Читать книгу Love Bites: Marital Skirmishes in the Kitchen - Christopher Hirst - Страница 9

THE PUB STEADILY BEGAN to lose its allure, as I stayed in for Mrs H’s casseroles and soufflés. During summer, she toiled away over the hibachi, a primitive but effective form of barbecue. As a form of recompense, I attempted a fashionable dish of that time. Mrs H has often recalled it over the years. It was the moment she realised what she had got herself into. Always keen on soups, I decided to attempt French onion soup, regarded as excitingly bohemian twenty-odd years ago. Desiring to bring a whiff of the old Les Halles to the suburbs of south London, I peeled a mass of onions, sliced them into fine discs and started gently frying them in Mrs H’s biggest pot. Nothing too unusual there, surely? Except Mrs H came downstairs, poked her head round the kitchen door and asked, ‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Making French onion soup.’

‘But it’s four in the morning.’

‘Couldn’t sleep.’

‘So you decided to make some soup.’

‘I was trying to be quiet. Didn’t want to wake you.’

‘Well, you have.’

‘I never knew you could be woken by a smell.’

Afterwards I restricted my soup-making to more social hours.

The main thrust of my culinary proposals concerned the foods of northern England. I was particularly pleased when she showed enthusiasm for pork pie, a delicacy that continues to hold great appeal for me. I had less success in persuading her to enjoy another northern treat. ‘No! I am not eating that. It looks revolting.’ It was the first sighting of an eruption that became more familiar in subsequent years. Who would have thought that a plate of chopped honeycomb would have prompted such antagonism?

Maybe I should explain that the honeycomb in question was honeycomb tripe. In retrospect, I’ve come round to her view. Over-bleached and tasteless, English tripe is rubbish, but Italian tripe from veal calves is sensational and French tripe is pretty good. Persisting in my campaign to convert Mrs H, I secured a tin of tripes à la mode de Caen (cooked with carrots, onion and leek). While she was otherwise engaged, I opened it, emptied the contents into a saucepan and secreted the telltale tin.

‘A bit curious,’ she said warily as she tasted a spoonful. Moments later, my ploy ended in disaster. ‘Argh! What have you made me eat?’

‘It’s just a tin of French stew.’

‘I’ve just found a hairy bit.’

‘It can’t be hairy. There aren’t any hairs in tripe.’

‘TRIPE!’

It took several minutes for the plaster to stop falling from the ceiling. Even now, Mrs H insists that she found a hairy bit in the French tripe.

I realised that I would have to change tack pretty rapidly if my toothbrush were to retain its position in Mrs H’s bathroom. Luckily, I had a sure-fire weapon in my culinary armoury. There was a certain savoury that Mrs H received with such enthusiasm that it would not be overstating the case to describe her reaction as ecstatic. It occurred to me that it would do our relationship no harm if I were to try every known variation of this dish. The path to Mrs H’s heart was paved with Welsh rabbit.