More about Bombay Toast

 Bombay Toast (or should I now call it Mumbai Toast?) is a favourite breakfast comestible in this household. It was first introduced to me by two friends in Madras (now Chennai) over thirty years ago. My wife insists that it is in fact French Toast. But this morning, I rather foolishly cooked it in a pan in which I had a night or so before cooked what I describe as Aloo Chaat (and which my wife insists, correctly, is nothing of the kind, but which might safely be described as currified potato and things) and which had clearly not be washed as thoroughly as it might have been. When presented with her two slices of “Bombay Toast”, my younger stepdaughter ate one of the slices and told me that it looked slightly as though it had been cooked in highlighter (Turmeric I fear) and tasted a “bit weird”. I asked her not to inform her sister of the issue (on the basis that that helping might never be sampled if she did) and she graciously obliged. The elder stepdaughter ate all of hers with no complaint. And my wife ate the remainder of the younger’s, in the full knowledge of the Bombayness (on this occasion) of the toast. For my part, when everyone had popped out for the day, I decided to use a clean pan for mine.

First night in Pisa

Sometimes, I am told, a memory of a fine meal is situational, rather than related to the quality of the food. I am not entirely convinced. But my first ever meal in Pisa, which was my first ever evening meal in Italy, has stayed with me for many years. Since 2008 in fact.

I was by myself but, like Dr Watson in one of my favourite Holmes stories, had no time to be lonely. The holiday which lay ahead was a walking holiday in Tuscany. But I was not due to arrive in the marvellously named “Castelnuevo di Garfagnana” - Newcastle of the Enchanted Forest - for a couple of days and had decided to spend some nights in Pisa. Having arrived in the afternoon, I had already seen the Leaning Tower and wandered around the empty streets surrounding it: pleasingly, a few moments outside the tourist trap surrounding the Tower, was medieval calm.

I can recall nothing about where I stayed that night but imagine that I chose somewhere to eat that was nearby. I sat outside, took photographs of my food and scribbled in my notebook. I have written before about my first meal in Italy which was on 11 September 2001. On that occasion, Cousin Pen had said she wasn’t hungry enough for more than one course so I, out of politeness, had followed suit. This evening, with no one to please but myself, I opted for all the courses.

I remember little about the antipasti or the secondi, but they were better than merely adequate. The pasta, though, put everything in the shade. Taglioni, which I had never had before, with fresh truffle. I can still taste it.

I recall one incident well. A girl aged about ten, I supposed, coming towards the restaurant and seeing her friend, rushing towards her, throwing herself at her in delight with the customary “ciao ciao”. The friend was equally pleased to see her. The encounter had all the warmth of the Mediterranean.

I finished my meal with a vin santo accompanied by little almond biscuits to dip into the glass.

One should never try to recreate meals and fortunately I did not have the opportunity. On the walking part of the holiday, I raved about the meal I had enjoyed and when we all arrived at Pisa to return to the airport at the end of our holiday with a few hours to spare, I suggested having lunch at the same restaurant: I had in mind more taglioni with truffle. My fellow walkers were themselves keen or decided to humour me. But when we arrived at the restaurant, it was closed.

