The Christmas hamper (London)

I was walking down my road one evening after Christmas when I came upon a black rubbish bag sitting out on the pavement atop a bamboo chest, which was obviously to be thrown out as well.  “That bamboo chest is in good condition,” I thought.  “It’d be a shame to throw it out.”  The chest was not empty like I’d thought, so I opened it to see what was inside, and discovered a leg, among other things.

I enlisted the help of the neighbour in my old flat, one floor above me (I’d put her name forward for my flat when I was moving out), and together we carried the chest home.  Once home, I was able to examine the contents at a more leisurely pace than out on a street pavement, and found that there were actually two legs, not one.  Whole legs of parma ham!  With the skin on and complete with bone!  Why would anyone throw anything so expensive out?

I went through the rest of the contents, and found: a bag of amaretti (Italian almond-flavoured biscuits), a block of parmesan cheese (vacuum-sealed), straw on the bottom of the chest and some wine tags.  The lid had a plain sticker on it, saying:  “Miss Mary Smith, xx Leigh Road, Highbury, Inghilterra.”  It was obviously a Christmas hamper with the bottles of vino removed.  Perhaps an unwelcome admirer from Italy, hence throwing out the rest of the hamper.  I could even understand why the much-prized hugely-expensive parma ham was binned, as one would need a slicer, or it’d at least be extremely fiddly to cut through the skin and fat to get at the ham, heavenly delicious though it might be.  But the parmesan cheese still in its vacuum pack?  Maybe not a cheese eater??

My landlord Fred knew a Mr Pezzani whose house was 10 minutes’ walk away by Highbury Fields, who used to run an Italian restaurant, so we invited him round to try and solve the mystery.  He sniffed, scraped, and tasted a bit of one leg, and pronounced it perfectly edible, seconding my puzzlement.  As he had a professional slicer at home, I gave him one of the legs.  Every two weeks, he’d slice up a batch and deliver them, and I’d give some to Fred and Nora.  This went on for quite a few months, and when the supply from the first leg was exhausted, I gave Mr Pezzani the second leg, and we started the next cycle of fortnightly parma ham for another few months.

Mrs Pezzani, in the meantime, had gone to Italy on holiday and returned, reporting she’d had a look around the shops, and found that my block of parmesan cheese was worth something like £120, as it was the Regina brand—the queen of parmesan cheese in more than just its brand name.

So, retrieving that binned bamboo chest to recycle it had netted me something like a few hundred pounds sterling of fine Italian preserved food!

(London, 1987)