Polishing off the old doorstep.

I know there's loads of serious stuff to write about, and I know I wrote (indirectly) about snap yesterday, but this is the stuff of life.

Today I get my hands on some proper fresh bread. I don't mean a three day old Hovis, or a pack of Fletchers, or a bag of Bill Jackson. I mean what the Geordies call a proper Stotty. Fresh as a daisy. Still warm.

To me this is gourmet grub of the highest order. When I was a kid it was a Saturday morning thing - Dad would get us kids out to yet another major inter-pit football showdown and we'd be back to raid the bread bin just in time for the football roundup on Grandstand. And mum would have the chips on - and there it was - a pure culinary classic. The Doorstep Chip Butty. sizzling chips, dash of Sarsons, melting butter and fresh fresh bread.

I didn't care how many times that kid pushed his Hovis bike up that hill in the advert, accompanied by Grimeys Brassics rendition of Largo in Eee Miner. I could put up with Big T Roll during the week, especially if toasted and Marmite-ed to within an inch of its life. But at a weekend, it had to be the proper. No wrapper. No label.

Another doorstep variation involves a hunk of the strongest cheddar you can get your hungry hands on. None of your fancy, like Red Leicester or Double G, and definitely not some Euro import (unless properly put together on some homemade Casareccio by a bloke called Gianfranco or Pierre-Luigi).

Proper Cheddar.

I know there's good variations on the doorstep that involves a pickled onion the size of a duck's egg and half a jar of Branston. The hard-core have a slate of Potted Dog on the side. Me? well if I'm going to spoil a classic it's a dash of HP and some black pepper. But generally I'm a purist and the habit hasn't changed that much.

I'm lucky that I've got a gal who perfectly understands. Mates have gotten involved with lasses who have no clue when it comes to a good butty.

These are the gals brought up by the Sunday Tea Mams.

You know what I'm on about. The pre-homework classic with limp lettuce, a bit of spam or corned beef, some beetroot, fancy cut toms, sliced egg and salad cream. Now that's all very well, but in the centre of this, sat on some doily are some triangle cut thin sliced limp wristed Stork margarined items laughably called 'bread'.

This in some parts of Yorkshire, is what counts for civilization. And if you were halfway posh, this is what you thought was a proper Yorkshire Butty experience, and it's more or less taken over the greasy spoons. Someone tell these people you can't make a decent chip butty with triangle cut bread - Philistines that they are...

Of course real life involves bigger bites. Chunkier cheese. Crunchier crusts.

And tonight I had me the biggest fattest cheesy doorstep I've had in years. And I feel good! There's nothing comes close, snapwise.

Blogga.