A collection of fictional meals

Name the author... A refreshing ginger beer, ginger ale, lemonade, orangeade, honey lemonade, icy cold creamy farm milk, natural clear cold spring water or pineapple juice diluted with ice-cold water out of Naomi Barlow's old well. Or maybe, if you're feeling chilly, a mug of steaming cocoa, strong and milky coffee or tea made with blackcurrant jam. Breakfast from "The Three Shepherds" consisting of a steaming tureen of porridge, a bowl of golden syrup, a jug of very thick cream, and a dish of their own cured bacon and their own eggs, all piled high on crisp brown toast, with little mushrooms on the same dish, and toast, butter, marmalade (that Kiki's been pecking the rinds out of), butter and their own honey, to come. Perhaps a light lunch from the dairy (Fatty’s treat), served by a plump woman in a vast white apron to serve you and beam at you. Two boiled eggs apiece and some plates of bread and butter (with strawberry jam – they’re her own growing, the strawberries), and some of her own bottled gooseberries if you like, with a jug of cream. And she’d made some new buns, would you like some? Or perhaps a picnic lunch instead. Freshly-baked bread, mustard and cress sandwiches, tins of tongue, tins of sardines, pork pie, pickled onions (Dick's favourite) an enormous hard-boiled egg salad, rain-swollen lettuces, crisp, juicy and sweet, cucumber dipped in vinegar, nuts arranged in handwoven baskets (gathered by Jack). And some ripe plums from the tree: you can spit out the stones down at the beach. Afternoon tea with Clarissa’s old nurse. Tongue sandwiches with lettuce, hard-boiled eggs to eat with bread-and-butter, great chunks of new-made cream cheese, potted meat, ripe tomatoes grown in Mrs. Lucy’s brother’s greenhouse, gingerbread cake fresh from the oven, shortbread, a great fruit cake with almonds crowding the top, biscuits of all kinds and six jam sandwiches! Followed by a farm-house high-tea: a fresh ham, glistening pink. A veal-and-ham pie smothered in green parsley, like the ham. Yellow butter in glass dishes. A blue jug of thick yellow cream. (NOT to go with the ham, Gussy!) Honey. Home-made strawberry jam. Hot buttery and jammy scones. A large fruit-cake as black as a plum pudding inside. Egg sandwiches. Tea, cocoa and creamy milk. Supper of kippers cooked over an open fire, potatoes cooked in their jackets with butter, and sausages burnt and a little burst on one side, with fried tomatoes. And a midnight feast to finish off with: eclairs, Silky's Pop biscuits, macaroons, currant buns, meringues, blackberry tart, a jam sponge, Joanna's chocolate cake, big slabs of cherry cake (left by Aggie under the bushes), thick, sticky pieces of gingerbread, sugar biscuits, chocolate ices, chocolate biscuits, juicy ripe strawberries and cream, greengages fresh from Old Thatch and Green Hedges, tinned peaches, tinned pineapple, tins of Nestlé's Milk, large melting ice creams and toffee shocks presented by Moonface. And some bullseyes--the hottest you can find! Not to mention the Tippy-top pudding, Poppity cake and Google buns cooked by the elf on Angela's little toy stove. And an ice cream pudding which had dainty biscuits of all kinds set around it. Cooking good, very good cooking!

Grandfather’s Curry Puffs

My grandfather was mainly conservative in his tastes: grey beef, thinly sliced, cooked within an inch of its life. He was fond of smoked salmon and sugared almonds - although polite hints were dropped when the sweets became the present he would always receive from his grandchildren. He would sometimes take charge of the cooking: barbecue chicken was a favourite of his. And he introduced me to Bolst's mango pickle.

So it was that my mother was particularly fond of introducing her father-in-law, my grandfather, to foods she thought he might enjoy. She knew he had been born in Bangalore, and she once produced some Tamarind for him. Curry puffs he also liked. For his funeral, she commissioned me to buy a hundred vegetable samosas from my local takeaway which were provided most beautifully wrapped. But the beef, on this occasion, was served rare.

Italian food quiz

 One Italian state. Three cities in that state. Five internationally famous foods or dishes. Name them …

Of salt and table manners

"Images flashed across his mind – a table laid for dinner and a chubby toddler sitting across from him in a wooden high-chair burying his fists into a bowl of strawberries and cream while the grown-ups laughed."

Some words from an unpublished story written by my mother, who was never excited about table manners. She approved of reading while eating, and even licking the remains of some delicious sauce from the plate.

Her parents in law, my grandparents, were the ones I recall teaching me table manners. Elbows not on the table. My grandfather told me that when he had been younger, those responsible for him had threatened to bash his elbows on the table, and, if he continued to offend, made good the threat.

Granny told us of her school in Eastbourne, Moira House ("Mo Ho"), which closed in 2020, where, if they wanted the salt, were taught to say: "Pass the cruet".

