“Tis pitty wine should be so expensive, For pork and brandy leave us much more pensive”
One of the things I actually like about England is sausage.
I am a great british sausage fan, and, yes, however justified the health authorities might have put the case at the E.C, I have always deeply regreted their apparent ban from the continental meat market : to me, leak and pork, pork and stilton, or even pork and pasnips,what a delighting food habit ! I just love them nicely burned, especially if I’ve bought low-price-high-fat ones. It makes the trip worthy, and why on earth did M & S leave France ? And what the hell is Per Una ? I am privatly secretly convinced that my father’s decision to invest in the firm was the downfall signal awaited by its executives to launch their crasy suicidal asda vamp.
Anyway, the thing is that as I left the cosy sleepish heated library the other day, I stepped out into the northern darkness – which came as a shock by the way – and said to myself : “Boy, nevermind E. Said, what you need is a Sausage”.
So sure enough, I stepped into Tesco Superstore and found my sausage easy ; but what I like with unknown bits of pork, is Wine. It helps getting the thing down the throat, the coarser – like andouillette, you actually need a lot of mustard with these unknown intestine bits – the more liquid. So, with the confident pace of the frenchmen that I am, I elegantly ushered myself in the wine section, only to stand in stupor for about twenty minutes, shellshocked I guessed in retrospect.
“Claret – Bordeaux” 2.49 £. “And that’s as decent a wine as you can get Sir”, whispered the voice of a posh maitre d’O, “freshly shipped in from a selection of undefinable european vineyards”. I eventually bought the thing, but no bottle of 11% located so far from its home is going to turn anywhere close to anything decent. It was disgusting allright. But surely it must be possible to find some drinkable wine for less than 3 pounds?
And the appaling answer is no ! I tried a spanish “La mancha” that I had to vomit altogether with my beef, and I’m pretty sure the latter was fine although you never know around here, I cooled down some hungarian wine that was fine as long as you kept it minus 10.c, remotly above it dragged the flies, I boiled some “Vino da Tavolla Rosso” with my lamb that got to smell so bad when chewed I gave it to the neighbour’s dog who’s since developed a liking to alcohol... I am now trying to get my friend Christopher to smuggle a hundred or so of fine 1.5£ thank you very much red wine bottles in his car to the UK, while sipping a rather dry canadian scotch wisky to settle my saussage full stomach. Who’s talking liberal ?
