Friday Ephemera

The insidious invasion is here!
Seen at Chicago supermarket:

If this invasion is not stopped we will soon see…salad cream! [ sinister music ]
I think I have seen that at one of the large grocery chains that have an International section and some shelf space for “English” foods. Heinz, if I’m not mistaken. Pale yellow stuff, like Miracle Whip, but more pourable. My mom used to make salad cream but with a little curry powder in it so that it was bright yellow. She called it “salad dressing”, and it went on all the lettuces. I never knew what other people meant by that term until I left home and discovered Ranch, Bleu Cheese, Italian, and the million other varieties of “salad dressing”.
I’m still mad at Grace foods for no longer selling “Cock-flavoured” soup packets in the local Kroger’s Caribbean section – it’s all boring “Chicken-flavoured” now.

I’m still mad at Grace foods for no longer selling “Cock-flavoured” soup packets in the local Kroger’s Caribbean section – it’s all boring “Chicken-flavoured” now.
If this were a black market grocery store in Chinatown, could we also be complaining about boring “Kitten-flavored soup”?

Did someone say Cock-flavoured soup packets?

It’s a Caribbean favorite dontcha know! Authentic product of Jamaica, where they’re known for their cock.

Band name.
First cut, side two: Penetration. Here’s the bass cover.

Sweet and spicy, if memory serves.
Makes me think of a thickened and sweetened worcestershire sauce. My mother used to buy it all the time when I was growing up. My father would put it on beef.

It’s basically a prune-based barbecue sauce.
I think you’ll find it’s tamarind, one of the ingredients also found in worcestershire sauce and also the base flavour in pad thai.

What the hell am I thinking of?
I think that dates are also on the ingredient list, which are also a dried fruit like prunes. Prunes are sometimes used–reconstituted–in plum sauce and some sweet and sour sauces.
The only reason I know any of this is because I was trying to replicate the pad thai flavours I first encountered at Bangkok Garden on Elm Street in Toronto almost 35 years ago. I never really knew what a tamarind was and it took me down a rabbit hole of research on sauces.

HP Sauce
I have it with my occasional great Saturday fry (sausages, rashers, black and white pudding, fried bread, fried eggs etc) having rediscovered it a couple of years ago.
It is one of those foods which I always associated with my father and grandfather. When I was younger “red sauce”, or tomato ketchup to you sophisticates, was the accompaniment to all food.
I used to regard YR sauce in the same category as Colmans Old English mustard.
I could never understand why my father, uncles and grandfather always insisted on the Colman’s mustard whenever cold ham was eaten. Then, some years ago, I remember looking at a jar of Colmans when doing the weekly shop and buying it without really knowing why.
And yes, beside the jars of Colman’s Old English and the bottles of YR and Worcestershire sauces on my shelves, there are also jars of Branston Pickle.

“It is one of those foods which I always associated with my father and grandfather.”
Funny that people are saying this. My father was more of a ketchup man, but I always associate it with my grandfather too. Which is doubly odd because he didn’t even like it. (He didn’t like anything on his food. His attitude was that if it wasn’t good enough to eat without adornment, it wasn’t good enough to eat.) My gran kept it in the house because my uncle did.
Anyway, this echoes something that occurred to me independently this afternoon:

Here’s a thought: “protest” was professionalized as an institutional activity in the 1990s. You can find entire university degree programs that are devoted to political activism as a professional career choice. The people choosing these degree programs are going into NGOs, government jobs, and local political organizations with ties to the government.
Thus: (1) They all know each other, and (2) The Canadian truckers represent unregulated competition.

My own idea was slightly different, in that the Left are basically Smith’s “men of system” who institutionalise everything, but in particular the concept of “strike action” (it’s unions, shop-stewards, and ballots, innit?), and simply can’t recognise a spontaneous, organic, grassroots popular strike when they see one. But I like the idea of it as unregulated competition to the sort of grifters we so often look at here.

