International Cuisine

We live in dangerous times. Terrorists want to blow us up on a regular basis, there’s a paedophile on every corner and as for going as far as the garden gate, forget it, you will be mugged by a gang of hoodies before you even leave the doorstep. It wasn’t like that back in the day was it? No, the danger came from elsewhere…the Russians, nuclear Armageddon and mothers who had embraced international cuisine just like mine had.

In the 70s food was still pretty unadventurous unless you were willing to risk the joys of a Vesta Chow Mein with its prawn crackers that resembled wood shavings and tasted pretty much like them as well. The local takeaway was most likely to be a chippy run by a couple in their mid fifties whose idea of international cuisine was a mushy pea fritter and whose overalls had last been laundered in 1958. Nipping out for a lamb bhuna was unheard of. If you wanted something exotic like French, Italian or Indian food it usually meant a plate of mince that had either been adulterated with enough garlic to see off a legion of vampires, had a can of chopped tomatoes and a bay leaf dumped in it or was filled with apples, raisins and some dodgy spices from the Co-op and passed off as a curry. In fact if mince could have been bleached white and called ‘Rice Pudding’ it probably would have.

However, back in the 1950s mum was quite the international traveller, journeying through what was left of Europe after the Wehrmacht World Tour of ’39 in the cause of mending international relations. In her case this seemed to involve some very dodgy bars in the Reeperbahn and some matadors who turned out to be Basque terrorists. Unfortunately a few strange culinary tastes she had picked up kind of stuck. Being young I knew nothing of this barring her tendency to serve up Pilchard Pizza on a fairly regular basis. She claimed it was because anchovies were too expensive but we had our suspicions involving the back of a Glenryck lorry and my slightly dodgy uncle. All of this was to change one summer Sunday in 1975…

It was a warm day but I was indoors watching television as my mate Ross who I would normally have been rampaging around the neighbourhood with had been dragged out to see his grandparents when I became aware of an emanation, something unpleasant wafting phantom-like across the living room. Dad had noticed it too as he was standing in the doorway sniffing the air. Slowly he crossed the room and paused in front of the fireplace.

“Something has died in the chimney!” he pronounced sagely, picked up a poker and stuck his head into the grate, peering upwards to see if he could spot the source of the smell. For a moment or two he poked and prodded until the poking and prodding was drowned by a muffled thump and the room filled with soot. Dad emerged from the chimney resembling a black and white minstrel. Luckily, given his vocal talents or lack thereof, he felt no need to break into a quick rendition of “Old Man River”. The fact that he was coughing his boots up probably saved my young ears from a less than tuneful medley from the deep south as well. However, apart from half a tonne of soot and a couple of urchins who had been stuck up the chimney since 1845 there was no sign of the source of the smell.

“It must be under the floorboards!” announced dad having now recovered his composure and trotted off to the shed as he was wont to do in times of crisis, returning moments later with a crowbar. Soon the carpet was rolled back and floorboards lifted, the living room looked like a scene from a prisoner of war film, piles of dirt and floorboards all over the place. All it needed was one of the neighbours to arrive dressed as a comedy nazi and announce “Zo! You zink you can escape! Vell zink again!” or for dad to order me to fill my pockets with dirt and wander around the flowerbeds shaking my leg “…and make sure the goons don’t spot you lad!” and the scene would have been complete.

Once again, dad poked and prodded under the floorboards but could find nothing yet all the time the smell grew stronger. In fact the closer I stood to the kitchen door to evade dads tunnelling exertions the stronger it got until with some trepidation I worked up the courage to poke my nose into the kitchen…and wished I hadn’t

“Dad! I think it might be the fridge!”

“Don’t be silly son, it can’t be the fridge…BLOODY HELL!!!!”

Slowly he opened the door and we both reeled back as the putrid stench rose in miasmic waves around us. Some foreign power had obviously unleashed chemical weapons in the vicinity of our kitchen appliances, all we could do was phone the police and pray they had the resources to contain the disaster or the whole country was doomed. Of course, this being 1975 they would have probably sent the local bobby round on his bicycle rather than a full biohazard team. Whatever the evil device was, it was cylindrical and apparently covered in a sheath of wood. Bravely, dad advanced and with only an oven glove to protect him began to carry the deadly object towards the back door. At which point mum arrived…

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she demanded surveying what was left of the living room, “And where do you think you are going with my Camembert?”

“Camembert?” asked an incredulous dad “I thought someone had stuffed the fridge with dead rats! You realise we’ll have to get the house fumigated.”

“You are not fumigating my cheese!” said mum snatching the reeking mass from dads oven gloved hand and like a female version of Wallace announced, “I’m going to have that on some nice crackers!”

Dad and I suddenly went very, very green.