Food For Thought

Food For Thought

On Friday I invited friends for a Burns night, a day early but what the hell. I had brought back two haggis from my trip to Scotland last Ocotober and informed my French friends of what goes into a haggis so they arrived with some trepidation. As we sat having a drink before the meal I also handed them the first three verses of Burns’ poem to the haggis, in Scots of course. The result was a great evening. We started with some Scottish smoked salmon, I’d bought a bottle of Laphroaig to go with the haggis and friend Jo had made a banoffee pie and sticky toffee pudding for dessert so it was a real Scottish meal.. It was the first time my French friends had eaten haggis and poured scotch on their food and, somewhat to their surpise, they loved it. We all laughed at their attempts to understand the Burns poem.

On Sunday I went to the annual old Foggie’s free lunch laid on by the village and served by the mayor and members of the vilage council. The meal is for anyone over the age of 65 living in the village and is to thank those people for past or current services rendered to the village. The food, as usual, was excellent. Some foie gras and tapenade amuse-bouches were followed by scallops in a cream sauce, red snapper, chicken in a mushroom sauce, cheese and a chocolate pudding, all washed down with copious wine. It was yet another great meal. Lucky me.

A report in a British newspaper I read on the internet earlier in the week provided some stark perspective. The report was of a disabled man aged 57 who had starved to death after the Department of Work and Pensions had erroneaously stopped his benefit payments.