HERBS AND HUMANS

I’ve been reading what Strabo (that’s him above) had to say about Ireland in his Geographica in the first century AD.

“Concerning this island I have nothing certain to tell, except that its inhabitants are more savage than the Britons, since they are man-eaters as well as heavy eaters, and since, further, they count it an honourable thing, when their fathers die, to devour them, and openly to have intercourse, not only with the other women, but also with their mothers and sisters; but I am saying this only with the understanding that I have no trustworthy witnesses for it; and yet, as for the matter of man-eating, that is said to be a custom of the Scythians also, and, in cases of necessity forced by sieges, the Celti, the Iberians, and several other peoples are said to have practised it.”

         Certain scholars have deduced that Strabo actually meant to say that the Irish were “herb eaters” rather than “heavy eaters,” so they basically ate herbs and humans, which is definitely a balanced diet of a sort.  I can't swear that all the actresses in the movie below were actually Irish, but surely one or two of them must have been.

I was thinking about the Old Sod because in San Diego I went back to The Field, an authentic enough Irish pub that does a staggeringly great breakfast.  In the past I’ve had their Boxty, but this time I went for the “Irish Breakfast – Chefs Special!” consisting of “Two eggs, Imported Irish bacon, sausage, black and white pudding, and Heinz baked beans”  It looked like this:

         The clear implication is that the bacon was imported but the black and white puddings were not.  Now, the importation of meat products into the United States is a matter that has long puzzled me – so I went to the U.S Customs and Border Protection website and found a section titled “Bringing meat, poultry or pork/swine products into the U.S.”

In fact they do give a fairly clear explanation.  Essentially the U.S. lives in fear OF Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD), Exotic Newcastle Disease (END), and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).  This is not an unreasonable fear.  So if a country is known to have any of those things, then the meat ain’t coming in. 

But that dIdn’t explain the presence of imported bacon on the plate in The Field, until I got to this section titled “The short and sweet answer for many popular products (from countries other than those mentioned on the APHIS site)”

Is sausage allowed in?  “No.”

How about cured bacon? “Unless it is from Canada or two specifically approved producers allowed to sell certified pork products in duty free shops in Dublin and Shannon Airports, no.”

So – my bacon was definitely, genuinely Irish, but it was apparently bought in an airport.  I guess that’s authentic, right?

Above is a picture of Gene Kelly shopping in the Shannon Airport duty free shop, though I can’t see any bacon in that display.  

EATING LIGHTLY

We were in San Diego, and went to Balboa Park, as you do.  There are plenty of places to eat dining options, but I’ve found before that none of them is really all that magnetic.  The one we’d been to before, and it wasn’t bad, was in an outdoor square, the Sculpture Court Café by Giuseppe, as I now know it to be called.

By the time we got there the kitchen had closed so we had to have a tuna sandwich from the fridge.  But at least the bar was still open.  We had two glasses of Spanish white wine that the bartender couldn’t pronounce, and I can’t remember, the name of.  “Is it sweet or dry?” we asked  “It’s both!” said a woman sitting at the bar.  I think she was trying to be helpful.  Fortunately it was more dry than sweet.  Looked good too, though as you see it was a very uneven pour.  Everybody hates that.

Next morning for breakfast, an “old fashioned grilled cheese sandwich” with ham, at the Sixth Street Bistro.  Everything tastes better when it’s melted and nicely lit.

EATING AND DRINKING WITH DAMES

A new collection of Muriel Spark’s essays has been recently published: that’s it above The Informed Air.  One of the essays is titled “A Drink With Dame Edith,” the dame in question being Edith Sitwell. 

After a bad meeting with a literary agent, Spark went to visit Edith at the Sesame Club, 49 Grosvenor Street, London, where Edith lived at the time.  This must have been the early 1950s.  Spark writes, “She wore her usual loose dramatic robes, her high Plantagenet headdress.”  Edith was attended by “a junior editor from Macmillan, an alcoholic who thought nobody knew.”  But Spark did know, of course, not least perhaps because her own mother had drunk a bottle of Madeira a day to “steady her nerves.” 

Spark continues, that Edith “asked me what I would drink, suggesting her own preference, gin and pineapple juice,” which seems a cocktail that doesn’t have a name, or at least I haven’t have been able to find one.  I’d have thought Dame Edith might have been more of a one for, oh, I don’t know … malmsey?

         Edith too was an alcoholic.  As Roger Lewis put it, she was crushed by  “debts, drink and simple loneliness.”  Edith’s own mother, Lady Ida, had been an alcoholic too, and Edith said she once had to pawn her mother’s false teeth to buy brandy.  I’m prepared to believe the story, but I’m not sure how much a pawnbroker would give you for a set of used choppers.

Anyway, back in the day, after my father had died, I’d regularly go up to Sheffield to visit my mother on the weekend, and we’d drive out to some pub or other in Derbyshire for Sunday lunch.  One time we decided to try the Sitwell Arms, a pub in Renishaw, that had a “carvery.”  Renishaw was, and is, the location for Renishaw Hall, the Sitwell family seat.

We decided to book a table, and I looked up the phone number in Yellow Pages (the way you did back then) and there, one above the other, were the numbers for the “Sitwell, Arms” and for “Sitwell, Reresby” – Reresby Sitwell by then having inherited the Hall from his unmarried uncle Osbert. 

Sometimes I imagine that at some level it can’t have been entirely accidental, but I “inadvertently” dialed the wrong number and found myself talking to some crusty old boy, who had no idea what I was talking about.  When he finally did realize, he sounded deeply offended, even outraged, and I couldn’t help thinking this was a bit of an act.  Surely I couldn’t have been the first person ever to get the numbers mixed up.  I imagined he might spend a certain amount of time fielding enquiries for the pub down the road.

Anyway, in due course, I called the Sitwell Arms, booked a table and my mother and I had Sunday lunch there, which if nothing else I can honestly say was unmemorable.  The website suggests the place is still very much I business, and the Wild Boar Restaurant still offers roast beef for Sunday lunch.  They also offer “Beer Battered Cod Loin
 With Mushy Peas and Garlic & Truffle Oil Chips.”

I think my mother would have been horrified by garlic and truffle oil.  I think Dame Edith might have raised an eyebrow too, although her eyebrows always did have a "life" of their own.