:: Half a loaf of dread ::

Saturday, March 27, 2004

I'd like to talk for a moment about the Subway Smell®. No, not the odor of that venerable workhorse of the commuting classes celebrating its centennial this year, but the chain of sandwich franchises saturating this great country like turkey ham on a Cold Cut Trio (in Canada, replace the "turkey ham" in this simile with "luncheon loaf" - no, seriously). Before they had Atkins-friendly wraps, before Jared Fogel made it cool not to be dangerously obese, Subway had The Smell.

Perhaps you've noticed it: a fragrant yeasty bouquet born of flour, azodicarbonamide, and hard work. It is the aroma of bread baking in a 3x3x4 see-through electric "oven" (a process co-opted for the 1991 cult favorite "Breadlander II: The Leavening"). It permeates everyone and everything Subway.

It is this scent that has allowed Subway to corner the critical "18-34 blind male" demographic. Even those of us with average or perfect vision can rest assured that not even the thickest of pea-soup fogs will preclude us from tracking down the nearest establishment with the most primal of the senses, meager and vestigial though it may be, so long as one is to be found within a two-mile radius. Were we endowed with the powers of the canine, that radius would increase quadrillionfold (this is a well-known fact). So vital to its corporate identity is this fragrance that even upon introduction of six new bread varieties, Subway's commitment to its olfactory roots was unwavering.

Those who say we are a diverse federation of independent and discordant states should take heed of the supernatural consistency of the Subway Smell. Truly the great unifier, it exhibits no difference when wafting from the quaint confines of a New England whaling village storefront or across the food court of an Oklahoman shopping mall. One could craft a national anthem on its back.

So I say to you, fellow gourmands, do not fear the ubiquity of The Smell. It is our life-preserver in strange out-of-town waters, our St. Bernard to the rescue with a whiskey barrel in the Urals of uncertainty. We can, nay, must rally around it as frightened consumers, as carb-wary omnivores, as Americans. Change is the only constant no more.

Posted by morland @ 12:00 PM

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