Beyond Words

Travelling abroad often makes you crave your favorite hometown and All-American meals. Visiting Windsor and London with our daughter recently was tons of fun but by around day three, we’d had our fill of potatoes, sausage, runny eggs, limp bacon, mushy peas, and anything boiled. Upon arrival back home, we immediately treated ourselves to some good ole Tex-Mex and our bellies were so happy and said “muchas gracias!”

Truth be told I’m not a diehard foodie, but what I love, I love. One thing I love is a good sandwich, which was something we sorely missed in England. My favorite sandwiches are simple: chicken or tuna salad, grilled cheese, and a classic peanut butter and jelly. Okay, I also like a good cheesesteak sandwich. If it were up to me, sandwiches would be on our menu every week. You could call me the Queen of Sandwiches!

Amazingly, royalty is to thank for the beloved sandwich, which fits in perfectly with my memories of our trip. Apparently, the Earl of Sandwich is credited with inventing the sandwich, hence the name. Who knew?! The Earl wanted to eat his meals with one hand during a gambling event and instructed his servant to put his meat between two slices of bread. Voila! The sandwich was born. You literally can’t make this stuff up.

Okay, so meat and cheese on bread. Got it. But how in the world did peanut butter and jelly come to be? I LOVE peanut butter (creamy only please) so I was fascinated to find out the history of one of my favorite sandwiches.

First had to come the bread, specifically sliced, which we can thank Otto Frederick Rohwedder for, as he invented the bread slicer in the early 1900s, deeming it “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” Again, you can’t make this stuff up.

Jelly is also of course important here. Paul Welch secured a patent for pureeing grapes and turning them into jelly in 1917. I remember years ago driving from Buffalo to Cleveland and seeing what I thought were vineyards, only to be told it was all property of Welch’s and all of which would be turned into jelly, jam, or preserves. Speaking of all of those, let’s review quickly the differences between them.

Jelly is made using only the juice of the fruit and sugar and is the firmest and smoothest product of the bunch. Jam, on the other hand, is made from whole or cut fruits and then cooked to a pulp with sugar, producing a thick, fruity, spread. Its texture is usually looser and more spoonable than jelly. Lastly, preserves and marmalade. Preserves contain the most physical fruit of the bunch and are sometimes held together in a loose syrup; other times, the liquid is more jammy. Marmalade is simply the name for preserves made with citrus. It is similar to jam but made only from bitter Seville oranges from Spain or Portugal. The name of Marmalade originates from the Portuguese Marmelos, which is a quince paste similar in texture to an orange spread. I prefer a good jam on my PB&Js.

Okay, now for the P of those PB&Js.

The National Peanut Board reports the forerunner of the peanut butter we know and love today was first established in the 1880s when Dr. Ambrose Straub from St. Louis made a peanut paste for older patients struggling with swallowing or who had bad teeth and couldn’t chew well. Around that same time, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (yep, that Kellogg) patented a process for manufacturing peanut butter. Introduced to the masses at the 1893 Chicago World Fair, you could say it all went viral when Straub partnered with a food company and took it to the St. Louis World Fair. Soon after, grocery stores began ordering it and shoppers discovered its magic.

Oddly enough, and again a somewhat tie-in with my recent London trip, peanut butter initially was considered and upscale food and was often offered in New York City tea rooms. For years, today’s staple was considered a delicacy.

Putting all three parts together…the bread, jelly, and peanut butter…into a sandwich came to be in 1901 when Julia Davis Chandler wrote a recipe for in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics. But it literally took a war to bring it to the masses.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, families did discover peanut butter as a satisfying and affordable nourishment but the event that put the peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the map was World War II.

Sometimes necessity breeds brilliance, and that was somewhat the case when peanut butter and jelly were included on U.S. Military ration menus during the war. Military minds discovered peanut butter was a high-protein, shelf-stable ingredient that was also easily portable on long marches and soldiers discovered its tasty taste. When soldiers came home from the war, they spread the word on the tasty spread and sales of both peanut butter and jelly soared. Kids loved it because it’s yummy, parents loved how easy it was to make, and the economy loved it because the making of it created incomes and jobs.

Hard to believe one of my beloved sandwiches has such an interesting history. It may look like something simple, which it is, but in between those slices of bread smothered with peanut butter and jelly is royalty, creative minds, and even a war. Sounds to me like a PB&J is fit for a king!

