FOOD FOR THOUGHT......

So the clocks have gone back. It's pitch black out there. My roots need doing ( but they are not yet in the badger zone so will have to wait until there is spare money) and I currently face hard financial times in the hinterland of freelance journalism. However, a small respite from the travails of balancing the books as I head off tonight to the swanky Cheshire village of Alderley Edge ( not my natural territory) for a spot of freebie dinner.

Good food and drink is my second great interest in life after politics and that's probably because I was brought up in a working-class family in post-war England where bland, overcooked food was the diet of choice and/or necessity for most people with little money to spare.

Spaghetti bolognese was pretty exotic but it came from a tin and "curry" was of the dehydrated Vesta variety. Our basic fodder was spuds, meat and tinned peas with gravy made with Oxo and onions. Chips were a once a week treat with fish on a Friday (nuclear yellow haddock was the other option) and mid-week it was stew with shin beef, carrots and potatoes.

The Sunday joint came cold ( to make it last longer) and Sunday night tea was a lettuce tomato and beetroot salad with tinned fish and fruit to follow.

Such spartan fare has been wonderfully charted by the Observer's cookery writer and chef Nigel Slater in his autobiographical tome, Toast. And 40 years on like him I may have moved on to more sophisticated fodder but retain some culinary tastes from those days. Tinned salmon drowned in vinegar still tastes nicer to me than fresh, cornbeef is top with tomato and onion, and there is absolutely no substitute for pappy white bread toasted or served straight with crispy bacon and lashings of HP. And, oh, the joy of a Holland's pie, chips and mushy pies if you have a hangover. Nigella will never know what she has missed.....