The Continental Roll

The rectangular label didn't identify any particular continent, but it definitely had "continental roll" written all over it when I spotted it under the top shelf of the transparent cupboard full of bakery products.

The label advertised a roll behind a see-through hatch that had a rather elongated shape, too long in fact for a roll, but in the end, you can always roll dough sideways and shape it into a sausage if you feel like it, just to make sure you understand why rolls are called rolls to begin with. (Makes you wonder, though, if a square roll can still be called a roll. Which is probably why they are more likely to be called buns.)

(Microsoft Media)

Naturally, I used the grippers provided to take the roll out. Nobody wants other people's finger prints, let alone pads of skin fat, on bread of pastries, just in case someone changes their mind and puts it back because they've spotted a bigger or differently shaped one, a pastry that's stuffed with cream or one that's rather not because one doesn't necessarily want anything that comes squirting out with each and every bite.

You can wash vegies prior to using them because that's what you ought to do anyway, even if eventually you might not be eating them raw (I chose "might" because some people actually insist on eating vegies raw, any and all), yet you cannot or at least shouldn't wash a roll before you eat it unless you don't mind them being soggy.

The young man at the check-out point smiled when I said I didn't know which continent the roll referred to, but that I assumed it was in reference to mainland Europe. This tells us one more thing, I pondered - without saying so aloud, however, because, in the end, I didn't want the other customers to have to wait for too much longer, and I didn't really know if the young man was going to find the remark funny, apart from keeping him from getting the people in the queue behind me to pay and leave - namely that Australia still has this UK feeling about it. And, mind you, I like that.

If the roll cannot be associated with the UK, or England in particular, but something not too much unlike it has been spotted or can be assumed to be spotted on a trip on the mainland, then it's got to be a continental one. Perhaps just by not being English a roll can already qualify for the title "continental". Much like continental parsley referring to the flat-leaved sort assumed to be grown predominantly in Italy, as opposed to the scratchy one with the pointy leaves that prick your gums.
   
It's difficult to say almost anything, it would appear, that is completely neutral or unbiased, though information scientists might love words like that, and a few linguists are still dreaming of an entirely objective means of communication.

French fries are in fact rumoured to have originated in Belgium. The rumour is a fact; the origin is still arguable.