buttered bread. I’m sure I’m not the only person who does that. It’s weird, because I have – as you may have gathered by now – a depressingly bland palette, so I shouldn’t entertain this foul-smelling, pooey-tasting black tar at all, but about once a year I crave it and I must have it. Almost like a pregnant woman who wakes up and decides she wants to eat a book or some hair.
It goes back to my childhood, I think. On Sunday nights I used to make Bovril sandwiches and eat them in bed while watching That’s Life! If you haven’t had Bovril on your bread, it basically tastes like Marmite. Though I’ve no time for Marmite at all. Ugh.
I should caution you, though, if you haven’t yet tried Bovril sandwiches for yourself and, on reading this, are now tempted, Bovril is, if you use even slightly too much of it, disgusting. So do please take care. I will not be sympathetic to anyone who has ignored me and gone and over-Bovrilised.
At number 6, a surprise entry – it’s vegetables. Yup, who would have thought it? ‘But they’re healthy?’, I hear you cry. Yes, shock-horror. I really like veg. Not all veg, obviously. That would be too normal, too fully-functioning-adult of me. Aubergines are a no. I think it might be because of the name. They sound a bit up themselves, don’t they? I’ve never had an avocado and I’m not about to start now. They look too slimy and apparently they’re quite fattening, so I’m simply looking after myself. I’m not wild about cucumbers, and tomatoes (strictly a fruit but clearly a vegetable) are something I will only entertain within a Bolognese. But peas – petit pois especially– and broccoli and onions and mushrooms and haricots verts are a staple part of my diet. I even don’t mind a legume, if truth be known. Oh, and sweetcorn, which is almost too nice to be classified as a vegetable really.
BTW, I include chips as a vegetable and I hereby announce my campaign to have them recognised as one of your five a day. Oh, sorry? Is a potato not a vegetable? Do you know something I don’t?
Incidentally, you may be surprised to find that chips – most people’s go-to naughty food – do not have their own placing in the top ten. Controversial perhaps, but there is a very well-thought-out reason for this . . .
If chips were as uniformly delicious as we know they can be, they would be right up there at the top of the chart, but I’ve probably eaten seven billion different varieties of chip already in my short fat life and the quality is simply too variable for inclusion. To clarify, you never quite know what you’re going to get with a chip.
I don’t cook chips at home. Never have done. So if I have chips, it’s usually in a restaurant. But the chips in most restaurants – or at least most restaurants I’ve eaten in – have clearly come from the freezer. And there is not much to them bar the glory of the carb itself. They have little taste, barely any aroma save for the stale fat they’ve been drenched in, and nothing much really to commend them. Without ketchup (and I always eat mine without ketchup – see above re tomatoes) they are dry. And when I say dry, imagine I said the word slowly, in a Jamaican accent, for added emphasis. Drrrrrrry. Well, hang on, actually maybe don’t imagine I did the accent – because that might get me into all sorts of trouble these days – but imagine a Jamaican person lazily saying the word ‘dry’. That’s how dry a bad chip can be.
Not quite sure that was worth the effort, if I’m being honest.
Anyway, chips can be glorious. There’s a place in Manhattan called La Masseria, in the theatre district, and their chips are long, thin and soggy. There’s not a crunch to be found, but they’re amazing.
My mate Alfie has a restaurant in Bray that does these triple-cooked chips. He’ll tell you a long story about how they take days to prepare. Whatever, it’s worth it.
And sometimes – usually in America – the chips have a light seasoning on them, and then it all comes together.
Chip-shop chips are frequently phenomenal, though I much don’t like it when you leave the chippy and your clothes stink of cooking oil. Not only is it not an especially pleasant fragrance, but you can’t then tell people, ‘Oh, we went to Whole Foods and grabbed a pomegranate salad’, because everyone knows you don’t leave Whole Foods reeking of saveloy.
But overall, as much as I love ’em, you can’t trust a chip. They’re too unpredictable. That is why they’re not in the chart. Sorry.
Oh, you see now I’m conflicted. Tell you what, I’ll cut you a deal. At number 6, then, it’s Vegetables feat. Chips.
At number 5, why wait till Sunday? Yes, it’s the roast dinner.
Now, when it comes to a roast, most people have a tendency to focus on the meat. I understand that. I have to say that personally I tend to find myself preoccupied by the other components of the roast. That said, I like my beef medium to well done, thinly sliced and as fat-free as possible. This will leave some of you aghast, as you gnaw through big, thick chunks of red meat, blood dripping down your chin. You caveman, you! I bet you then nod off afterwards in your chair, farting in front of the hieroglyphics.
Actually, this does point to one of my big food-related issues, which is that I do eat meat but I struggle with it. It’s mainly just unease at the reality of eating a dead animal. It’s clearly both morally wrong and also a bit yucky. I can deal with chicken, but then what are those black elastic bits of string in the breast? Veins? Arteries? Eek.
The happy medium, I have found, is – wherever possible – to eat processed meat that looks like it has had nothing to do with any living creature ever. All hail the dipper! Vive la goujon! M&S Chicken Teddies, anyone?
Look at me. Like everyone else, I’ve become preoccupied by the meat, when everyone knows the glory of the roast dinner is that it is a compendium of many different foods. Bored of the carrot? Here’s a sprout. Not a sprout man? Have some cauliflower. The possibilities are endless.
I’m not sure if I care all that much for the heavily buttered vegetable, which is something I’ve noticed has been creeping into the roast in recent years. Yes, a small knob on a steaming pile of peas is quite nice, but these carrots that slide all over the plate are unwelcome. Ditto these purple carrots. Let’s not get carried away.
Parsnips sometimes make an appearance in a Sunday roast, I’ve noticed. Now I would normally reserve the parsnip exclusively for the Christmas roast, but others are keener and serve them regularly. I’d say they are fine as long as you accept them for what they are – a sweet diversion – but on occasion, early on in a roast, I might in good faith bite into some parsnip under the impression that it’s going to be a roast potato. Then there are problems, because nothing compares to a roast potato, especially a crunchy one smothered in gravy. However, if you approach a parsnip with the knowledge that it is a merely a parsnip, then it can provide a nice sabbatical from some of the more senior elements of the plate.
To elaborate on my earlier point, roast potatoes in gravy are godly. They really are of God. Thinking about it, maybe that’s why we have them on a Sunday. And I don’t say that lightly. I’ve no desire to offend anyone on religious grounds, but I’m going to stick my neck out on this one because, let’s face it, life is essentially pretty arduous, all things considered, so anything that brightens the day should be celebrated. And crispy, fluffy, garlicky, slightly oniony roast potatoes are definitely up there with the very best that life has to offer. Sex is nice too, but you know what I mean.
I’ve no idea quite why roast potatoes are so good. There’s something fun about mashed potato. Fried potatoes we’ve covered, though we haven’t mentioned the glorious sautéed potato, but then you don’t come across them very often, do you? No one ever says, ‘But, Joan, we’ve already had sautéed potatoes twice this week’.
