The Landlady & a role reversal
Since the death of my mother a couple of years ago, I have reconnected with my Stoke-On-Trent roots. I have been up there to visit several times and certain friends have even ventured down to Brighton in order to sample the very different delights the South coast has to offer. Because I’ve lived in the South for 30 years, I’m somewhat remiss when it comes to mealtime etiquette in the North, which might as well be on a different planet as far as eating is concerned.
I have just returned from a January visit to The Potteries, where the food supply veered from unexpectedly lacking to unaccountably overflowing, all in the space of a few days.
“My landlady presented me one of the best cooked breakfasts I’d ever eaten”
Whenever I go to Stoke, my friends and relatives all expect me to stay with them. Unable to split myself into four and a dyed-in-the-wool lover of my own space, I managed to wriggle out of staying with most people by claiming that I was staying with someone else. I was delighted to find a very up-market B&B in my old village and, unbeknownst to well-meaning friends and relatives, stayed there while pretending I wasn’t. On the first night, I’d arranged to meet a babyhood friend for dinner. She picked me up in her car and we drove to a local pub where I used to work. She bought us a drink, but didn’t mention food, so I (who had starved myself all the way on the train in anticipation) casually asked if she’d already eaten. She had, it transpired, had shepherd’s pie for her ‘tea’ at 6 o’clock precisely. I felt like a poncey Southerner, so shut up and supped-up and went to bed starving at midnight. The next morning, my landlady presented me with one of the best cooked breakfasts I’ve ever eaten, which rendered me so full that I baulked at the thought of my rapidly-approaching lunch with Aunty D. Aunty D – aged 84 – is suffering from a touch of memory loss, yet always insists on cooking me lunch.
Aunty D’s memory loss affects her short-term memory, so any form of food preparation involves a selection of shrilly-ringing timers and gadgets, which inform the chef of the precise moment when potatoes are burning and garden peas are boiling dry. It is a fairly tortuous process both for the chef and her deputy (which I usually become).
After a food-barren period of approximately seven hours, I was presented with a ham bloomer the size of West Sussex by my should-have-been-mother-in-law (long story), then two hours later, a veritable reservoir of Singapore fried noodles with chips and curry sauce appeared, courtesy of her daughter (my should-have-been-sister-in-law).
On the way back to Brighton on the train, I lost a tuna and cucumber baguette on the train (how?), which, although annoying at the time, was probably a blessing in disguise.
