Foody fads

OUR DINNER this evening is home-made sweet and sour pork, and it seems strange to say that it’s the first time I’ve attempted this Chinese classic.

The pork fillet is cut into chunks and marinated in dry sherry and light soy sauce.

My Good Lady has already made up the batter – a simple flour and egg goo; we dunk the pork into seasoned flour then into the batter and fry it, in batches, for a few minutes and set it aside.

Next I stir-fry some cubed pepper and sliced spring onions, then return the cooked pork along with some pineapple chunks and sliced red chillies into the wok and let it all warm through.

Finally, I pour in the sauce mixture – a blend of pineapple juice, brown sugar, tomato ketchup, light soy sauce and white wine vinegar.

As the blend is looking a little runny, MGL makes up a cornflour mixture to thicken it up a bit.

We serve it on plain, boiled long-grain rice, and wash it down with a German Riesling.

Oh yes!

Over dinner we discuss some of our friends’ odd attitudes towards food.

Take PD for example. Every weekend he has a roast, but then for days afterwards he has the leftover meat in sandwiches and salads and such like until it’s all gone.

It doesn’t seem to occur to him to freeze the stuff and vary it with other things.

It would keep for weeks, if not months, and he could enjoy it over a period.

Pre-freezer days, yes, we would have had to eat the meat before it went off, but today…?

And then there’s Steve, who always buys his vegetables prepared, and ready for the pot.

Not for him the chore of peeling and slicing – to us this is part of the fun of cooking; it doesn’t take but a few minutes and it costs a fraction of the price.

Odd, as I say.

But then, when we tell people about having two ounces of minced beef in a meal, or half a tin of sardines in a flan, no doubt they think of us as odd.

There’s nowt so strange as folk, is there?