Smashing
Anyone over thirty knows that spam comes in tins and is made from some part of a pig. In my formative years we ate it regularly, with a bit of lettuce and tomato and cucumber and Heinz salad cream and that was what we called "a salad". Tinned peaches and Angel Delight for afters and there you have it - the definitive 1970s teatime.
Ah, things have changed. Everything is organic and "a salad" has fifteen different ingredients including things like baby sweetcorn and rocket, with a choice of many different dressings. I must say I enjoy it all, though my grandma would have disapproved - she didn't hold with lettuce and that kind of stuff, she thought it was a waste of time. It didn't fill you up and therefore didn't count as proper food. Proper food was stew followed by semolina pudding.
This lack of lettuce may well have shortened my grandmother's life - she only got to ninety-three.
Now restaurants are falling over themselves to prove their health-giving properties. And here is what my friend Sarah ate last night:
Outdoor Reared Pork Sausages and Mash. It says it again underneath: "outdoor reared pork sausages served on a bed of creamy mashed potatoes with roasted red onions and gravy."
I picture those healthy little sausages gambolling in their pens in the sunshine: firstly as tiny chipolatas and finally grown into massive Cumbrian sausages before being humanely slaughtered and plonked on mashed potato.
Yes, sausage and mash. But not as we knew it. In the 1970s that would have been Walls sausages and For Mash Get Smash with Heinz tomato sauce. And for afters there'd be tinned peaches and Angel Delight, or, if Grandma was in charge, semolina pudding. The times they are a-changing.
I must say the sausage and mash in last night's restaurant looked delicious but I went for the steak because steak was posh in the seventies and I still like it. And I still like prawn cocktail. And chicken in a basket. And tinned peaches and angel delight and semolina pudding. Oh yes, and Spam.
posted by Daphne at 5:10 pm
4 Comments:
i eat spam from a tin at least once a week. usually on saturdays. i season it with lemon, salt and pepper and then scramble it with eggs. i also happen to be twenty-two years old. i just wanted to set the record straight. ;)
pee. ess. love your blog.
ah, now we're talking about food again... I too had spam with tomatoes, lettuce and salad cream for my tea, but that was special, most days it was just cheese, tomatoes, lettuce and salad cream, without the lettuce and salad cream, just cheese and tomato.
In fact this became a joke with my nextdoor nieghbours, the twins Helen and Richard who were slightly older than I was: "What did you have for tea, John?" [roars of laughter] "Cheese and tomato" [continued laughter]. Initially the cheese was cheddar, but as convenience crept in it became Dairylea.
Very pleased that the great Spam tradition is being continued - thank you all for your comments. I have to confess to being partial to Dairylea but if I had to have cheese and tomato every day for tea I think I'd prefer a bit of Double Gloucester or Cheddar.
I used to love spam fritters at school, which may be why I've been a vegetarian for 20 years.
and as for gypsy tart.....mmm
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