Sunday 12 December 2010

The man checking bags at the door of the National Portrait Gallery yesterday looked defeated as he gazed into the depths ...
There was a novel to read on the train
A scarf that I'd bought for a friend
Gloves, recipes, shopping lists, bits torn out of newspapers that are slowly turning into confetti.
And if he'd plunged deep enough he'd have found a white pudding.
White puddings are a rare delicacy in London so when I happened upon them in an Irish shop, I had to buy one. (And shove it into my handbag for the rest of the afternoon. Maybe in another life I will return as someone with one perfect red Chanel lipstick in a designer bag ... in this life I am the person clutching a bag of hard-to-source offal.)
Sadly, today's white puddings never taste quite as good as they did in my childhood. (And I've certainly lost the taste for nibbling it raw.)
But fried in lashings of grease until you can spread it on thick, white factory bread
And you can feel your arteries clogging
That's what I call a Sunday breakfast.

10 comments:

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

And Black pudding . With eggs , bacon , Scottish sausage and potato scones!
Oh yes , and a fried tomato to make it a well-rounded meal.
Arteries?

mary said...

That sounds even better!

rachel said...

How funny. We nibbled raw sausages until we were old enough to learn about tapeworms.... but sausages were of much better quality in those days - weren't they? We never had a tapeworm, at any rate!

mary said...

I don't think I've ever had one either, Rachel! Breaks all the rules, doesn't it - how did any of us survive! I've never been tempted by raw sausages, though.

Vintage Reading said...

Brilliant post. Glad I'm not the only one who tears articles out of newspapers and stuffs them in my bag.

mary said...

Nicola, I am appalled by what I find in my handbag ... it weighs a ton and I can never find a clean tissue or a comb.

Unknown said...

This made me laugh out loud as I walked around for most of today with a handbag in which chorizo bumped shoulders with a Cath Kidston purse, stitch markers, receipts and half eaten but discarded sticky lolly pop! And Good Gosh! I have not eaten white pudding for years, I had forgotten all about it, I remember how taken with it all my English wedding guests were - they had never had such a thing at breakfast.

StuckInABook said...

"Maybe in another life I will return as someone with one perfect red Chanel lipstick in a designer bag ... in this life I am the person clutching a bag of hard-to-source offal." - what a wonderful sentence, even for a veggie like me!

Magic Bean said...

The nurse sister of a friend from years back used to eat raw sausages which were out of date! Am now off to Google white pudding. Ax

mary said...

Strangely enough, we had it for breakfast at my brother's house yesterday, Magic Bean.