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Some words from an unpublished story written by my mother, who was never excited about table manners.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.

Alici in Tortellini

My mother used to have a large platter with a recipe for “Alici in Tortellini” on it and I used to think it was the Italian for “Alice in Wonderland.”

But I digress.

In “Alice in Wonderland”, one of the many receptacles labelled “Drink me” contains something which, we are told, had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast”.

I have been reflecting on whether said drink would have been a thing of great delight or of revoltingness unspeakable. Whichever, it strikes me that the description is reminiscent of some of the more extravagant accounts of fine wines. Perhaps in this case a Royal Tokaji. Now THAT deserves the words “Drink me” on every bottle.

James’s egg mayonnaise

My uncle James used to make this every Boxing Day and bring it from Orpington, where he lived (and lives) with his family to East Dulwich, where we lived. He would bring it in a patterned brown rectangular pottery dish with a lid. The eggs with their mayonnaise coating, stained with paprika on top. Unctuous and delicious.The recipe came from Delia Smith. Unlike me, James would make the mayonnaise in a blender. One year my grandmother told us darkly on arrival that there had been problems with the mayonnaise that morning. It had curdled - possibly more than once. But when James arrived, he came with the usual brown dish and the eggs mayonnaise were as good as ever. The last time I recall his making it was when I was unwell in hospital and he brought a dish of it for me to sample. It did the trick.

I have not found Delia’s recipe, as such, but she describes what is required. “But oh, the real thing! Eggs boiled not quite hard but still a little creamy, and a proper home-made mayonnaise flavoured with garlic and looking like thick glossy ointment - there’s a rare luxury indeed. Serve the halved eggs, 1 or 1 1/2 per person, on a bed of sliced pickled dill cucumber and garnish with thin strips of anchovy and small black olives.” I am not convinced by the bed, with its additions, and James did not bother with them. Here, though, is the mayonnaise recipe.

INGREDIENTS

2 large egg yolks

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 heaped teaspoon dry mustard powder

1 level teaspoon salt

Freshly milled black pepper

10 fl oz groundnut oil  (275 ml)

White wine vinegar

METHOD

Mix the egg yolks, garlic, mustard powder, salt and pepper. Add the oil, to begin with, drop by drop, either in a mixer or do it by hand (my preference). Add the vinegar towards the end, and you can, as the mixture thickens, add the oil in a steady stream. Keep it looking yellow, my mother would always say.

Crustacea

I have never quite understood the difference between a shrimp and a prawn. "I'm not a shrimp” a character called Jimmy Brown said indignantly in one of Enid Blyton’s Circus books. "Well maybe you're a prawn then.", replied the circus man, quick as a flash, demonstrating, in Blyton’s world, the ready wit of circus folk. Blyton knew the difference, but I still don’t. And what are Dublin Bay prawns? And scampi? And what is the singular of scampi? Apparently, it’s scampo. I used to eat scampi out of a basket in pubs in the late 1970s. Here, though, are two plates of deliciousness from about thirty years after that. An oasis in East London. Red wine, not white.