On The Pret Half Sandwich

When I see Pret a Manger’s half sandwiches advertised in their many, many windows, I always think of the food at Manhattan’s 9/11 museum. In 2014 there was light uproar at the news that the then new memorial would host a restaurant selling “comfort food” alongside the remains of its 1,115 unidentified victims and bloodied shoes. When the café finally opened in one of the museum’s narrow glass atriums, selling savoury pastries and soft drinks, visitors came to the understanding that yes, OK, a café was probably, if not necessarily appropriate, then unfortunately necessary, because following your tour you’ll want to sit down in silence somewhere anonymous and eat lunch while you consider impermanence and mortality. This is what I think of when I see those sandwiches.

Pret a Manger is not the only outlet now excitedly advertising food on the basis of its smallness, not by a long way. No, while many supermarkets indulge in what’s called “shrinkflation” (surreptitiously cutting a product in half but charging the same price for it) since the arrival of weight-loss jabs it’s become increasingly common for them to shout proudly about the fact. We have steaks from Ocado the size of Oliver Twist’s outstretched palm, “mini-meals” from the Co-op “inspired by global cuisines” (is hunger a cuisine?), and the new “nutrient dense” range from M&S, a rare example of density being used as a selling point.

Food has got weird. Instead of indulgence, comfort, refreshment, relief, today it leads with dread, the threat of premature death built in. In a recent Vittles piece Niloufar Haidari coined the term “protein psychosis”, a phrase that has beat an uncomfortable rhythm on my temples every time I’ve entered a supermarket since. It described the age we’re living in as we hurdle unapologetically away from body positivity in pursuit of thinness and/or eternal life, and more and more food is marketed for its high-satiety properties alone, like Lidl’s “high-protein tiramisu” and the new “Creme Egg Soft-Core Protein Bar”, the first chocolate name where every word comes as a genuine surprise.

The walk to work has become a lesson in lunch anxiety. From beneath darkened hoardings a café near the office advertises “collagen ice lollies”, which to me suggests sucking on tendons, and forces me to acknowledge my body as flesh suit. I resent doing this during work hours, especially on a sunny day. These lollies are clearly aimed at women, much as Flakes once were, to be crumbled sensually over breasts in the bath. I am always fascinated by the gender divide in food marketing, sweet things traditionally seen as forbidden pleasures for women on diets, meat sold as ancient fuel for men who want to conquer – first beasts, now this afternoon’s sales client. Advertising doesn’t create those desires, it confirms (and sometimes subverts) the stories we have already come to believe.

One of those stories is that our food is out to get us. We must resist that siren call of a footlong Subway, its particular sugary perfume, and seek out instead the foods that will save us from gluttony, and a slow, loveless death drowning in our own chins. Like, for instance, the half sandwich from Pret. The Pole & Line Caught Tuna Half Baguette is 257 kcal and £2.75. It is the length of three slices of cucumber, overlapping like gills, and I look around quietly as I pay to gauge how impressed at my choice my fellow office-workers are, with their infinite sandwiches that seem to extend for miles. Their gasps, though silent, suggest an inner dialogue of wonder at this city girl in control, this high-powered executive who only needs a shot of protein to keep her going for an entire afternoon of deal brokering and ball busting.

I pay extra to eat in (I can afford it!) and my reflection in the silver tray as I carry it to a table is honestly inspiring – muscular, vivid, staunch. Except then, as I unwrap the sandwich itself – the half sandwich, sorry – I am reminded once again that this meal is homeopathic, that this is lunch as preventative measure, that I am less harried gym-bro than hungry caterpillar