things i'd like to eat

[Basil]

A couple of years ago I spotted the historic Fray Bentos steak pie inna tin in the Carmarthen Tesco's.  Full of nostalgic excitement, I bought one and rushed home to produce a dinner of pie, mash and peas for Mrs B.
It was bloody horrible.
The top lid pastry was 'flakey pastry'.  You know, the stuff where you stick your knife and fork in and it just explodes into a trillion shards all over the table.  What's the fucking point of that?
The bottom short crust was grey soggy and foul.

However, I didn't give up.  The next week I bought the steak and kidney pudding.  This is no longer inna pudding shaped tin, but in a similar shaped microwaveable plastic pot.  This is still good.  Makes a decent lunch.
Could be a bit bigger, like it used to be, though.

[ElyDave]

A couple of years ago I spotted the historic Fray Bentos steak pie inna tin in the Carmarthen Tesco's.  Full of nostalgic excitement, I bought one and rushed home to produce a dinner of pie, mash and peas for Mrs B.
It was bloody horrible.
The top lid pastry was 'flakey pastry'.  You know, the stuff where you stick your knife and fork in and it just explodes into a trillion shards all over the table.  What's the fucking point of that?
The bottom short crust was grey soggy and foul.

However, I didn't give up.  The next week I bought the steak and kidney pudding.  This is no longer inna pudding shaped tin, but in a similar shaped microwaveable plastic pot.  This is still good.  Makes a decent lunch.
Could be a bit bigger, like it used to be, though.

Predictably so?

My dinner this evening  was lamb shank, with shitake and other mushrooms,  in a spicy chocolate and beer sauce. Only contrasted by no Fray Bentos crust.

[ian]

A couple of years ago I spotted the historic Fray Bentos steak pie inna tin in the Carmarthen Tesco's.  Full of nostalgic excitement, I bought one and rushed home to produce a dinner of pie, mash and peas for Mrs B.
It was bloody horrible.
The top lid pastry was 'flakey pastry'.  You know, the stuff where you stick your knife and fork in and it just explodes into a trillion shards all over the table.  What's the fucking point of that?
The bottom short crust was grey soggy and foul.

However, I didn't give up.  The next week I bought the steak and kidney pudding.  This is no longer inna pudding shaped tin, but in a similar shaped microwaveable plastic pot.  This is still good.  Makes a decent lunch.
Could be a bit bigger, like it used to be, though.

I don't think a Fray Bentos pie has a bottom, it's just a naked meat booty call. Or maybe I always cooked it into oblivion. The underbelly of the top was the best bit, under that crispy microlayer was a damp gusset of delight.

All food gets smaller the older you get.

[ian]

Quite fancy real chicken sushi.

I've had it (at a place in Berkeley, CA), it's overrated and expensive. But I don't like sushi anyway. That's what I don't want to eat.

[Regulator]

Was always partial to Butterscotch Angel Delight.

No idea what was in it; nothing natural that's for sure.
Hmm, I'll need to hunt some down if they still make it...

Oh yes... the only Angel Delight I actually liked.   

[Paul]

Hmm. I have in the pantry, right now and regularly:
• angel delight (butterscotch flavour
• pot noodle (chicken and mushroom flavour: no meat in pot noodles)
• nesquik (banana flavour)

I’m living the dream, people!

It’s also less than three years since we had our last breakfast inna can.

I’d like to eat swan.

[Regulator]

I’m not a Pot Noodle fan but Mr R always has Pot Noodles (or another brand of instant noodle) in the cupboard. 

[ian]

Back in the day, when poisoning schoolchildren was less frowned upon, we made pear drop flavouring in a chemistry lesson. I remember the teacher saying when combined the components would be completely non toxic.

Ethyl acetate is the traditional pear drop – it's just ethanol reacted with acetic acid. I'm pretty sure we drank the results in our class at school. I'm not joking, there was (by the end of this sentence you'll understand why I am using the past tense) an idiot called Nigel (I know, I know) who would drink any chemical if you dared him. He had to go hospital because he once drank an entire bottle of (fortunately dilute) nitric acid.

