Max Halley (op. cit.) reminded me of the addictive delights of a malt loaf. So I just had to buy a Soreen loaf, the thought of which took me back to Sunday afternoons at home with Mum & Dad and siblings, when we’d get slices of malt loaf — as thickly buttered as I could get away with — to eat in front of the fire and the TV. Sheer joy. How could you not love something that markets itself as “deliciously squidgy energy”?
So, with some truly amazing self-control, I’ve yet to broach this pack. I’ll be going in thick with the butter though — Mum isn’t here to growl at me — using some of the wonderful cultured, fermented, butter from Ampersand.
I found out only today that (a) Proust started out using toast rather than madeleines in his “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” and (b) that malt loaf was actually a Scottish invention from the late 19th Century and thus not as exotically foreign as I’d thought before.