CHATTO DESPAIR

 ‘No worst, there is none.’ 

That’s the opening of Gerard Manley Hopkins' sonnet, referring to depression, spiritual 

crisis, weltschmerz, and so on.

 

But it’s a phrase I often think of while eating a sub-standard sandwich.  By which I mean I’d never say ‘This is the worst sandwich ever’ because you know there’s always likely to be a worse one just around the corner.

 

I was in the tearoom at the Beth Chatto Gardens in Elmstead, Essex – as a matter of fact Hopkins was an Essex lad too, born in Statford when it was still in the county.

 

After a circuit of the Chatto grounds we headed for the tea room and my eye fell on an egg mayonnaise sandwich, which I bought.  It was only when I got to the table, inside the artisanal polytunnel, that I noticed the bread was gluten free.

 

I'm no bigot and this didn’t bother me until I tasted it, at which point it bothered me a lot.  The 'bread' was like a cross between cotton wool and dry cardboard, insubstantial yet thoroughly unpleasant.  Why would anybody make a thing like this and call it bread?  It wasn’t fooling anybody.

 

If you like bread you’re not going to like 'gluten-free bread' just as if you like alcohol you’re not going to like 'alcohol-free gin.' Making some gluten-free substance that scarcely resembles bread at all, is no solution.

 

‘My cries heave, herds-long’ as Gerard said.

 

The egg mayonnaise inside was perfectly fine though, so the sandwich could have been a lot worse.