It’s important to grab small moments of pleasure wherever you find them these days. And, for many of us, those moments usually centre around food. Because, let’s be honest, there’s not much left to do, after you’ve plaited the cat’s hair and Netflix has run out of shows to recommend to you.
Daily food-related quandaries range from where to get it, when to eat it, and why am I constantly craving confectionery? If you cut me, do I not bleed chocolate, as Shakespeare might have said, had he a propensity to eat his children’s leftover Easter eggs as they slept in oblivion.
So, I was delighted to read Ruby Tandoh’s list of food-related things that make her very happy. The food writer and Great British Bake-Off star started compiling a list on Twitter and Instagram and her followers enthusiastically added to it. That was in January 2018 and her plan was to cheer people up. Remember how we used to think January was a bleak month? Oh, how we laugh now. At least it doesn’t have approximately 73 days, like March 2020 did.
Anyway, her list struck a chord when it reappeared in recent months.
It includes delights such as finding two chocolate buttons stuck together, and biting the head off jelly babies. Getting that big folded crisp in a packet also makes the cut.
It wisely pays homage to the tasty chip taken from someone else's plate. It's a scientific fact that other people's chips always taste nicer
She reminds us that peeling an apple with a knife always makes it taste better, for some inexplicable reason.
She rhapsodises about the joy that the orange jelly moon of a Jaffa cake guarantees and writes about the thrill of eating ring-shaped food off your fingers.
In a nod to the greatest of Irish snacks, her list includes that satisfying crunch you hear when you press down on a crisp sandwich.
And it wisely pays homage to the tasty chip taken from someone else’s plate. It’s a scientific fact that other people’s chips always taste nicer. Ruby Tandoh’s list reminds the world of the joyful cracking sound when you bite into a chocolate-covered ice-cream.
Several fans of the food writer appear to have a fixation with tea at the perfect temperature but I wonder if they know about the delights of a cup of tea in the hand? As every Irish person knows, this is where you bypass the formality of sitting a visitor at the table and instead allow them to wrap their hands around a mug of tea on the sofa. It always tastes better.
As does eating anything in a hayfield. I was only ever trusted with a hay rake on those harvest days but it still meant I qualified for food. And once the boredom of raking hay had set in, I would be longing for my mother’s figure to appear in the distance, carrying the bottles of tea and soda bread sandwiches. Nothing will ever taste as good.
Ruby Tandoh’s list doesn’t include the legendary Christmas Day sandwich but perhaps it’s not a worldwide phenomenon. Do other nations wander into the kitchen at approximately 7pm on Christmas Day, declare that they couldn’t possibly look at another piece of food and then load two slices of white loaf with turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce and a rogue Brussels sprout?
Can I recommend the caramelly combination of apple juice and sugar that leaks from an imperfectly sealed apple tart?
And do other nations butter their biscuits or is it just us? A certain generation of Irish people will agree that it’s hard to beat that after-school snack of Rich Tea or Marietta biscuits buttered and sandwiched together. They are elevated to something incredibly special when you push them together, thus forcing the butter to squeeze through the little holes in the biscuit in a tiny worm-like fashion.
I would have to add the bonus baby orange to her list of good food things. That’s the tiny little orange you sometimes find hidden at the bottom of your orange. It’s like the orange is pregnant and you’re monstrously eating her baby and yet it’s irresistible.
Also irresistible is the cheese that drips to the bottom of the grill pan when you are making a toasted sandwich.
When it cools down, it’s slightly greasy, yet crunchy and also heavenly.
And can I recommend the caramelly combination of apple juice and sugar that leaks from an imperfectly sealed apple tart? It is molten heaven after it cools down slightly.
We have a lot of treats in store when life returns to normal and I’m greatly looking forward to a particular one. A perfect balmy day will come and I will buy an ice-cream cone and slowly savour it, carefully pushing the ice-cream downwards as I lick it.
That will bring me to the best bit of the cone – the delicious tip which has gone soft and squidgy as the ice-cream drops down to the bottom.
Unbridled pleasure lies ahead.