4. Taken For Granted

An old saying goes "You can't see the wood for the trees". Meaning that we're so adjusted to certain things and conditions that we just don't see them. They're always there, performing some basic function or other and we ain't aware of them and the mind blanks off.

They're taken for granted and only when they're not there or not doing their prescribed duty are we aware of their existence.

Like parents, postmen, policemen, buses, eyebrows or hair up your nostrils.

For instance, the end of your nose can always be seen if you squint down but you never notice it. Why should you? It's always there doing it's job of breathing up air and smelling things. Why should you bother to look down to see if it's still there? You know it otherwise you'd be walking round with your mouth open or never have to wash any hankies, would you?

But you get a boil on it or have a bunch of fives give you a belt on it. Then you know you've got one and it's always on view because, in the first place it hurts and secondly it blocks your view when you're watching the box.

Same with your eyes. Only when you get a bit of dirt in one do you realise that the gift of sight you've hardly ever thought about is very precious and should never be accepted without giving thanks to God.

I had a mate who was a very ordinary chap. Sort of bloke you'd be hard put to describe if anyone asked you to. Nondescript is the word. Apart from the usual equipment like two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, two arms and two legs, he had nothing that made him any different from anyone else. But in swimming trunks at the pool or the seaside he got folk giving him puzzled looks like they knew he was different but just couldn't put a finger on what it was. They knew somehow he couldn't be taken for granted.

It was simple really. He didn't have a belly button and where everybody had an umbilical dimple, he had a blank space, which gave the impression that his belly was winking at you.

I'm not claiming that I was matey with a bloke who was of virgin birth, he got an infection in his belly button and the surgeon got busy with his knife and cut it out, then did a bit of neat invisible mending on it. That's all.

This is all leading up to one of those things that the average bloke normally takes for granted. Grub. And why ? Cos he don't have to cook it.

All he see's when going home or into the café is a plate of nosh which it is his duty to wrap himself around because his stomach is hollering out for something to be shovelled in to it. When he's done that he stretches his legs, belches, and congratulates the little woman for her slaving over a hot stove with "Not bad, that, love. What's for pudding?" Or moans like hell because the chips weren't crisp enough or the cabbage was too soggy.

What never crosses his mind is how the transformation of all this grub from the raw to being edible was affected.

Why should he? His job is to do the hunting, hers to do the cooking. As did the caveman and the squaw. It's just taken for granted.

I'll admit to being the same myself. Until recently, when the woods suddenly manifested themselves in spite of all the trees, and my wife required full time nursing after a serious operation.

Then I realized that my knowledge of the culinary arts could be put in a thimble and still leave plenty of room for my thumb.

Not that I was entirely ignorant about cooking. I prided myself that I could whip up a fairly tasty fry-up with the best of them. After all, what had the Galloping Gourmet* got that I hadn't, apart from a few more frying pans. He fried everything, didn't he?



Credit: www.cookapalooza.org

However a constant diet of fried egg, bacon and chips, sausage and chips, tinned tomatoes on toast and tomato soup wasn't exactly conforming to the balanced diet sheet issued by the hospital.  Also did nothing to make the gastronomic juices bubble in anticipation. So it was a case of extending my knowledge of different ways to cook eggs apart from frying or boiling them.

And I had a bash at scrambled eggs for breakfast. Very tasty that. I beat up one egg and put it in a small saucepan and turned on the gas then popped in a couple of slices of bread in the toaster. Obviously one egg is not sufficient for scrambling as within seconds all that was left was a tiny pin head of what looked like plaster of paris stuck to the bottom of the saucepan.
 

So I upped the number to three and tried again. This time the ensuing result was more successful. With judicious spreading, what hadn't stuck to the bottom of the pan just about covered a small slice of Hovis brown loaf. At this rate it was going to take ten eggs to cover three slices which wouldn't exactly blow you out with over-eating but would soon create havoc with the housekeeping economy. So I decided until I got more knowledge on the subject I'd give scrambled eggs the elbow and have a bash at omelette.

I remember my wife telling me that three eggs is a minimum for a decent omelette, so three hen fruit well beaten up went in to the frypan of hot fat and rose very satisfactorily like a large fluffy pancake.

Great, I thought, and stuck it in the oven to keep warm while I got the coffee made.

Making my way upstairs with the breakfast tray I entered the bedroom with a flourish and said to my wife, "Voila, Madam, a piquant breakfast for vous zis morning. NOT (large emphasis on the not) fried!!" And laid the tray as gently as if it were a new born babe, on her lap and stood back to receive the acclamation of amazed bewilderment of my new found prowess.

She lifted the cover on the plate, peered beneath  and said "What is it?"

"That", I said, with due modesty "Is a triple egg omelette."

"Oh, is it?" said she "What happened to it?" and took the cover off.

Where once laid a large fluffy omelette now was revealed what looked like the skin of a large balloon which had been pricked with a pin.

"I must have done something wrong" I said, "Fancy a fried egg on toast?"

My wife said  "Thanks, I'll have some cornflakes."

The years of taking my grub for granted certainly needed remedying so it was back to the drawing board and a crash course on Mrs Beeton's cookbook.

However, since then, I have improved a mite and can now turn a fair dinner without the aid of bags of lard and a fry pan.

In fact, just recently  I excelled myself and dished up, what I felt was a good meal worthy of Fanny Cradock* on one of her better days.

Chicken breasts and appropriate vegs, marinated in red wine and cooked casserole style. This turned out a great success when we ate it for our lunch. The chicken was a tender as a babies bum, literally fell off the bone and the vegs were seeped in the sauce to perfection.

I felt that my days of shovelling food down my gullet without any thought of how it got to be acceptable to the inner man were over, and I was now aware of the facts of life.

And so I was, but this new found knowledge was mine alone and didn't extend to my son who naturally, as every other man who eats what is shoved in front of him without thought, and if he likes it, was still unaware of the wood for the trees.

When he came in for dinner I proudly put my culinary magic in front of him and said "What about that, eh?"  and he said "I don't like bloody stew. Ain't you got any eggs and bacon?"

Well, you can't win them all, can you?





 

* Note:  For the Galloping Gourmet and Fanny Cradock see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Kerr
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Cradock