It’s the simplest of things.

Take a slice of bread, put it in the slot, drop the lever and wait. After a short time the lever POPS! and there you have it, perfectly browned toast, yours to adorn it however you wish, and ohhhh the choices are myriad.

My usual toppings for a breakfast slice or two involves butter and whatever sweet condiment I have to hand, most often it’s honey, occasionally it’s jam and if the mood has taken me as I wander the supermarket isles, there may even be the option of a lemon curd or bramble jelly. But it all starts with butter, and sometimes that is all that is needed.

The bread is, of course, important, and again the mood and circumstance dictate. A few years ago, with a hangover looming over my day, I ventured to the shop across the road, purchased a loaf of fresh sliced white bread and retreated home, there to consume it, slice by delicious buttered slice, through the rest of the day.

These days I tend to treat myself a little better, and love nothing better than thick cut seeded loaf of some sort. We also get responsibly sourced heather honey from a Scottish producer which, along with a smear of butter, brings a little bit of luxury to my weekend mornings.

Eating out is a different matter and I recently bemoaned the distinct lack of choice when it comes to some of the places we visit, with any form of brunch or breakfast invariably served on toasted sour-dough which, whilst not a bad choice most days, is becoming so ubiquitous it’s getting a little boring. I like a nice sour-dough loaf as much as the next person, but c’mon folks, let’s mix it up a bit!

A few years ago I went through a spell of making my own bread which is as simple as it is therapeutic, even if living alone meant I’d end up consuming the entire thing myself, with the first half usually gone during the ‘fresh from the oven’ phase… oops.

Be it plain, white, brown, or any of the myriad of regional variations, whether it originated in the British Isles or hails from over the sea (I do love a brioche, merci la France!) the simple act of toasting bread and adding butter remains a simple and underestimated pleasure.

So, next time you pop a couple of slices in the toaster, take time to marvel at what is going on. The chemistry involved in the baking of the bread, with that wonderful soft flesh inside that is rendered new into a warm, crispy, deliciousness, by what very well may be the invention of the century, which is only further heightened simply by applying butter.

Toast, it really is the breakfast of champions.

And for those of you of a certain age, have an earworm…

Morning all. I’d like to tell you about when I was a young boy. Must have
been three or four months old at the time. I didn’t really know what I
wanted, and if I did, I wouldn’t have been able to tell anybody, ’cause all
I could do was gurgle.
So, I sat there in me highchair, thinking one day, looking at me tray and
thinking what I’d give for a meal on there.
So, I started looking round to see what I could have.
I was rubbing me eggy soldier in me head, trying to think, and I looked in
the corner and there’s a little breadbin with its mouth open, just staring
at me, like.
Toast by Streetband (and yes, that’s Paul Young)