But I like the idea of it as unregulated competition to the sort of grifters we so often look at here.
Don’t ever discount the influence of tribalism in the human psyche. Whether it’s Ishmaelites, Cherokee, Cobbler’s Guilds or the professional protesting class, tribes hate competition.

My wordle history was messed up yesterday, but was back today. Hopefully yours will return. It has become an important part of my morning routine, thanks to Mr Thompson and his link to ‘absurdle’ a few weeks ago.

David keeps a list of such offenders, and it’s pretty long.
Now I picture him lounging about in a silk kimono, cosplaying Ko-Ko from “The Mikado.” Whereas before I saw him more as the love child of Noel Coward and Rumpole of the Bailey.

Koalas have always had bloody good PR while the infinitely more appealing Quokkas remain relatively unknown.
That can’t be right. Everyone knows that Koalas are the only animal in Australia that won’t try to kill you.

dropped off at my grandad’s for Saturday lunch
I remember my grandparents drank Postum, never coffee. And granddad would pour it into the saucer to cool. They had one of those old gas ranges where you had to light the burner with a match. It must have been 30-40 years old, but was in perfect condition thanks to careful use. (When you don’t have much money, you take buy appliances that will last, and take very good care of them.) The Postum may have been a holdover from the Great Depression when coffee was an unaffordable luxury. Another habit of frugality: They never broke an egg into the pan, but rather into a small bowl which they then tipped into the pan–in case the egg turned out to be spoiled.

Sam: I believe there is a concept about protest that one can only protest if one is on the Left/Woke side of politics. Anything else is not legitimate. The media never cover the “march for Life” in DC which is huge. A trump rally was always “violent” just by existing. The truckers, being deplorable, are part of the white supremist patriarchy (even if Sikh or black) and thus have priv and cannot protest. Plus, Trudeau is one of the *good guys* and you can’t protest goodness. So the outrage was that they even dared to exist, and then further that they did not obey.

Eggs – store refrigerated or not?

I eat HP almost every day (on my eggs. Occasionally on fried bread as an homage to my dear old dad).
And I have outed myself as a Branston Pickle enthusiast before (we were actual farmers and ploughman in my youth.. eating actual ploughmans lunches… yes, tractors, not horses.. i ain’t that old).
However, no one has mentioned the ABOMINATION known as Fruity HP…. {shudder}….
https://www.hpsauce.co.uk/product/100118200002/hp-fruity
It is the evil twin to HP as Vegemite is to Marmite…
hmm.. Marmite. I know what I’m having for lunch…

ccscientist: I don’t discount that “But we’re the good guys!“ thing as a visceral reaction, but I think the flailing around that we’re seeing from the entire political-media class, even nominal conservatives, who just don’t seem to know what to make of the protest, is at least partially explained by the phenomenon I mentioned. They can’t get their heads around it because it doesn’t fit their mental model of how things work.
“It is the evil twin to HP as Vegemite is to Marmite…”
Hey, don’t diss the Vegemite. Australia’s greatest gift to the world, that stuff. I’m one of those few people who can take Marmite or leave it, but I’d like it a lot more if it wasn’t so damned salty. Aussies to the rescue.
Mind you, if Marmite Peanut Butter isn’t the food of the gods, it’ll do until I find some.

… if Marmite Peanut Butter isn’t the food of the gods…
Yep, Annubis, Hades, Hel, Shiva, Kali, Mictlantecuhtli…

After “a little grated cheese”, you left out “place in Disposall, garbage can, or throw in annoying neighbor’s back yard to attract turkey buzzards”…
Admittedly, the timing can be tricky. There’s a narrow window in which to get the whites firm while leaving the yolks fairly soft. Firm yolks are disappointing, and runny whites are disgusting.

Marmite
Poor cousin to Bovril – at least when Bovril was still made of beef.

“Bovril”: sounds like an herbicide.

A perfect breakfast:

Proclaim the jihad against all egg haters!