Authenticity

It is possible to be a little obsessive about authenticity. Those obsessives who assert, for instance, that cappuccino should never be drunk after 11 in the morning. Or that cheese and fish do not go together.

I have no difficulty with people putting into a meal whatever ingredients give them pleasure ... but my hackles are raised if someone asserts that it is a particular dish when it is in fact something possibly delicious but completely different. Quiche Lorraine, for example, should have double cream, eggs and bacon. Not cheese. Not onions. And Elizabeth David says so.

I feel the same way about Tricolore. Tomato, mozzarella and basil. NOT avocado, which is perfectly pleasant but is not an ingredient of Tricolore and does not go particularly well with mozzarella. As I was writing this, I mentioned I was writing about Tricolore and, immediately, the enquirer said: “Mozzarella, tomato and avocado?”

But on the subject of avocado, there is, in my view, no one authentic way of making guacamole. And the same is true of gazpacho - which does not even have to have tomatoes in it. Indeed, given that it came into existence long before the Spaniards sailed for the New World and discovered tomatoes in the process, some might say that tomato in gazpacho is inauthentic.

Family stories: another list

The companion volume to Alexander's Roots is a book of family stories for children. Some of them are apocryphal, including a splendid story about an evil old aunt who provides "very healthy food" consisting of things like "very plain pasta with pallid slimy mushrooms" or "a pile of Barlotti beans, boiled until they were mushy and served with small pieces of stringy chicken, all skin and bones, and some soggy onion. None of the food was ever browned or caramelised or crisp: it was always colourless: even the salads were made with pale, blanched chicory with a bitter taste...For pudding there were always under ripe bananas, already peeled and cut into chunks." The children, we are told, "hated all this pale tasteless food and longed for savoury grilled and roasted meat, savoury salami, fragrant orange fleshed melons and black grapes with a bloom on their skins and melting figs and juicy peaches with furry skins". Worst of all, this woman beats children with a wooden spoon. Towards the end of the story is a wonderful description of lunch for eight hungry children:

"After what seemed a very long time, Giacomo and Uncle Orlando returned to the dining room. Giacoma was bearing an enormous dish of food. There were tiny artichokes preserved in oil, pink prawns, grilled aubergines with black marks from the grillade, shining red tomatoes, brilliant red peppers, mozzarella balls with herbs, eggs halved and stuffed with anchovies, Barlotti beans livened with tuna, roasted green peppers drizzled with olive oil, potato salad and many other delicious morsels. "Enjoy your antipasti, my children," said Uncle Orlando Norsa. "There will be some properly succulent pasta to follow, and then grilled veal cutlets with fried potatoes. And there will also be some changes round here. From now on your mother will take her meals alone in her bedroom until she is feeling better."

Blyton breakfast

"Porridge and cream," said the woman. "And our own cured bacon and our own eggs. Our own honey and the bread I bake myself. Will that do? And coffee with cream?"

"I could hug you." said Julian, beaming at her.

***

A wonderful smell came creeping into the little dining-room, followed by the inn-woman carrying a large tray. On it was a steaming tureen of porridge, a bowl of golden syrup, a jug of very thick cream, and a dish of bacon and eggs, all piled high on crisp brown toast. Little mushrooms were on the same dish.

"It's like magic!" said Anne, staring. "Just the very things I longed for!"

***

"Toast, marmalade and butter to come, and the coffee and hot milk," said the woman, busily setting everything out. "And if you want any more bacon and eggs, just ring the bell."

"Too good to be true!" said Dick, looking at the table.

The signs

As we left, we mused on two things. First, that one is allowed to have one appallingly bad meal on holiday. Secondly, that all the warning signs had been there when we wandered in.

A woman dressed in pink lured us in. There were some other holidaymakers attacking a plate of bacon and eggs on a table near to us. The menu had lurid photographs of all the food. The waiter brought me a coke - not diet coke as I had requested - but denied that I had done so, then said he would bring me a diet coke "anyway": what a concession. When I asked the woman in pink for the wifi password, she said, "The waiter hasn't given it to you? He must still be asleep."

Perhaps not. To do him credit, he was good enough to tell us that there were chips with the meatballs so we didn't need to order an extra portion. He looked doubtful when we asked for potato salad but came back to say it was available.

Then it all arrived. From the moment he put down the meatballs, we knew it had all been a terrible mistake. They had a dry crust, resembling hollow husks. The chips, too, were dry. So was the Greek salad. It looked as though its components had been around all morning, waiting for an unsuspecting customer. The taramasalata was as pink as our hostess's dress, and woody-tasting. Katie had a mushroom which was frozen in the middle. Mine was merely rubbery. The Tatziki was just yoghurt with cucumber, tasting of nothing. Katie said it all looked as though it had emerged from the freezer twenty minutes before and added that the chips tasted of the stale oil in which they had been cooked. We toyed with our platefuls, reluctant to cause a diplomatic incident or to waste what had been brought. But in the end, Katie used diplomatic 'flu as the excuse and went and paid the bill, saying I felt unwell. It was not altogether a lie.