Nothing but the best

[desperance]

I made meat-paste sandwiches for my lunch.

It may be my greatest invention.

When I was a kid, meat-paste sandwiches were a regular part of a child's diet, at least around our way. Shippam's meat-paste, to be specific: a soft grey-brown oozy stuff that lacked any identifiable texture or flavour, spread on buttered white pre-sliced bread.

I thought I had grown away from it for ever, except that shortly after I got my first flat in Newcastle, twenty-some years back, a couple of friends turned up unexpectedly, newly back from travels overseas; and she refused coffee and asked for meat-paste sandwiches, and thus I deduced that she was pregnant.

And no meat-paste has passed my threshold, let alone my lips, from then till this. But lo! This is a fine thing:

Take cold poached brisket, chop it into chunks (whoops! a couple of chunks just slid off the board there - but fortunately, there are cats circling below...) and drop it into your hyper-special new blender. Whizz to a soft pulpy paste. Mix in lots of freshly-grated horseradish from the garden, mayonnaise and mustard. Salt and pepper. A bit more horseradish. Like that, until yummy.

Spread on buttered granary, and eat. Fighting off cats the while.

Comments

[madkestrel.livejournal.com]

Now you've reminded me of the meat paste we ate as kids - I think it was called Underwood Deviled Ham. It had a little red devil with a pitchfork on the label, so more than likely the religious right has gotten that removed by now.

I imagine your lovely homemade meat paste is far superior, though. *smile*

[handworn.livejournal.com]

I bet that was better meat than the manufacturer of the original meat paste used. :-)

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, this has been the subject of a thread on child_lit. May I point people to this?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Of course you may! (And what on earth have they been saying on child_lit? And did it involve bloater-paste? Which is something I know of only through my childhood reading; I've never met it in real life. One of these days, I shall try to negotiate a bloater from a smokehouse, and experiment...)

[fjm.livejournal.com]

It did indeed. We got on to the subject of food in children's books and turned very fast to Enid Blyton.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I always liked Elinor M Brent-Dyer's food better (as, of course, I liked her books better, generically). Exotic European meals! Kaffee und Kuche! Endlessly!

And then there are the parsnips in Joanna Lloyd. Do you know about the parsnips in Joanna Lloyd? It is one of the very rare scenes that I find incredibly hard to read aloud, because I am cracking up more with every sentence...

[fjm.livejournal.com]

no! do tell.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Joanna Lloyd was also the crime writer Joan Coggin; I suspect her of an eccentric turn in real life, as her books are certainly eccentric. She wrote half a dozen school stories as Lloyd, and they are a delight. The parsnip incident needs to be read to be appreciated; I will look it out and send you the relevant chunk (can't lay my hand on the book just now, as all my children's section is out of order).

In the meantime, this, plucked from this webpage about Coggin (http://www.ruemorguepress.com/authors/coggin.html):

In addition to her four mysteries, Coggin, using the pseudonym Joanna Lloyd, wrote six girls’ books set at the imaginary Shaftesbury School and based on Coggin’s own school years at Wycombe Abbey. These stories are as charmingly told as Coggin’s mysteries, and indeed the young Catherine, who figures in several of these books, bears a remarkable resemblance to Lady Lupin [her crime-solving character]. In Catherine, Head of House (1947), Catherine’s friends recall when she put her books in the laundry basket and took her linen bag to school. Catherine hopes that no one will run away from school during her tenure as head, since it’s unlikely that she’ll notice their absence. You can almost hear Lady Lupin in Catherine’s lament:
“I hope someone will notice. I remember one day when I was at home I brought some fish home but I forgot to give it to Mother. I was reading Endymion for the first time, so I just put in the drawer. It was some days before I remembered it. I don’t know if I would have remembered then, only there seemed to be something a little funny about the room, and Mummy said she thought the drains must have gone wrong, and Jack thought it was a dead rat. Anyhow, someone found the fish but it wasn’t fit to eat. It was rather a waste. I often wish I had a better memory.”

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Lady Lupin? Would she by any chance be related to the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin? Thus keeping crime and solution in the same family?

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

But unlike Shippams this had a) texture b) flavour and was c) appetising.

One particularly nasty food aberration from the late 70s/early 80s was the appalling gunk "Toast Toppers". Never mind pre-mixed, this looked pre-eaten.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, god. I had forgotten Toast Toppers. I ate one or two. Cornflour and processed ham, were the flavours I remember. I did not like it even then, when I was a hungry teen.

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

That sounds REALLY good.

Thanks

[(Anonymous)]

Chaz,

Thanks for the link back to here (via your newsletter).

I shall embark on some "new" reading over the next few hours. And yes I know what it's like to own a cat - mine was a "fraidy" cat who loved pizza!

Take care on life's great journey!

~~~ Melisende

(drop by sometime - womenofhistory.blogspot.com )