My father didn't encourage this particular piece of ridiculousness but did not like it when his sons said curtly "Salt please" instead. His biggest bugbear, though, was people eating with their mouths full. I recall in that rather bleak post-Christmas period - this would have been in 1983, so almost forty years ago - my mother cooked some brussels sprouts which she had forgotten to take to her parents-in-law for Christmas lunch. I was not fond of brussels sprouts at the best of times, and was sent away from the table for the sin of eating with my mouth full: now had we been eating steak ...

Then there were table manners at school. The PE teacher once sent me sent away from the table in a café in Bourton-on-the-Water of all places. My crime - unconsciously performed - had been tipping vinegar into my hand and consuming it.

One of the teachers took a group of pupils to his house and we ended up in the kitchen where I found the spice cupboard. I was fascinated by the meat tenderiser and longed to try it. My mother warned me off the stuff on another occasion: "It melts meat. Your tongue is made of meat."

On another occasion, the Geography teacher forced me to eat a slice of cake after I had pulled off a bit of the icing. A curious punishment indeed. But I felt duly humiliated. I hadn't even supposed to have had tea at school that day, having been taken out by my father.

Finally, I recall the occasion when I spilt salt at school - a whole pot of it on to the table. "Very silly" said the Headmaster with displeasure. After I had cleared it up using a dustpan and brush, I was told: "You've ruined that brush."

A Summer Feast

“Picture a grassy glade with moss o’erlaid, a snowy cloth spread on satin sward and covered with such dainties as these-strawberry and pineapple cream ice-cool, fragrant, delicious-flanked by a wall of delicately crisped sponge cakes! Towering near stands a huge cake, brown, substantial, rich in fruit. A really sustaining cake, in contrast to a dish of pink and white meringues, a variety of glistening jellies, trembling creams, glowing salads composed of every variety of fruits. Yonder a chicken is resting in its dress of mayonnaise. Companioned by jellied fat ducks, which rear side by side like a pair of old friars, stuffed full with seasoning.” May Wynne, Peggy’s First Term.

Strammer Max

In his account of a walk through the mountains of Europe, “Clear Waters Rising, Nicholas Crane describes this Updikian “snack”: “three fried eggs on a layer of bacon and a wedge of bread, covered with chopped raw onions, sliced cucumber, tomato and gherkins”.

Granny's curry

 There will be those who scoff at the “recipe” below, on the grounds that it is inauthentic. Nothing like what I would eat in an Indian restaurant here, it is true, but I am bound to say that I have eaten something very similar in India itself. My grandfather was born in Bangalore (as it was then called) where “Bolst’s” was founded: that company was responsible for its mild curry powder and its mild mango pickle. The curry powder is still easy to find; the pickle less so.

This is, of course, a meal memorable for having been part of my childhood. My mother, no mean cook herself, used to enjoy “Granny’s watery curries”. According to Granny, it was my mother who first taught her about the use of onions in cooking. Granny was not an adventurous cook, but I cannot recall ever not enjoying a meal prepared by her. And she introduced me to many culinary techniques. Although teased about her repeated insistence on adding “just a little sprinkle” of sugar to meals, it was she who persuaded me that a squeeze of lemon juice on countless savoury dishes would improve them.

Here, then, is her recipe, possibly never written down, for beef curry.

Three tablespoons Bolst’s curry powder

1 large onion.

1 clove garlic.

500g stewing beef or beef mince.

3 fresh tomatoes.

3 large carrots.

: large potatoes.

1 tin chopped tomatoes.

Salt and pepper.

Olive oil to fry.

Fry the meat. Set aside.

Fry the curry powder, dry, watching it so it doesn’t burn.

Add the garlic and onion, fairly finely-chopped. Stir in the curry powder and add a little oil. Stir. Allow to swear.

Add the carrots, chopped into rounds, the potatoes, cubed, and the fresh tomatoes, quartered. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add about half a pint of water and the tin of chopped tomatoes. Allow to simmer.

Serve with rice, poppadums and natural yoghurt.