Queue

noun

A line of waiting people or vehicles.

Wimbledon has come and gone for another fortnight and year and this year’s tournament was especially special for me as I was blessed to attend a day of the famous tennis tournament with our daughter. It was so very special and made two Grand Slams that she and I have attended (Wimbledon and the French Open) and three that I have as I’ve also attended the U.S. Open. Pretty much I’m done though, as odds are I will never attend the Australian Open. But, that’s not why I’m here today. I’m here to talk about lines.

We in America do not like lines but the Brits; they kinda love them. In fact, one of their most famous lines is the reason Kristen and I were able to get into Wimbledon.

Wimbledon remains one of very few major sporting events where you can buy day of tickets but you need to be in the Queue. Yep; it even has a pretty name that basically means “line.” This is no ordinary line though, as we came to find out, but it was an extremely memorable one.

We’d heard about the Queue long before our trip and made plans to get in it. Our hotel wake-up call was 4 a.m. and we were on the grounds around 5 a.m. That’s when the fun began. So to speak.

No one told us that around 15,000 people are “in” the Queue on any given day and being that the iffy London weather was perfect that day and many big names were slated for matches, thousands actually showed up. Our official Queue numbers were in the 3,000s, which we were assured would get us in. Knowing this we waited. And waited. What we didn’t know is that you should bring blankets, baskets of food and drink, chairs, and even tents with you to the Queue. We also didn’t know we should plan on being in the Queue for around six hours. Yep; SIX hours. Since we didn’t get the supplies memo we, along with other fellow Queue rookies, were forced to stand in an almost two-hour line for food and drink and sit on large plastic trash (“rubbish”) can liners. (Note to The Queue: you may rule the queue game but you could learn a thing or two from American tailgates and include more food and beverage vendors along with some selling blankets, hats, and the likes. I guess that’s the American capitalistic way but the money that could be made!)

You may be thinking a line of people waiting to get in, but as the above photo shows, the Queue is actually a giant field of people sitting and standing for hours on end albeit in the most orderly and patient of ways. On our plastic “blanket,” we might as well have held a sign saying “Rednecks come to Wimbledon” but we survived, got in, and are forever grateful for the famous Wimbledon Queue.

What we’re not grateful for are the endless lines…or queues…that are as abundant in London as royalty, double-decker busses, and black taxis. Funny thing is, Brits actually like them. In fact, the average Brit is said to spend 47 days of their life queueing. And rest assured, in true British pragmatic fashion, queues are not ordinary lines. There are rules, they are orderly, and people willingly follow and act accordingly. No cuts. No saving spots. No complaining. In one queue we were instructed to stay to left of an imaginary line and in another everyone in line was told a wider queue was needed so we were instructed to spread out. All did so in the most mannerly of British manners style.

As Americans, we were a wee bit more hesitant but when in Rome. We obliged as we were endlessly instructed to go from one queue to another to another. Queue upon queue was the name of the game. It’s been said the British love a queue so much they’ll join a queue then ask what it’s for. This was somewhat proven when our friend Elizabeth, who lives in Windsor, told us the funny story of when she, her husband, and a group of friends started an imaginary queue while out somewhere and giggled as people randomly queued up behind them. LOL.

Queueing is just one of many things the Brits are know for doing and doing better than perhaps anywhere in the world. But why? What’s the story behind the queues?

Tracing their historical history is something that has been studied and researched, and most agree it goes back to the Industrial Revolution. During those early 19^th century years, the orderly queue was said to have been established to organize the masses of people moving in huge numbers from the countryside into towns as people were asked to queue up in a structured way to create order. Whatever the case, the notion of an orderly queue is still cherished today.

Americans on the other hand, we were told, are always ready while Brits don’t mind a wait. They’re not wrong. They’re also not alone.

Although Britian may have written the book on queues, it’s not the only place that utilizes them on a regular basis. The Japanese place enormous value on orderly queuing and in Thailand people sometimes place their shoes on the floor to mark their position in a queue while they rest. I’m not sure that would work in Britain and I’m pretty sure it would never work in the Wimbledon Queue.

Again, we cherished our time at Wimbledon and in England and will forever be grateful for The Queue. Just maybe not all the queues. Loved the experience though and this rule follower and lover of all things neat and tidy did actually appreciate the order. It’s as if that’s my cue to line up and buck up right on cue.