Crust-haters will eat "inside out" sandwiches made with bread heels

Geoff passed along this brilliant bread crust hack, no doubt spurred by my story of my mom's little white lie about the relative nutrition of the crust vs. the soft inside bits:

for my entire childhood, my dad was constantly trying to convince me that the ends of a bread loaf were actually somehow better than the rest by making "end sandwiches" which were, to my mind, more like crust sandwiches. didn't he know all kids have crust issues? [Yeah! Crust issues! Are you reading this, Mom? -- Ed.]

as a parent, I've opted for an illusion - if you just turn the bread ends toward the inside the sandwich looks completely normal. in fact, I just made my oldest daughter (7) a sandwich from the one remaining end and one regular slice and she ate the entire thing... except the visible "crust", informing me "I don't like the crusts." if she only knew it was a crust sandwich in the first place :)

Related: Making sandwich crusts palatable to kids

Comments

[Brooke]

Oh - this "for sure" works! Even for my four year old!

[Serene and Not Herd]

A college professor once saw me eating a heel sandwich, and asked if I was out of bread. When I answered no, she informed me that the heel or ends of the loaf help keep the rest of the bread moist, and discourage molding on the rest of the bread.

Ten years of bread buying and eating later, and I've definitely seen positive results from leaving the heel pressed against the remaining loaf, until the very end.

[florabora]

Yeah, this only really works with store bought bread, though. Growing up my mom made tons of bread (not sure when she found time to do that while working full time on 3rd shift), and heel sandwiches don't work too well on older home made bread.

[Jill Pettis]

I used to do this with both my kids and even the pickiest never had any idea. I even do it myself sometimes.

[AmyS]

I had to train my now-husband not to eat the end pieces of my bread because they keep the rest from going stale -- when we started dating he would gallantly eat the crust to save me from it. This summer I had to teach his little brother the same lesson.

My mom tried to turn the end pieces inside when I was a kid but I never fell for it. I'd always eat it as toast though.

For the regular pieces with just crust around the outside: On the rare occasions when my daughter declares her dislike of crust (normally she will eat it), I make the sandwich then cut off the edges but leave them on her plate. She'll usually eat these crust "sticks" after she eats the sandwich.

[EmmKay]

My mother told my daughter that eating the crusts will give her curly hair.

Now, many times, the crust is the only part of the bread that the child will eat!

[hedra]

We tried this. Unfortunately, G is a 'supertaster' and he can taste the 'burnt' in the crust, even with PB&J. He says it tastes like French Roast Coffee smells. Burnt, burnt, burnt, ICK. And that's on fluffy Italian white bread with light crusts. Sigh. But worth a try!

[Jill in Atlanta]

I explained to my children that it's the sugar in bread that makes the loaf turn brown on the outside. They interpreted that to mean that there was extra sugar on the crusts.

I still do the turning it inward illusion anyway. However, I've found that if I use the heels for sandwiches too often, there's nothing around to feed the ducks and I end up sending the kids with good bread! (And for us cooks out there, heels are also needed for breadcrumbs.)

[Elana]

I mentioned to my husband that I'd take the heel, since no one liked it. To which he piped up, "I like it!" and our friend said "I like it too!"

I think I'm the odd one out. I loathe that piece still.