lionel Bart on Broadway.)

Then I started scoffing meat sandwiches at my work desk. Didn’t have to stop for lunch. So the kids could roll on straight through to 3pm. A sandwich, an apple and extra math for lunch. Five extra hours of learning sandwiched into the week.

Experience tells us lunch is just as important as breakfast. A good binder at halftime will provide the oomph needed to best serve taxpayers in the afternoon, and removes the need to raid the snack machine for “salt and vinegars”. And if you want a good lunch, then pack your own.

I understand there’s been a suggestion from the ninth floor of the Beehive for Marmite sandwiches and an apple for school lunches. That isn’t going to have the kids salivating. So when the elected ones are deciding between the Caramelised Onion Alsatian Tart or the Harissa Roasted Market Fish at Bellamys for lunch today, they might consider some of the sandwich suggestions I have compiled.

Let’s go back to the future. Belgium, aka luncheon sausage, and tomato sauce sandwiches. Tried and true. A couple of slices of Belgium on white bread, and a squirt of Jim Wattie. A great go-to and very trade-able, as in swap you a Vegemite and chips for a Belgium and J-Dub. Sandwiches become currency.

The kids themselves say if the Gummint really wants to be cool, it should get Parliamentary Services to buy in some Oki Doki Disco Bits Fun Bars. Imagine lunchtime in the Beehive, taking in the harbour views and chowing down on a crunchy biscuit base with caramel, covered in milk chocolate and topped with fun disco chocolate beans.

There might be some criticism – a note perhaps saying the lunch taken to school “was inappropriate and unhealthy”. I know a mum who wrote back saying: “If you find my lunches inappropriate and unhealthy, don’t eat them.”

I know tomato sandwiches have got a bad rep because they get soggy. But soggy’s good, soggy brings a maturity and richness to a tomato sandwich. Or construct the sandwich just prior to consumption. Or drain the gloop on a kitchen towel – if you don’t mind tasteless but dry tomato sandwiches. It’s not science. It’s kids’ stuff. Get them involved at the construction stage.

Anything leftover can go in a sandwich – mac and cheese, fajita mix with salsa and sour cream. Think savoury. Oh, sweet is crap. Preparation is paramount. A sandwich thrown together will look and taste thrown together. And it doesn’t matter how much you spend at the deli, a sandwich needs crunch. Gherkins, onion, lettuce, celery, carrot, salty crips.

How about peanut butter and onion, sardine and jelly, tinned asparagus mashed with tinned peas to make it go further, sausage and marmalade, and peanut butter, bacon and banana?

Regards,

4th Earl of Sandwich.