Five Things Way Better Than Sliced Bread
If it's ever crossed your mind that sliced bread isn't necessarily the best thing since... well... ain't all it's cracked up to be, read on. In search of a new turn of phrase, Hayley Birch finds five things that are at least as good as a pre-sliced loaf.
Go straight to the five things that beat sliced bread hands down
What’s so bloody brilliant about sliced bread anyway? Who wants pre-sliced bread when, given a relatively primitive sawing implement, you can hack off doorstep-sized wedges from a loaf? Why have flimsy, feeble-looking slices when you can have vast, rugged hunks (grrr) of yeastiness?
And aside from the fact that I actually rather enjoy fashioning my own rustic-chic sandwiches, it seems to me that plenty of things have happened since sliced bread was invented, and quite a lot of them are better than it. I have a proposition to make then - that we move with the times and re-vamp this crusty old saying. Who’s with me? Why “best thing since sliced bread” then?
It’s a well worn phrase that’s been kicking around since one Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the bread slicer in the early 20th century. He filed a number of patents for bread slicing machines, one of which was based on a design that used hat pins to hold the slices together. It was a slightly more sophisticated version (click here to see it) that later took off, marketed by Wonder Bread, in the 1930s.
Clearly, the innovation of pre-sliced bread is one that has rocked the bread making industry to its core and must save sandwich companies untold millions every year, but to the average two-to-four-slices-a-day consumer, what difference does it really make?
For the home sandwich maker (those of us with less money than time) bread slicing can be a chore, it’s true. I admit it’s easier to remove two evenly cut slices from a plastic packet than struggle with a squashy granary and the prospect of a crushed sarnie with a hole in it that’s going to let your humous escape. However, I see this as a result of 70 years of poor bread slicing practice. Pre-slicing has robbed us of a core skill.
But the evils of mechanical bread slicing don’t end there. It is easy to see how pre-sliced bread became the prequel to any number of lazy-making innovations. It was a short leap from this to turkey twizzlers and pre-grated cheese.So why is it that this 70 year old saying is still knocking about? Perhaps it’s something to do with the phrasing rather than the meaning. Perhaps “best thing since sliced bread” rolls off the tongue rather more easily than “best thing since iPod Nanos”.
I propose a toast for a new turn of phrase
Incidentally, a brand new sparkly turn of phrase has entered my radar today: “snowcloning”. Now this is exactly what we’ve just done. “The best thing since iPod Nanos” is, in fact, a snowclone – a change to a well known phrase or cliché, usually for humorous effect. To take a more obvious example, another saying that is often snowcloned is “pink is the new black”, which can be substituted with any number of alternative colours, or indeed other terms.
So after hours of careful deliberation, I have come up with a shortlist of snowclones for “the best thing since sliced bread”. The idea is, everyone votes for the new turn of phrase and when the results are in, we start using it. Got it? Good.
Right then. Sticking with the foodie theme, here are my top five things that are infinitely better than sliced bread.
FIVE THINGS THAT BEAT SLICED BREAD HANDS DOWN
Click on titles or images for the lowdown.
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Roll-off-the-tongue factor: (The best thing since print-out food?)  Innovation rating:  SCORE: 4/10 |
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Roll-off-the-tongue factor: (The best thing since Solar Polar Rock-N-Rollers?) Innovation rating: SCORE: 5/10 |
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Roll-off-the-tongue factor: (The best thing since solid coffee?) Innovation rating: SCORE: 6/10 |
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Roll-off-the-tongue factor: (The best thing since toasters?) Innovation rating: SCORE: 6/10 |
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Roll-off-the-tongue factor: (The best thing since edible pastry cups?) Innovation rating: SCORE: 7/10 |
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As you can see, there's still room for improvement - we haven't quite nailed it with 7/10. Maybe you've got your own ideas about what's better than sliced bread?
Write to [email protected] and let us know.
Perhaps a top five isn't enough. Try a top ten:Top ten deadly vegetables
Top ten weird phobias
Top ten things science can't explain
Top ten grim parasites
Or something completely random:
Transexual bugs
Turning poo into plastic
The Null's Studies of the Bleedin' Obvious
Title image: Lali Masriera.
Other images: Cia Advertising, PCWorld (5), Dwight Sloan (4), Christoph Niggemeier (3), Andrzej Pobiedzinski (2) and Ove Tøpfer (1).
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