I don't do Halloween. I know, an old curmudgeon. Yes I am one, but Halloween! Really? a new import, demands with menaces. It's not that I dislike everything to do with it; dressing up parties? Most kids enjoy dressing up and the ghosts and witches lend to creativity in the makeup department. It's fun But encouraging children to walk the streets after dark (and Halloween is no fun in the sunlight) so it's always in the dark, knocking on people's doors, demanding sweets with menaces. I'm sure 99.99 reoccurring, children do not avenge themselves on us if we refuse to... Continue reading

I began this A-Z with the evolution of an appetite and wrote how by being made to try the foods I initially refused I learnt not only to like but to appreciate them. How these dreaded foods of childhood became favourites of adulthood. I finish the challenge with an opposite story. We were never ‘made’ to finish any pudding or dessert which we did not like. These were treats, they were special it was unnecessary for us to finish the plate. We could refuse them with nothing more than a ‘you don’t know what you are missing’ and an alternative... Continue reading

Once when I was a young teenager I went to a restaurant in the West End as part of a birthday treat and had a bowl of strawberries. Strawberries!! Unheard of in April at that time. I couldn’t resist and as it was my birthday treat I was allowed the extraordinarily expensive fruit. I beamed and smiled and declared them wonderful. I had learnt my lessons well. But I confess I had been strangely let down, underwhelmed at what I had eaten. There is a good reason for not eating strawberries in April they don’t taste as good. They are... Continue reading

Christmas - 'tis a strange event to be writing about at the end of April but that’s the a-z for you. When I first hosted a living history group down here on earth, for the U3A, I set Xmas for us to write about one month. We were to all intents and purposes the same kind of age - retired! - except of course we were not. Our childhoods ranged from the 30s depression to the early 60s - everyone’s description of their Christmas fare was so different. I talk only of the food today because that is what my... Continue reading

One should always be careful what one claims. Especially when one is young and cutting edge, free from home’s familiar restraints, able to reinvent oneself, desperate to be someone. Open one’s mouth once too often, too wide, make claims that may bring you down. Bad move! My first real trip abroad was a last minute invitation to join a group travelling across Europe to Iran and Turkey. A £50 limit on money which could be taken out of UK meant definitely living as the locals - exciting or what? I had a moment to decide, a moment who need a... Continue reading

Drinks figured fairly high on my travels. Drinks like nectar and some . . . Not! Wine has top place I guess, as soon as I left these shores in the 60s wine was featured. In Greece we tried treading them, not the most pleasant experience and only put on for the tourists - we hoped anyway. 'Tis a squishy squashy sensation under the toes. I came to know vineyards well on my travels, being invited to view them in Yugoslavia. Working on them in Australia, going on tours. Grapes are not just for pressing they are for drinking but... Continue reading

I have blamed my parents for many things over the decades, children often do. Always with tongue in cheek. The main complaint of my adult life has been the ‘good manners’ I had instilled into me. My upbringing has counted against me so often. Don't get me wrong, I don’t wish to have bad manners, never wished I was ill mannered, liar, cheat or unpleasant - well not often:) But. . . But. . . But . . When one looks around and sees the rude, bullish behaviour which appears to produce results, one cannot but wonder a little if... Continue reading

When I was growing up through my teenage years my mother tried to persuade me to drink tea instead of milk on social occasions. Or if it was in a pub or restaurant a tomato juice instead of milk. I liked milk. Still do. She failed in both attempts as she did with persuading me to wear makeup. Eventually I did begin. The only way to make it palatable was like her to add sugar! I’m sure milk is healthier. Mum was a tea drinker to her bones. Not excessive but like many in our country it was the cure... Continue reading

Ah sugar!:) Refined sugar. The delight of a devil and all his demons. Not many folk actively dislike sweetness. There are degrees of course. But us humans are hard wired for it. In the wild sugar is rare, fruits and honey, some vegetables. Sugar was of course not the devil we know it today. Sugar is energy, fast and instant. Sugar is a substance worth taking, sometimes death defying risks for, taking long journeys for. And because it is so difficult to find in the wild there is no harm to it! It is rare, ‘tis delicious and so it... Continue reading

Roast Dinner Sunshine flecking fields. Fat ewes. Giggling lambs. Will you put mint sauce on me? when I’m dead, when you roast me. Demands the child, with expectant smile. Foolish child, we will waste you. Crushed with sorrow, she cries. A.Ross. That child was me. When I was a child, as I have said, meat was my favourite and of all the meat we ate roast lamb was my favourite. It still is. I was not, I think, a particularly ghoulish child. I understood about meat, it came from animals. I understood what humans were, they were animals. My thought... Continue reading

This should in fact be the last in this challenge but the letters do not fit. I started with the evolution of my appetite and tastes, this is about how events have conspired to quell and quench that same appetite. When at the beginning I was a picky eater and would not eat many foods, I now find the same is happening. It has been a long process, but having tried to find solutions and answers to the various puzzles this has thrown up I can chart a course through the quenching of my appetite fires. There are many reasons... Continue reading

I am not a fan of highly processed food, non-food as I describe it. We had very little of it when a child, jam, sugar, gravy browning, coffee, mustn’t forget ice cream:) We would eat some tinned food such as ham and tropical fruit, on the whole I was brought up on fresh food. That cannot be the whole reason I reject non-food, everyone else in the family were quite happy to adopt a certain amount of it over the years. I forgave my sister, she went to boarding school very early in life and got her taste buds from... Continue reading

I was puzzled a few years ago when a friend of mine was horrified I ate venison, how could I eat a Bambi she complained, shocked at the thought and clearly upset. As she had just a few moments before been telling me a wonderful roast lamb dinner she had enjoyed that weekend, I was confused. Did she not like lambs as well, I think they’re lovely but it doesn’t stop me eating them. And I am pretty sure my venison was not a Bambi they do not cull fawns. It wasn’t something worth the argument, I did point out... Continue reading

There have been many time on my travels when I have run low on funds and have had to tighten my belt in consequence. Never to the extent of starving - no - but trying to cover nutritional needs for the smallest amount of money spent as possible. This a-z is about my personal adventures with food. however I cannot forget or fail to mention that on my travels I met and viewed thousands of men, women or children to whom food and eating was not an adventure to regale friends with back in the safety of home; people whose... Continue reading

Why would any animal deliberately turn themselves away from food and attempt to starve themselves. I have never heard of a healthy creature do this, except of course mankind. The instinct to eat is hardwired into our DNA, an instinct which inhabits our primitive brain and guides our internal workings. So unless one is ill it takes an incredibly strong will to refuse food completely. There are many people who fearing they have eaten too well or unwisely regularly try ‘reducing diets’ instead of actually stopping eating too well or unwisely! All it will do of course, if carried out... Continue reading

I like a good chew me:) meat, crusty bread, al dente pasta and vegetables. Nuts and firm fruit. But, more than that I like food. I get hungry, I want feeding. Up until a decade ago even being ill would not stop my perfectly behaved digestion, from nose to bowel, from being efficient and ever welcoming to food. I was never fat, nor lacking in energy. When one’s body lets one down it comes as a shock. Years ago back in the 60s I developed Glandular Fever badly. I was sent home from work in a taxi and lingered in... Continue reading