Jam butty!

I was reminiscing recently about my dad and food, the humble jam sandwich came instantly to mind, random I know! Now when I say jam sandwich, I am not referring to a soft artisan freshly baked sourdough bread with lashings of premium jam with its gold star award, I am referring to the jam sandwich I would prepare as a young child for my dad to take to work. I remember squishy plastic white bread and a basic over sweet jam.

I would on occasion make my dad Rocco his packed lunch to take to his carpentry and joinery workshop in Bedford. He loved good food, especially if mum was the cook, but ate his lunch purely for fuel and at speed, not because he wanted too, this was because he was always busy and never found a moment to stop in the day. That said, dad always had his favourites, I always remember dad loving his cheese and onion sandwiches that mum would make him (he’d also squish crisps into them for added texture) or the weekly frittata layered panino, or the roasted pepper sandwiches in chewy Pugliese bread. These were all pops favourites, paired with cheese and onion crisps, seasonal fruit, a bottle of water and a few chocolate bars that were either a topic, lion bar, picnic, or marathon. YUM!

Throughout the winter months, mum would make soup for dad to take in the vintage thermos flask. The soups that come to mind would be, French onion soup, you know the ones that you would buy in sachets and add boiling water too. He absolutely loved that flavour of soup and when I make my own, I add vermouth to the sticky sweet onions and yet even though mine didn’t come out of a sachet, if I close my eyes tightly enough, I could see my dad sipping the soup from his dark green thermos with discoloured cream lid. Such a great memory.

Throughout my childhood my mum Solidea spent a lot of time away in London looking after my younger sister Daniela in Great Ormond Street hospital. We would miss them both greatly and I know my dad missed the great food element too. So, on the weeks and months that my mum and little pip my sister was away, I would be in charge or dads packed lunch, I don’t actually remember what we did for dinner. Dad never cooked, even though in later life he mastered the most incredible spaghetti aglio e olio.

 

May I introduce you to the dreaded jam sandwich.

Recipe from nine-year-old Carmela:

2 slices of white bread (dad always called this bread plastic)

A scant amount of jam, strawberry, raspberry, or apricot

  • Apply scant amount of jam to bread.
  • Push down the sandwich to secure. This often dented the bread.
  • Cut into four small squares. My dad fumbled as he ate such tiny squares.
  • Wrap tightly in foil and tell dad that he had another jam sandwich.

 

He would come home and ask me how my school day was, I’d moan as I hated school and then proudly ask, ‘did you enjoy your lunch? Dad would always say, yes big pip, just maybe add a little more jam next time. This was something that we laughed about for years because I would add jam to the bread and scrape off excess, I literally scared the bread with the tiniest hint of jam, it was barely a jam sandwich. When mum and my sister returned home, dad never ate a jam sandwich again.

 

Since dad passed away autumn last year, I seem to be reminiscing most days about our lives together and how food and drink shaped our lives together and as a family. The jam sandwich is a bad example but its one that we would recollect together so it became to be the food of the kings. It’s funny how such simple foods can make you smile, the sheer comfort of eating a slightly bendy jam sandwich. So once a week for lunch I make myself a jam sandwich. This time with slightly upgraded bread, homemade jam from our family farm and the memory of my papa to sit alongside me.