On the subject of food.

Today has been a lot about food.

Here’s Tim Dowling writing about food Tim Dowling on food, something I found scanning the papers online before I started making sure our Christmas meal was organised.

“I like to think I have an adventurous palate. I eat many things that commonly upset people – shellfish, snails, coriander – without complaint. I don’t have any allergies and I am highly lactose tolerant.

As an American who has lived in the UK for 30 years, I can only think of a few British foodstuffs I won’t touch, among them baked beans, Marmite and prawn cocktail crisps. But can I really consider myself adventurous if I’m not willing to give these three a go?

Most of the online advice on overcoming food aversions is aimed at toddlers, and what’s left is for people who dislike certain tastes. That doesn’t apply here, because I’ve never actually tried any of these things. I’m averse to what I imagine they must taste like. When it comes to Marmite, my imagination runs wild; I don’t even like being in the same room as an open jar of it.

…

My aversion to baked beans may seem odd – they’re originally American, after all. The canned variety were first imported to Britain in 1886, when they were sold exclusively by Fortnum & Mason. It may be this perverse association with luxury that drives British people to persist with them. When I was growing up, we always had a can of baked beans in the cupboard, where it remained unopened.

I don’t even really know how to cook them. I have seen my wife prepare beans on toast hundreds of times, without ever observing the process closely.

…

Although I have never had them before, there is something wholly familiar about baked beans: that sickly sweetness, that sour note of regret. They taste of old oilcloth and indelible stains. They taste like the clocks going back. I eat about half of them before I am overcome by melancholy. Later my wife finishes the rest of the tin, with joy.

… regular consumers of Marmite have acquired my profound respect: you people really fear nothing.”

On the subject of flavoured crisps, I have to be in the right mood to opt for anything other than plain, ready salted. Occasionally I will enjoy cheese and onion. We discovered fried egg and chips flavoured crisps in the Mercadona supermarket a few years ago and bought them for my older sister who , during our stay with our younger sister, ate little more than egg and chips as she would not try anything involving fish! Not a good choice of crisps. And the other day I saw pigs in blankets flavoured crisps.  

 Baked beans? I can take them or leave them. At university, long ago now,   I discovered the joy of adding spicy brown sauce to beans. Baked beans on wholemeal bread toast provide quite a well balanced meal.

As for Marmite, well, you can throw it all away! 

Some people balk at the idea of Brussels Sprouts. My late Spanish brother in law, however, used to rub his hands together in delight and cry out “coles de Bruselas” when they used to come over for a English family Christmas. This may be because it is hard to grow Brussels sprouts in the south of Spain where there is no frost to spur them on their way. Me, I cook them with bacon and chestnuts - a big improvement.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!