After many years of not eating raisin toast, this grumpy staff of life muncher recently had cause to buy a sliced loaf and give it a go. Even before placing two pieces in the toaster, I knew, by the feel and the smell,that I would be disappointed. All modern bread churned out by large commercial combines, to my way of thinking , is insipid , tastless gunk.
I know the labels proclaim all kinds of health giving ingredients, but they fail the all- important taste and smell test. If you keep a breadstick for more than one day, it has the consistency of a star picket and causes dental fillings to fall out. In the good old days, gastric juices automatically flowed and you felt glad to be alive when within cooee of a REAL bread shop with a tantalising aroma.
As expected, the raisin toast popped up with the texture of emery paper and tasted like gecko droppings. My fond memories of REAL raisin toast go back to a time (more than 50 years ago!) when ,this will be hard to believe, newspaper copyboys and cadets aspiring to be journalists spent hours drinking cups of coffee and slice after slice of scrumptious raisin toast, while making profound conversation about Hemingway and femmes , one being that sexy singer,Dusty Springfield. Boy, did it cause consternation and an outbreak of post- pubescent acne when it became known that she was a lesbian .
My early consumption of tasty toast took place in Sydney’s King’s Cross , a tame bohemian area in those days compared with the sleaze and violence of today. Because I moonlighted as a weekend helper in Halvorsen’s Bobbin Head boatshed, I was often cashed up and could big-note myself by ordering another round or two of raisin toast, or make a loan of a few bob .
Long before Paul Keating warned that Australia could become a banana republic, it seemed the nation’s raison d’etre was to produce more excellent raisin toast, making us a contented , happy and innocent community.
One of the places which served up a particularly nice plate , REAL butter adding to the treat, was the Californian Coffee Lounge , frequented by many Europeans. It transpired that ASIO agent , Dr Bialaguski , took the wayward Canberra Russian Embassy official, Vladimir Petrov , to the Californian and eventually inducing him to defect, thus resulting in the dramatic rescue of Mrs Petrov at Darwin Airport, with assorted political ramifications and the long- running Tory Reds under the bed threat . One wonders if the seductive appeal of Australian raisin toast prompted Petrov to come in from the cold.
Another place which served good coffee and raisin toast was the Arabian Coffee Lounge , where the Kiwi “witch,” Rosaleen Norton, swayed in and out on occasions , the walls of several cafes carrying her crazed murals. A bathtub she shared with a male artist was said to rival a Jackson Pollock painting. If only I could travel back through time on a broomstick and savour REAL raisin toast; I would not mind being lashed to a dunking stool after such a treat and lowered into the murky waters of Darwin Harbour .--- By Peter Simon
