For Proust it was the madeleine. For me, it?s liver and bacon; it instantly conjures up frosty Saturday afternoons in my teenage years, coming home chilled to the bone and ravenously hungry after losing yet again to some Amazonian Scouser in a swimming gala.
Offal has been an underrated foodstuff for far too long, so Waitrose?s announcement this week that it is to reintroduce ?ration-book? cuts ? lamb heart, lamb and veal sweetbreads and veal tail ? is cause for celebration.
But will offal catch on? It?s long had glamorous supporters ? the controversial Dukan Diet, favoured by Carole Middleton ? relies heavily on offal. The fashionable St John restaurant in London has promoted ?nose-to-tail? eating for years. Yet if offal stages a comeback, I don?t think it?ll be down to such glitz; it?s more likely that we can?t resist a pinch of austerity. Even if the economy weren?t crashing around our ears, we?d still like a dash of Celia Johnson in our lives, along with Delia Smith.
It?s not just offal that?s been promoted as a tasty, money-saving dish. The Royal Society of Chemistry announced the winner of a competition to find the most economical lunch: the toast sandwich (two slices of bread with a buttered slice of toast in between, plus salt and pepper). The cost? 7.5p. And so great is their confidence that they are offering �200 to anyone who can create anything cheaper (and still edible).
All very admirable. Perhaps we?d never have got into our current financial fix if George Osborne had been inspecting the nation?s lunch boxes to insist on such frugal fare. But the problem is such that thrift rarely works.
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