#10 Convenience Foods - The Kari Lloyd Dedicatory Post

I've been struggling to think of something light hearted and whimsical to post following my last two missives. I was about to just write HA HA LOOK AT THE DAILY MAIL in 72 point Comic Sans (ooh, Comic Sans - there's a whole post right there) when this Twitter conversation occurred.

apopquizkid
What the hell is a Fray Bentos? Is it seriously a pie in a can?

hoola
@apopquizkid really? YES IT IS PIE IN A CAN! Go to the supermarket and look in the canned goods aisle.

apopquizkid
@hoola OK. Asked dude next to me in shop "What the hell is this?" He looked confused, then said "I think it's a pie."

hoola
@apopquizkid he knew, he was just embarrassed to admit that such a thing existed. See also Pot Noodle & Heinz breakfast in can

apopquizkid
@hoola Breakfast in a can? Have I been in a coma the entire time I've been living in the UK?

hoola
@apopquizkid I fear you've missed out terribly. You must be educated in the world of British convenience food. You've had Viennetta right?

apopquizkid
@hoola I was told Vienetta was for communists.

Kari, for those who are unaware of her genius, is a fellow foodie and writer. And foodie writer. She's my evil yankee twin and my daily dose of social networking LOLZ. Kari also introduced me to such atrocities as the Whole Chicken in a Can (I feel in many ways this is NSFW) and the Pizza Burger (which raised feelings of inner conflict not felt since Kylie's gold hotpants).

But she doesn't know about Fray Bentos! This must be set right. So here I present to you, not only in honour of Kari but in honour of all those, like me, who draw the convenience food line at those packets of fresh pasta, Britain's best (worst) convenience foods.

Fray Bentos
It's a pie. It's in a can. There is something inherently wrong in this scenario. I have never eaten a Fray so I probably shouldn't judge but COME ON PEOPLE IT'S PIE IN A CAN! What's wrong with pie in a box? Pie in one of those little tin foil containers? Pie in a damn pie dish? Pie should never, ever be in a tin.

Interestingly the Fray Bentos name originated in Uruguay where a plant manufactured corned beef on behalf of a company called Liebig's Extract of Meat Company. Yum.

HP All Day Breakfast
If there's one thing Britain does well it's breakfast, nowhere does morning sausage quite like a greasy London cafe, right kids? So why oh why oh why did someone think it was a good idea to do this to it?

I admit that in some ways I am to blame. I used to eat these. I thought they were lush when I was fifteen. Now I know better. I know that breakfast should not be despoiled and corrupted in this way. Nothing called a 'chopped egg nugget' should ever be allowed to exist. That's right - chopped egg nugget - essentially what appears to be a snack egg jammed in amongst beans thus rendering it soggy to the point of almost, but not quite, disintegrating. Equally vile are the slimy bacon inserts. Blee.

Please note that the Heinz equivalent, the London Grill, featuring beans, sausages, bacon and (for the love of all that is holy) kidney is no longer available. Thank goodness some sick fucker on Facebook is campaigning for its return.

Pot Noodle
I have eaten Pot Noodle only once. It was a Duke of Edinburgh expedition in which myself and approximately seven other friends slept in the one four man tent. I made the Pot Noodle as per the instructions. I ate three bites. I poured it down a hole I now realise was probably home to a poor unsuspecting bunny wabbit.

Producers of Pot Noodle, it doesn't matter how hard you try with your advertising, the old internet joke about 'having a Pot Noodle and a wank' will always be the image your appalling plastic pot of evil creates.

Smash
Those Smash robots were dead good weren't they? Sadly, Smash is shit. Really, really shit. To my mind it tastes of the smell of wee. That is all you need to know about convenience mash. And PS: peel potatoes, boil potatoes, mash potatoes up - it's not that hard is it?

Tip Top
Tip Top and canned fruit used to be the dessert of choice round ours. Actually, it's awesome. Leave Tip Top alone.

Dairylea Lunchables
It's not the cheese and the crackers that offends me about Lunchables. It's the ham. Look at it, all flacid and pink like a slice of a leper's willy. It makes me think of that ham with the boiled egg in the middle. Like gala pie but no crust? THAT is the foodstuff of satan.

Lunchables: for when you can't even lift your hand to slice cheese.

Brain's Faggots
The only good thing, surely about Brain's Faggots is the endless array of jokes that one can invent involving the name (ok, just the one joke, but you even try asking a shopkeeper 'where do you keep your faggots?' without smirking). I've never eaten a faggot (go on...) and suspect that a good, fresh one may be rather yummy in a haggis type way - they're similarly made with membrane...stuff. It's the frozen side of things which worries me. Fishfingers should be frozen, faggots should not. It's that and the general image faggots conjure of old person dinners - three day boiled marrowfats, wee-mash (see Smash), lumpy gravy.

Pork Pie
I am aware that this is somewhat controversial as most Brits love a pork pie. And living only 20m immediately south of Melton Mowbray I am probably putting myself in a somewhat dangerous position by saying this, but aren't pork pies a bit disgusting?

I'm not talking about a rustic handcrafted pie of pork, although only a nibble of said pie would pass my lips, I'm talking about those cheap service station ones with white stuff on the bottom and all the jelly. Oh, the jelly. The jelly which puts one in mind of...

Spam
It's Spam. Nobody in their right minds eats Spam.

Findus Crispy Pancakes
The staple diet of any child of a working mother raised in the 70s or 80s, the Findus Crispy Pancake is at best a bit odd, at worst downright filth.

