Nutritional Necronomicon

Please Sir, may I have some more?
These are words that never were uttered due to the recipes which follow.

Having slept very poorly Wednesday night for one reason or another, I had to haul arse to work in a somewhat shabby state.
Not since I was in my early twenties have I left the house feeling so rubbish.

So, my plan of attack was to brighten myself and my surroundings up by grabbing my newest book, "Toilets of the World" and taking it in to work with me to show Mark.

Mark genuinely believes that the male staff toilets at Merrylands are third world, and blessed as I am with an innie not an outtie, I must take his word for it.
I thought this book may give some pretty tidy visual comparisons, thus providing me with a ball park to work with.

Perhaps half way through my second coffee, I had to presence of mind to remember the book and due to my rummaging around looking for that, I also managed to put my lunch in the fridge.

One of the few examples of dirty toilets keeping food fresh and disease free that you may ever read about.

As I emerged from the back room, clutching said trophy, Mark himself came scuttling around the corner with his very own trophy, wrapped neatly and deliberately in order to prevent even the smallest amount of damage.

So precious was it that I was able to read through it at lunch, but I was not allowed to take it home.

Those books are my favourites.

It was falling apart, bound simply in tomato red.

Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book.

New and enlarged edition.
350 wood engravings.

OMG Mrs Beeton's!
The retro recipe collector's holy grail.

Published 1896.
Mark had bookmarked the section for dealing with servants for me, which was very kind.
However, my sixth sense for booky nonsense being what it is, I randomly opened it up to page 79.

Hooray for page 79 too.

To my delight, this featured the following recipe.

BOILED TONGUE

Ingredients:

1 tongue

Awesome stuff.
What a no nonsense Victorian matron Mrs Beeton must have been.
I like her.

In choosing a tongue, select one with a smooth skin which denotes it's being young and tender.
If dried and hard, soak for 12 hours.
If fresh from the pickle, soaking for 2-3 hours will suffice.

They pickled tongue?
Imagine peeping into that pantry as a child.
Makes me think of the anatomy museum at Sydney Uni.

Put the tongue into a stewpan with plenty of cold water and a bunch of sweet herbs and gradually bring to the boil, skim and simmer gently until tender.

Peel off the skin and garnish with tufts of cauliflower or Brussel's sprouts.Tufts!

Everybodies favourites!

If serving cold, fasten it down to a piece of board by sticking a fork through to top to keep it straight.

Well clearly it's not just the French who know how to present their food after all.
English cuisine may not be as flashy by comparison, but they do know how to bring sideshow alley to the table.

I believe the right underneath the tongue instructions lurked information on how to make a sauce out of onions and milk to dress boiled tripe.
mmmmmmmmmm

My next discovery came on page 162.
This is a few pages into Cooking for Invalids.

Joy O Joy!

Gruel!

Yes Virginia, gruel does exist.

Gruel

Ingredients: 1 tbl groats, 2 tbl cold water, 1 pint boiling water

Mix groats with cold water, pour over boiling water, stirring, bring to the boil and boil for 10 minutes stirring constantly.

I'm not certain, but I think that's also the way you make wallpaper paste.
It's absolutely falls into a category I like to call bum glue.I wonder why this generation of people were so horribly constipated?
Also in this section are Invalid's Jelly and Egg Wine.
I wonder the first person was to stir beaten egg into hot sherry and feed it to ailing children and geriatrics?
Don't you just love the British sense of humour?

Possibly the same person whose ancestors went on to make things out of crushed Jatz biscuits and white bread in Anglican Nursing Homes all those years later.

Good on them.

Well, that was all I had time for. But I'm sure you'll agree that the rise and rise of fast food is a direct result of this type of approach to cooking.

And so, applying no logic whatsoever, my implacable conclusion is as follows:

Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book -->McDonalds --> modern obesity/diabetes epidemic --> mass invalidism --> Jerry Springer --> the return of Satan

Far be it fom me to play the blame game, but realistically, it's all her fault.
Clearly her aim was to fatten up our babies and return from Hell's kitchen to eat them all with Lucifer himself when the Mayan calendar ends 21/12/2012.

Consequently, I suggest that her cookbook be retitled Nutritional Necronomicon and that her name be changed to Mrs Beast-son.

For what we are about to receive, may be truly evil.

Amen.

Yesterday.

Yesterday at the football... God how many fabulous stories start like that?

Plenty in this house, I can assure you.

Well, anyway, we lost, but that's OK, we ran out like a pack of old moles and kept the tempo up for 80 minutes and then ambled off like, well, like a pack of old moles.

You can't coach that!
It's God given.

Boring, boring, boring.

I was so bored, I didn't even finish my thermos of chamomile tea for fear of dropping off to sleep.
I wasn't far off, I can promise you.

And you know something else, even sitting in Row 14, I was still closer to the wing than Hegarty was.

But that's not what I want to tell you.

In fact, I have deliberately steered clear of discussing Souths in my blog because no matter how I approach it, I just can't express any of what I feel properly.
Especially this year.

I believe I have one almighty blog in me (fnar fnar) about Souths, and I can feel it rising to the surface (fnar fnar), so it won't be long now.
It ain't gonna be purty though.

Anyway, yesterday after the game, while I was walking bleary eyed towards the car park, I headed a little off course and found myself nearing the red and green bus that doubles as a merchandise stand.

Members were entitled to 20% off, and I was checking out a jumper.
I decided against it and paused, waiting for my boys to catch up - apparently I sleepwalk very fast.
Gave me time to stretch and yawn anyway.

Just as I was coming to, a Tigers supporter (I have nothing against them as a rule), went by and made the single most appallingly daft comment possible.

Seriously, if I gave you all pen and paper, you'd none of you come up with this beauty.

Charles Dickens may have though, but the concept would have lasted a full page, if not a chapter.

As he approached the bus, he said,

"Souths stuff - it's free now."

Lordy, lordy, lordy.

Honestly, I was mid yawn anyway, so although I was put out by the fact that I had to listen to such a witless and dopey attempt at humour (?) or whatever it was, I didn't even bother myself by worrying about the unhealthy ratio of stupid people to smart ones.

Until....

Until a few seconds later when another (maybe I'm being unfair, maybe he was retarded) old guy kept staring at me in a most irritating fashion.
Eventually, he gave up trying to get my attention that way (I practice staring with my cats), and said,

" He said, the Souths stuff is free..."

I ignored him further.

He repeated his comment twice more, until I could no longer stand the utter stupidity of the situation.

I then (and no, I'm not proud of this) replied,

"Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm just trying imagine a lamer comment, but I don't think it's possible."

He was not completely satisfied with my answer. The reason/s remain with him.

I related this to the boys just as we arrived at the car.
Jeff looked at me, utterly amazed, laughed, and told me,

"Yeah, but, he probably really thought they were free..."

Ah, yes. Good point.

So, the moral to the story is what?

• Don't drift off to sleep at the football.
• Bone up (fnar fnar) on your ignoring skills.
• Accept that the relative stupidity gap is widening daily. Anyone seen Idiocracy? FFS That movie almost killed me.
• Stay on Hegarty's wing.
• Start adding pharmaceutical grade caffeine to my "Night Cap" tea bags.
• Start finding lame stuff funny.

So, no more catching 40 winks in public anymore.
I just thought that if the team could do it...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz