Toppings

Toppings. Meaning, on the top. Cheese, onions, sauce . . . pickles, lettuce, tomato . . . bacon. Whatever. All TOPPINGS. Not just condiments, but specifically, toppings.

But toppings are not toppings anymore. At Subway, they're "middle-ings". Seriously. They lay the meat down, then the cheese, and then, the toppings, and then, finally, the dressing. Dunno if it's just OCD or a longing for the Battleground, but, subs are meaty in the middle, then cheese goes on the top, and then the lettuce, onion, tomato, and oil & vinegar. Sure, it's a bit more slippery that way. But it's just so YUMMY. It doesn't taste right when the crunchiness of the lettuce is in the middle of the bite. Or when the oil & vinegar can't be tasted because it runs down the cheese and drips from the back end of the sub instead of being absorbed by the bread.

And at the fast food places, and even some "flare-y" style family restaurants, they're BOTTOMINGS. Who puts the cheese on the bottom face of the hamburger patty? WHO? And there's two variations on this atrocity: where the cheese is on the bottom and the rest of the toppings are on the top, and the more easily fixed version where the cheese and the toppings are all on the bottom, as if, they just didn't realize that the bun has a bottom half and a top half.

Now, I have some cultural theories as to why this is happening. But my bottom line is that if I can't get my food the way I like it, I'm certainly not going to spend the extra money to have someone else make it. Which, is ultimately better for my wallet. Maybe sooner or later the food giants will train their employees better, regardless of where they are from. Or, maybe I'm just obsessive-compulsive, and this really doesn't matter to anybody else. But for me, biting into my juicy, $8.00 burger and getting a mouthful of lettuce first before I even taste beef, just doesn't sit well on the tongue. Nor does having the oil & vinegar pull a Houdini from my sub.