Читать книгу Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table - Nigel Slater - Страница 33

Mrs Penny-Pincher saves butter papers. A little wad of them in the fridge door, kept neatly folded for greasing cake tins before she bakes her weekly Victoria sponge. Anyone with a pair of nostrils knows that butter gets fridgy if you don’t use it quickly enough, even when you keep it in one of those annoying little compartments in the fridge door. Heaven knows how old some of Mrs P’s butter papers are by the time she gets round to using them. She may be saving a penny or two but seems oblivious to the fact that she is actually greasing her cake tins with rancid butter.

She makes stock with every bone and carcass she is left with; uses every manky vegetable in the rack for soup; keeps used tin foil in a pile by the cooker. At the shops, first port of call is the reduced-to-clear bin. Not out of necessity – Mrs P is hardly on the breadline – but out of the possibility of saving a penny or two on a dented tin or a bashed Swiss roll: ‘Well, it will be pretty bashed when I’ve put it in a trifle.’ It makes sense, until you consider that you have to buy custard, cream and a tin of fruit cocktail in order to make the most of your thrifty purchase. Normally not known for taking risks, the economical cook is nevertheless willing to take a punt on the can with no label on it. The chances are it will be baked beans, but what the hell, you never know your luck It might be tinned peaches.