Wraps and Calzone

Written by Duncan Holmes | 01 November 2009

Susan’s eyes brightened, as eyes often do in light-bulb moments of Scrabble games. She leaned forward, and with both hands gathered up all of her seven letters, carefully placing them vertically on the squares in the bottom left corner of the board. “Calzone!” she said, with a Scrabble smirk and whoop of victory.The board wobbled on a (no relation) Lazy Susan.

“There,” she said. “I got rid of my Z, all my letters, and it’s a triple word score!” She searched for a high five, but predictably, no one was too excited about sharing her moment. “Is calzone named after someone?” asked Jim. “Because, if it’s named after someone, you know we won’t allow it. And whatever it is, it’s a foreign word. House rules. And if I may respectfully inquire, what the heck is a calzone anyway?”

“It’s one of those things made from flour that you stuff with mushrooms and cheese, or whatever you want,” said Susan. “Like pita pockets, tortillas, samosas, empanadas and wraps. And it’s not a cal-ZONE, it’s a cal-ZONEY. Like ... it’s Italian. Cal-ZONEY.”

She added Venetian attitude. “They have them at all of the trendy chains.” “OK,” said Jim. “Take your 134 damn points. Sheesh! We’re giving it away.” Despite his testy reluctance to accept the high-scoring calzone entry, Jim eventually won the game; going out with ZOWIE, a hotly contested, equally lame extension of the calzone’s Z.

But as usual, what the game did was inspire conversation, much of it centred on foods, like calzones, that also serve as handy-dandy containers for fabulous fillings. And, we concluded, if you add to wraps and puffy pockets things like pies, pasties and foldable flatbreads, the world’s cultures have certainly discovered over the centuries that invention is one mother of a food idea. And eating the whole hand-held package sure saves on the knives and forks. On the subject of convenience, we dare not forget Britain’s oddball Earl of Sandwich, who ordered up roast beef between slices of bread, which not only made it possible for him to continue with a card game, but kept his fingers clean as he played. And while it’s a stretch, do we include as a wrap the nori that neatly holds a round of sushi in place? And how about the spring roll family, or the delightful chimichanga, full of beans, cheese or even ice cream? Your call, sweet reader.

Common to almost all of these food containers — my descriptor — are the simplest of ingredients that make them foldable and bring them to useful life. Flour of some kind, water and/or oil, yeast on occasion, salt, and not much else. Heat to fry or bake before or after they’ve been stuffed with mounds of worldly good tastes.

Checking with friends and fellow travellers who, like me, stick to street stalls for grub on the long global road, there seemed to be a never-ending list of foods that fold, encase, and pack ready for the world’s vacation challenges — the climb up from Kathmandu, the long flight to get there in seat 43C, the lonely bus ride home from Vegas — there’s always a corner in the backpack for a wrap of some kind. At last count, not including common-garden calzones, empanadas and chimis, I had a count of 40 variables, and there are probably scores more. Bammies from Jamaica, barbari bread from Iran, laxoox from Somalia, bolanee from Afghanistan, crepes, of course, from France, and flammkuchen from Germany, to name just a few with innocent beginnings that morph into exotics when they’re oomphed with toppings and stuffings.

Wraps and their sisters and cousins were foods that happened because they are such a sound, common-sense idea; because they are portable and easy, but mainly because they so potentially delicious. And dare I say it, in these difficult economic times, their folds can encase foods that don’t need to cost a fortune. But tucked inside, all nice and squishy, they are the best of moveable feasts.

And because you knew this was coming? That, dear reader, is a wrap.