[Regulator]

It's those brilliant false flavours, the faux banana persists all the way through to modern milkshakes. Though modern banana Angel Delight claims to be 2% banana powder, so what do I know. I know we had bananas in the 70/80s or my mother couldn't have got chased around Spar by a Fyffes' tarantula.

There is a strawberry flavour, but strawberry was always a bit dull, though better than vanilla if you were faced with the dilemma of which end to start eating a Neopolitan ice cream wafer sandwich.

The banana Angel Whip always made me think of the flavoured medicines you got as kids.  That often had that artificial banana flavouring. 

[Mr Larrington]

Every so often I have an irrational hankering after Findus Crispy Pancakes, which are thick paper surrounding molten lava.  I do not know why.

[ian]

My childhood was framed by the mightly battle between the two titans of the freezer compartment: Findus vs Captain Birdseye.

I confess that I'm not a great fan of posh food, if I wasn't married to a woman who looks dimly on my pastimes and believes that her role in life is to somehow elevate me into somone she doesn't have to constantly apologize for, I'd be making a crispy pancake (beef, the cheese one might be sick) sandwich right now.

[rr]

kebab meat.

That’s what I want to eat now. The filthier the better. Preferably from Bosphorus Kebabs in South Ken.

(Consults map)

Used to frequent that establishment as a Penniless Student Oaf, more years ago than I care to remember.

Me too, a doner with extra chilli sauce was the climax of the ARBS initiation.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

[ian]

I realise now that I have inadvertently declared myself the Kebab Jesus. I may be on the cusp of founding the most awesome religion ever. That nurse's pillow will be a sacred object.

[Jaded]

A couple of years ago I spotted the historic Fray Bentos steak pie inna tin in the Carmarthen Tesco's.  Full of nostalgic excitement, I bought one and rushed home to produce a dinner of pie, mash and peas for Mrs B.
It was bloody horrible.
The top lid pastry was 'flakey pastry'.  You know, the stuff where you stick your knife and fork in and it just explodes into a trillion shards all over the table.  What's the fucking point of that?
The bottom short crust was grey soggy and foul.

However, I didn't give up.  The next week I bought the steak and kidney pudding.  This is no longer inna pudding shaped tin, but in a similar shaped microwaveable plastic pot.  This is still good.  Makes a decent lunch.
Could be a bit bigger, like it used to be, though.

Predictably so?

My dinner this evening  was lamb shank, with shitake and other mushrooms,  in a spicy chocolate and beer sauce.

Don’t you hate it when you knock your drinks over your food!

[Jaded]

Banana flavouring has that wonderful synthetic estery flavour of... banana flavouring!

For reasons I won't go into here, I sickened myself of bananas many years ago, and can't really look at them now.
And yet, banana-flavour chews etc are still just fine!

Now, how about Creamola Foam?
This was the predecessor to Sodastream.

An effervescent powder containing sugar, flavour, and some effervescent agent to make a drink fit to rot your teeth and send you hyperactive!

And turn your tongue into something that wouldn’t look out of place in a tattoo parlour!

(You eat it with a spoon, or finger; who would mix it with water - that’s just weird.

[Mr Larrington]

kebab meat.

That’s what I want to eat now. The filthier the better. Preferably from Bosphorus Kebabs in South Ken.

(Consults map)

Used to frequent that establishment as a Penniless Student Oaf, more years ago than I care to remember.

Me too, a doner with extra chilli sauce was the climax of the ARBS initiation.

It was either there or the establishment in the Fulham Road just round the corner from Evelyn Gardens and universally known as “Greasy Abdul's”.

[hellymedic]

Was always partial to Butterscotch Angel Delight.

No idea what was in it; nothing natural that's for sure.
Hmm, I'll need to hunt some down if they still make it...

They do (or did last year, when D&I indulged).
Sugar, modified starch bicarb & flavourings IIRC.

