The Manwich

Despite my previous article to the contrary I actually spend quite a lot of time in the kitchen, especially as my Darling Beloved has no idea how anything in there works.

Don't get me wrong. I do enjoy cooking, however now that I cook for two I have to make compromises, and by compromises I mean I prepare exactly what my Darling Beloved feels like eating. Unfortunately what she feels like eating I usually have to pay serious money in a restaurant for: things like grilled salmon smothered in dill sauce and a side of mesclun salad, or sauteed chicken breast on a bed of carrot and parsnip with a cranberry jus. These have expanded my cooking skills, but I have to admit I miss the sort of food I used to indulge my bachelor days with.

So I have struck a bargain with my better half in that every so often I can now cook for myself food that I miss from my single days: things like spag bol, mac 'n cheese,  and my eternal favourite, the manwich.

Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about food here.

Whatever you do, do not confuse a manwich with its distant cousin. Despite appearances this is not some casually slapped-together creation designed to sate a fleeting hunger with minimal preparation. A manwich can be a thing of beauty when done right, and to be done right, you have to follow certain rules.

So if you are a married bloke who feels the need to revisit one of the blisses of bachelorhood, or a non-bloke who craves understanding of this hallowed male gastronomic ritual, please read on...

Rule Number One: A Manwich is A Personal Thing.
A proper manwich should reveal the inner self of its maker - and I'm not referring to the happy, rainbows-and-fairies sort of inner self. I mean the greed, the sloth and the dirt that  the true bachelor can indulge in only in the privacy of his own hovel. This is why you will never see a true manwich sold over the counter. When you inhale the aromas of your local delicatessen or lunch bar, you expect to be transformed, pavlovian, into a drooling clamouring fool. By contrast the only effect one person's manwich ought to prompt in another is a gag reflex.

Rule Number Two: M is For Manwich and M is For Meat.
Dead animal flesh is the building block - literally - of the true manwich, and ideally there ought to be bits of more than one sort of animal involved: turkey can sit next to beef, or tuna, or ham, or salami, or sausage, or chicken, or anything else that is sitting at the back of the bachelor's fridge. And before you even think about putting any tomato or lettuce in there, think again. Lettuce is rabbit food. Come to think of it, some rabbit would look pretty good in there as well.
And don't forget, age is no barrier to meat inclusion. In fact ageing adds a certain piquant flavour to the end result, as well as building important resistance to everyday maladies such as salmonella and campylobacter. So long as it has not risen Lazarus-like from its plastic tray and is fighting to open the refrigerator door, it is a contender.

Rule Number Three: Grease is Good.
Forget South Beach, forget Jenny Craig. Atkins had it right. Scientific tests have proven* that 83.7% of a food's flavour resides in its fat, and a manwich is proud to show it all off, topped with melted cheese and a fried egg. In fact, nothing in a manwich ought to escape the frying pan, especially the bread. For those who just cannot shake the health implications, you can always console yourself with the idea that half an hour on a smoking hot stove top will have "cooked the fat" out of anything.
Whatever. Just so long as when you've finished, the frying pan resembles a paddling pool and the kitchen floor has the texture of an ice rink.

Rule Number Four: Too Much is Never Enough.
To gauge the size when stacking your ideal manwich, open your mouth as far as you can. Now measure the distance between your jaws. Add at least an inch to the result and that is your goal.
No manwich ought to be able to be eaten in one bite. They're meant to be messy, and a seasoned manwich observer ought to be able to discern the contents of your creation with one glance at the front of your shirt. Anything less than that and you may as well have filled the damn thing with boiled egg and cucumber slices and served it with a pot of tea. Piker.

Rule Number Five: Time is Relative.
One thing about the bachelor lifestyle is a lack of a timetable. The true bachelor has no concept of a circadian rhythm, and manwich preparation is a perfect exemplar of this. A manwich is not mealtime food - that is what McDonald's is for.
Some of the best manwiches I have made have been at four o'clock in the morning or as I used to call it, nearly bedtime. It was at this time, when all the shops are closed and my perspective on the world was sufficiently altered, that a week old chicken, a half-eaten tin of sardines, an ancient pickle jar, the hardened crust at the top of the ketchup bottle and some green-looking mayonnaise was the perfect artist's palette for my creation.
It took me a while to learn however, that such artistry was also the reason I often woke up the next morning curled around the toilet bowl. For some reason, my Darling Beloved doesn't find this as amusing as my mates used to.

Hmm. Maybe grilled salmon and dill sauce isn't so bad after all.

*Don't ask me to provide you with the actual scientific tests. I'm going by the principle that, in today's Googled world, 99.95%  of what you choose to believe is good for you been proved by scientific testing.