In a previous post, I wrote about the secret to contentment and how one singularly brilliant individual said:
"Garlic Bread.
I am content with Garlic Bread. It is enough."
I think that there is great wisdom contained within these two lines of text. I also think that apart from hinting at contentment, it also points to something else equally as amazing.
Garlic Bread is typically made using a French baguette, which is only partially sliced downwards into the loaf; which allows the condiments to soak into the loaf while keeping it in one piece. The bread is then dressed through the cuts with oil and minced garlic before baking.
Trying to find out who invented Garlic Bread is a practical lesson in insanity. Practically everyone from the French, to the Germans, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Egyptians... all claim to have invented it and to be fair, the idea of putting butter on bread with some of topping seems so very obvious that it could have been invented everywhere.
However the bread itself, only exists after Viennese steam oven style baking was introduced to Paris in 1839 by a chap called August Zang. What is now known as compact yeast doesn't appear commercially until after the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867.
The big leap forward happened in the mid 1950s with the chain driven pass through pizza oven; which also coincides with the big leap forward in doughnut making. Garlic Bread, then starts appearing on the menus for both Pizza Hut in 1958 and Dominoes in 1960.
On a slightly related topic, the lore that vampires are repelled by garlic, actually appears to have some basis in truth.
The question of why and how vampire lore comes about can be traced to a series of rabies outbreaks in Hungary from 1721 to 1728.
Rabies which can affect wolves, dogs, bats, and people, produces that same anaemic look, accompanied with snarling and slobbering, that is classically ascribed by folklore to vampires. There is also a strange tendency of people with rabies, to want to bite other people, as weird as that sounds.
Snapping and biting appear to be automatic responses, as is punching, pulling, kicking etc. because the rabies virus attacks the central nervous system. Rabies wards in hospitals might need to have bars on the windows and locked doors from the outside.
Also, from what I have read, precisely because rabies attacks the central nervous system, then people with the disease can show aversions to sunlight, loud noises, pungent smells, and even an aversion to eating drinking.
The first rabies vaccine was introduced in 1885, but the current Human Diploid Cell Vaccine for rabies didn't come along until 1967.
Here comes a completely bonkers coincidence. The introduction of the rabies vaccine and the introduction of pizza chains and garlic bread, happened very close in time.
To be fair I haven't read books like 'Interview With The Vampire' or the 'Twilight' saga and I have no desire to but unlike Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' which was published in 1897, all modern vampire fiction occurs after both the introduction of the rabies vaccine and the widespread commercial availability of a garlic bread.
I don't understand and do not care to understand the mechanics of modern vampire fiction but it seems to me that vampires as a thing should have ceased to exist some time ago. Dracula can be vaccinated.
Also, if your town or city is infested with draculas, then all you need to do is start a mass rollout of garlic bread on the basis of public health measures. Have you ever seen draculas at Pizza Hut? Of course not. Then again, draculas like everyone else, love garlic bread. Simply putting in a Pizza Hut or Dominoes in a town centre might be enough to attract draculas, entice them to buy garlic bread (because why wouldn't you) and then they'd presumably go away quietly and die.
Maybe that's why this person wrote:
"Garlic Bread.
I am content with Garlic Bread. It is enough."
What they are quietly telling us is that their community is now free from draculas. That is something to be content with.
No comments:
Post a Comment