This can be illustrated by this video. Watch the close up as teenage boy slices in to his beef pancake. Mmmm, give me that runny stuff, that beefy runny stuff that only gets served up when mum's not around because men can't cook or look after children (ah, the 80s, a simpler time). I suspect that folk are only eating the things to this day because their tastebuds have been entirely stripped from their tongues by the extremely dangerous Pop Tart-esque filling.

I could go on with the bizarre council estate foodstuff of the 80s - Bernard Matthews Turkey Drummers, Mini Kievs, potato waffles (they're waffly versatile) those appalling roast dinner ready meals - but I shan't, I'll be here all week and I've got a plate of faggots and mushy peas awaiting my attention.

But can we please all take a minute to remember Gino Ginelli ice cream. RIP Gino.

Tutti Frutti, what a cutie!

#9 My Kids Are Just Like Me? Can't I Pick Somebody Else For Them?

My recent post - you know the one in which I complained that NHS staff need to be more accepting of people with mental illnesses? - has got me thinking (I can't type that without an annoying Carrie Bradshaw voiceover in my head. Gah!).

Has this illness always affected me? Is the 'illness' just the way I am? Should my condition excuse my flaws? Do I look for reason in every negative experience because I'm bipolar? Do I use too many question marks?

Earlier today, walking home from a children's party (yes, a children's fucking party people, I am that lame), trying my very hardest not to cry like a teenage girl who's just been dumped in front of all her mates, I wondered whether I'd be helped out by wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan 'I'm not rude, I'm just bipolar!'. See, during the course of said under 5s shindig I was entirely unable to communicate with the people around me. Partly because I didn't know many of them, partly because some of those I did know I have little in common with aside from having children of similar ages, but mostly because social situations are very much not my bag.

I imagine much of this discomfort, along with the shaking hands, racing heart and slight sweats, comes from what has been coined by my local friendly psych as Social Phobia (and possibly the result of one bottle too many last night). But, I wondered on my little meander, hiding my face behind my hair, whether that meant that I'd always been phobic. See, I've never in my life, even as a child, found it easy to speak to people, to make small talk and deal with people that I don't know or don't like. Can you be born with a social phobia or is it something that develops? And if it's something that develops over time does that mean that I'm not in the least phobic, just rude and uncommunicative?

One of my abiding memories of sixth form college is of a girl who I'd got to know over a period of time telling me that she was scared of me when we first met. I was sarcastic and grumpy and she thought I didn't like her. Wrong! The fact was that I seemed grumpy because, well, that's how my face is, and my extreme reliance on sarcasm is something that provides an effective cover for nerves. Ever since that conversation I've realised that I give off this air - I'm unapproachable and aloof, even if I don't mean to be. Thing is I can't switch it off no matter how much I want to, no matter how much I like you and would actually love to be your friend.

Ok, so there I am, trying not to seem rude at this party and I look at my kids. While everybody else under five foot is screaming around like gremlins on e-numbers *my* offspring are sticking together, not really talking to the other kids, not really joining in with anything. They're me.

As any parent can probably well imagine, on realising this my heart breaks in to a thousand little pieces like somebody just punched it really hard and, wouldn't you know it, it's made of paper thin glass. My beautiful, intelligent, kind and loving and loyal and funny kids, who will make the most incredible friends for any other person with an iota of sense, are afflicted with this same pathetic inability as I am. And whether it's nature or it's nurture it's all my bloody fault.

Is my phobia or otherwise hereditary or have they seen me behaving in my bizarrely aloof way - despite all my best efforts to put on an air of confidence in their presence, to make friends and to encourage them to do the same - and imitated me?

Perhaps that t-shirt would come in handy after all, at least my excuse for being so weird would be out there. And folk might be less inclined to judge me and more inclined to take pity on my situation. At least the whole 'waiting at the school gates' (the perennial highlight of the day for the middle class mum, the equivalent of having my fingernails plucked out one by one for me) would be less agonising. And then of course I could leave it to the kids in my will too.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't hide behind my bipolar or my social phobia, I don't use it as an excuse to be anti-social or inadvertently rude, at least not to others - it's a fail safe excuse I make to myself, 'I can't help it, it's an illness'. And I have never found myself with a lack of friends, I want to be absolutely clear on that, I have been lucky enough to have a group of friends, incredibly supportive, incredibly faithful friends, who have been with me through thick and thin since I was at school, some of them from age five. And indeed since my bipolar diagnosis I've found myself with a whole new group of wonderful women around me who have been very understanding and non-judgmental, not to mention ridiculous fun even on those days when I can't see a reason to get out of bed (you know who you are). So I know that my kids will find their place in a group or in groups. But I still can't help but wish that they could do what I can't, that they could have that thing that makes it simple to be everybody's mate, to have those meaningless conversations or simply smile and say hi without feeling as though they might collapse with a heart attack, to speak confidently without turning a shade of red more normally seen on a pillar box.

I hope that whatever friends my children do have as they get older will be able to do for them what those select few who, whether they really understand my issues or not, do for me - help by introducing me to their friends or by sticking with me when I'm alone in a crowd. Because in those moments, when my heart is about to pound out of my chest, when I'm faced with the social situation firing squad (currently those braying mummies who pretend class doesn't matter when it so clearly does - proof that they have none), those friends are as valuable as diamonds and as brave as any superhero to me. And knowing that somewhere out there those people will exist for my children provides just a little bit of superglue for my splintered glass heart.

Read more about Social Phobia/Social Anxiety here