[hellymedic]

Back in the day, when poisoning schoolchildren was less frowned upon, we made pear drop flavouring in a chemistry lesson. I remember the teacher saying when combined the components would be completely non toxic.

Ethyl acetate is the traditional pear drop – it's just ethanol reacted with acetic acid. I'm pretty sure we drank the results in our class at school. I'm not joking, there was (by the end of this sentence you'll understand why I am using the past tense) an idiot called Nigel (I know, I know) who would drink any chemical if you dared him. He had to go hospital because he once drank an entire bottle of (fortunately dilute) nitric acid.

I thought pear drops were amyl acetate...

[hellymedic]

The internet tells me there's a no-added-sugar butterscotch Angel Delight which I guess is just talcum powder. Eek.

They also do banana Angel Delight, I do remember liking that. And bananas in lumpy custard (was it ever possible for any human to turn custard powder into smooth custard?)

I do a nice, smooth, lump-free Bird's custard in the microwave...

[Davef]

Back in the day, when poisoning schoolchildren was less frowned upon, we made pear drop flavouring in a chemistry lesson. I remember the teacher saying when combined the components would be completely non toxic.

Ethyl acetate is the traditional pear drop – it's just ethanol reacted with acetic acid. I'm pretty sure we drank the results in our class at school. I'm not joking, there was (by the end of this sentence you'll understand why I am using the past tense) an idiot called Nigel (I know, I know) who would drink any chemical if you dared him. He had to go hospital because he once drank an entire bottle of (fortunately dilute) nitric acid.

I thought pear drops were amyl acetate...

I will experiment with Ian’s vodka and vinegar cocktail and report back., however from my googling I think it would be better using “blind drunk” back street vodka as it is the normally discarded bad fraction that you want to react with acetic acid (perhaps with a dash of battery acid to help things along). Odd that the chemistry department had to hand the waste products of illicit hooch distillation.

[MikeFromLFE]

Pink flavour you say?
One of treats of school dinners was pink custard. (Modified on the blackboard as Pink Bastard).
I've never seen or heard of it since those halcyon days of the 1970s and often wonder what it actually consisted of. But it was nectar!

[citoyen]

We're all thinking exactly the same thing about what we'd really like to eat, but none of you have the guts to be honest about it and get it out in the open.

You people 

I really would like a pot noodle. That’s top of the list right now. Honest.

But failing that, I would settle for a night in with Scarlet Johansson.

[citoyen]

Every so often I have an irrational hankering after Findus Crispy Pancakes, which are thick paper surrounding molten lava.  I do not know why.

I once made my own crispy pancakes from scratch. They were really good, but no substitute for the real thing. I remember when they were launched and I nagged my mum into getting us some for a treat. And treat is the right word. Yum!

Can you still get them?

[Canardly]

Boiled bacon ribs and cabbage. Ribs now to order only unfortunately and expensive, but common in my childhood as was a cheap meal. Tesco's still sell them in Ireland apparently.

[ian]

Back in the day, when poisoning schoolchildren was less frowned upon, we made pear drop flavouring in a chemistry lesson. I remember the teacher saying when combined the components would be completely non toxic.

Ethyl acetate is the traditional pear drop – it's just ethanol reacted with acetic acid. I'm pretty sure we drank the results in our class at school. I'm not joking, there was (by the end of this sentence you'll understand why I am using the past tense) an idiot called Nigel (I know, I know) who would drink any chemical if you dared him. He had to go hospital because he once drank an entire bottle of (fortunately dilute) nitric acid.

I thought pear drops were amyl acetate...

I think that's the faux banana smell. We were really allowed to lick the chemicals in the 80s, we had an old school chemistry teacher (he was completely colour blind, so whenever he did the litmus thing he had to rely on us telling them when it had changed, he must have been familiar with how that played out). Anyway, one day he wasn't there and instead we had a grim-looking headteacher telling us he was dead. I have no idea if that was from licking chemicals or he'd inadvertently accepted a toast from Nigel.