Oops 3 (London)

I’ve always loved the bits of food that most other people don’t like or don’t eat.  

Bones would be sucked dry, if not crunched down (if soft enough) — I always say I must’ve been a dog in my previous life.  

There’s a street-food dish in Singapore called kway chap: mainly pig offal and skin cooked in a dark soya sauce, eaten with rice-lasagne triangles — I’d quite happily just have the skin.  I actually do make a version of it at home, now that such things as chicken wings and pork skin are available in multi-cultural London — they weren’t in the 70s when I first arrived, as white British people didn’t eat such things, it seems.  (Another great thing about multiculturalism.)

Eating a cooked English breakfast, I’d notice my British friends cutting off the bacon rind.  (Nowadays, the rind is already cut off before the bacon gets to the shelves, or the restaurant kitchen, it seems.)  I’d ask them if I could have their rind, getting strange looks in return.

Ex-student Jo had invited me over to hers for Christmas Dinner a few times.  Unfortunately, her daughter loves skin as well, so I’d be fighting her for the turkey skin.

Christmas last year, the planned Christmas Dinner at Nigel and Graeme’s got cancelled because of the Covid lockdown.  Jo, who had been tasked with providing the turkey, put aside some of it (meat, skin, bones) for me, in three boxes.  With Jo’s daughter away studying in Australia, I had no competition at all.  Hmm, all the skin and bones to myself!!  Yum!!

Collected the three boxes on Boxing Day.  Got home, picked up one of the boxes at random to eat the contents.  Only meat.  No skin, no bones.  I thought, I’ll have to text Jo and “complain”: “What, no skin, no bones!? I’m being short-changed!!”

Ate the first box, took the other two round to Brazilian friend, to whom I’d been publicising the gift of Christmas turkey, all cooked and ready to eat.  (Like me, she has no work pension, and can only start claiming a small state pension next year, so I try and share my food and other things with her.)

In her kitchen, I started to open one of the boxes to show her what I’d brought, looking forward to her gleeful reaction.  It was full of skin and bones!!  Oh no, Jo had packed the food separately: meat in one box, skin and bones in another!!  And I’d eaten all the skinless, boneless meat!

Luckily, the third box had more skinless, boneless meat.  Phew.

PS:  The Brazilian friend cannot eat fatty food because of her health condition, so I couldn’t even leave her the skin and bones.

(London, 2020)

For those who might need help with the English, I give below my Mac dictionary’s definition for “oops”:

oops | uːps, ʊps |

exclamation informal

used to show recognition of a mistake or minor accident, often as part of an apology: Oops! I'm sorry. I just made you miss your bus!

ORIGIN

natural exclamation: first recorded in English in the 1930s.

Christmas dinner disasters: 01 (UK)

 

At one Xmas dinner party, the hostess pulled the turkey tray out of the oven to check if it was done, but was a bit too rough.  The tray slipped out of her grasp, and landed on the kitchen floor, spilling the contents:  turkey and turkey fat.  

Catching a whiff of the turkey, one of the guests’ dog ran into the kitchen and started to slither about on the turkey fat.  

It was pandemonium in the kitchen as people rushed around trying to contain the situation.  Some tried to grab the dog before it got to the turkey, some tried to scoop up the turkey.  All were skidding around on the greasy floor.

Christmas dinner disasters: 02 (UK)

At another Xmas dinner party, the hostess pulled the turkey out of the oven to sprinkle some salt on the turkey skin. 

As she was talking to her guests, she wasn't looking properly, and ended up grabbing the washing up liquid bottle instead of the table salt bottle.  The turkey started to froth.  She had to rinse the turkey under the tap for quite a while before the bubbles subsided and she could put it back into the oven.

An eggsperiment—update (France)

The details are being hatched.

(France, September/October 2011)

Update 280112:  It’s been a long incubation, getting this blog hatched.

I’d been cutting greens for the rabbits—whose hutches are within the same enclosure as the hens and the turkeys — and would immediately, while still in the field, conscientiously pick off the minute escargots that clung to the stems and leaves.  On one occasion, just as I was about to feed the greens to the rabbits, I noticed that I’d missed out on a couple of escargots, so I picked them off and threw them onto the ground, which were instantly pounced upon by the hens and turkeys.

It set me thinking that the hens might welcome the change in their diet (of grain and vegetable scraps from the kitchen) and the escargot shell would provide the calcium for egg-shell-making.  Besides, even if I couldn’t make much of a dent in the escargot population, it might help save some of the wooden boundary posts—the chap in the village was complaining only the other day that they chomp through his fence posts at an alarming rate.

The next foray into the field saw me equipped with not just the bucket and knife for the greens but also a big plastic yoghurt tub and teaspoon for the escargots.  (The teaspoon is for scooping up any escargot dropped, as it’s difficult to pick up the tiny pests with one’s fingers.)  

I soon discovered that another field was so densely populated with the creatures that, instead of picking them singly off each rabbit green or blade of grass, I could just pick up a dried thistle branch and shake off all the clingers-on into the plastic tub, or scrape huge clusters off the boundary posts, thus filling up the yoghurt tub within five minutes max and saving myself a lot of work.

I’d then approach the hen enclosure, rattling the tub to build up their eagerness in anticipation as part of the training (see also blog entry Pig training).  Sure enough, the hens would pounce on the little tit-bits tossed over the fence, especially the turkeys who absolutely relished them.

My eggsperiment produced results within a day, much sooner than I’d expected.  

Farm mistress Jeanette reported egg production up by 50%: the 20 hens and turkeys would normally produce about eight eggs a day in the summer, but after my twice-daily supply of escargots, we’d get 12 per day.  In the end, we were giving the eggs away to people in return for things like their helping to plough the fields, say.  

I will be repeating the eggsperiment this coming summer, just to make sure it wasn’t a coincidence, and report back.  Watch this space!

(France September/October 2011)

The pretend peasant (France)

An old (both in terms of age and length of acquaintance) retired-academic friend, Russell, told me I’m “becoming an accomplished peasant”, referring to my French farm adventures.  Knowing him, the “peasant” bit is a play on the other meaning of the word (an uncouth, crude, or ill-bred person; a boor).

I am certainly acquiring the physical attributes of a peasant: chapped hands, dirty-looking fingernails (I say “dirty-looking” because they’re stained from processing quince for jam-making, not from being unwashed), chipped nails (from getting caught in something or other, e.g., the vegetable peeler or the kitchen knife).  

But I’m far from being a peasant, never mind an accomplished one.  Colette, who was brought up on the farm, cannot stand the feel of raw meat, yet she just gets on with it when she has to cook a non-vegetarian meal, which is all the time on the farm — solid (manual-)working people need solid protein-packed meals.  

Yet I, who claim to love the countryside, blanch at the sight of blood, so that when it came to getting the turkeys ready for Xmas (for their own consumption and as gifts for friends and neighbours who had helped out throughout the year), I only entered the fray for the feather-plucking.  Even then, I consciously avoided my eyes roving over the part of the neck where they’d dispatched the bird.

I’m not only squeamish about blood, I’m delicate, too, about the presents (both solid and liquid) the cats leave around the house, for which I get Jeanette to deal with.  I also have to get her when I find a frog or toad in the shower room, although I’m not afraid of them per se.

At least, I don’t inflict long-term damage on the farm being a pretend peasant, unlike pretend academics who teach the wrong grammar and usage of language to students, leaving the students open to being marked down for their course assessments and exams.  No, not “meow”.  Just an observation and comment on irresponsible behaviour.

(France, 2011/2012)