Beginning to Crave!

When I first arrived here in France, the very idea of buying anything I actually recognised was against my own personal rules! No. I’d decided to come here and I was intent on walking the walk so, in the Carrefour Supermarket, I would waltz “disgustedly” past the Multi-Cheerios and shun, insulted, the Old El Paso taco kits. Peanut butter? No, Siree, Bob. If I was going to be doing any spreading it was going to be “le spreading” of Nutella choc-o-nut. If I was going to be eating crispy snacks they weren’t going to be crisps (potato chips if you’re the other side of the pond). They would have to be little brie-flavoured Arc de Triomphes or little crispy, jambon General De Gaulles. If I knew what a vegetable was, I avoided it and, if I was going to allow myself to eat potatoes, they were damned well going to be sautéed.

Time is a great mellower. I can honestly and confidently say that, over the last year, I’ve genuinely thrust myself into buying and eating pretty much what everyone else does here. I do admit that I haven’t yet got round to cooking horse (there’s just as big a fridge in Carrefour for “Trigger” as there is for “Babe”) and I haven’t yet let a snail pass my lips (although they’re only mussels without the aqualungs and I love mussels). I’ll try both of these things any many more before I’m done.

However, there’s something going on in my taste buds. In my psyche. You know the old saying “you can take the boy out of Britain but you can’t take Britain out of the boy”. God, it’s true. I’m bloody craving here! All the culinary clichés are swooping over me like the spirits at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and my personal Ark of the Covenant is a chill cabinet in Asda (Wal-Mart), somewhere in the North of England.

The spirits are ghostly, shimmering apparitions of tins of baked beans, steak and kidney pies, bags of frozen sweetcorn niblets and a good pint of bitter (without my having to sell body organs to finance its purchase).

These things and many more besides, are currently “eating me”. I walk past bakery windows, packed with the most incredibly nice treats you can imagine and all I really want to see is a Cornish Pasty. They are, however, in Olympic terminology, only in joint bronze medal position.

In silver medal position is the Brit food cliché to end all clichés. There are two fish and chip shops which spring to mind. One, a converted cottage in Shadwell, near Leeds in West Yorkshire, the other, on the harbour-front in Whitby on the East Coast of North Yorkshire. Right now, I’d snog Bette Midler for a portion of fish and chips from either establishment (and there aren’t many things I want enough to make me want to do that).

In gold. What else? A bloody good curry! It’s totally impossible to find an Indian-style restaurant in Lille which serves anything resembling what I’m used to in the UK. (I say “Indian-style” as most such restaurants in the UK are actually Pakistani or Bangladeshi but I imagine the proprietors suspect that they would get far less trade if they advertised that fact). Resistance to spices in France is at a very low level. The French idea of something too spicy to eat is on about the same level as haemorrhoid ointment in the UK. We, more particularly I, eat Indian-style food so hot that it makes your eyes swap sockets. If you don’t need to call in two plumbers, a stonemason and a priest the following morning, then last night’s meal was “bland”.

I think that it’s the factors outlined in this chunk of waffle which are driving me to plan a few days in the UK in April. I haven’t been there for a visit for 9 months, over three times longer than I’d ever been away before and I think I’m ready.

I just hope Wal-mart, the “chippie” and the Indian-style restaurants are ready for what’s coming their way!