Culinary nostalgia

Back in the mid and late nineties*, my ex and I used to watch cooking shows. In fact we rarely made any of the dishes we saw, but it was a kind of gastronomic porn. One of our favorites was Two Fat Ladies. Two old English broads, very unsvelte, who rode around on a motorcycle making food for schools, biking clubs, etc. Real characters, Jennifer and Clarissa. While cooking for brewers, they used the kitchen of an old vicarage. Clarissa opined that "in the old days vicars were all good Christians and had loads of children. Now they're all gay and so the vicarages are sold off." They regularly trashed vegetarians. While making a Christmas dinner, Clarissa wondered what the "awful fundamentalist Protestants" did who refused to celebrate Christmas. "I supposed they lurk and read their Bibles." The theme song, jazz style with trombone, sung by them:

"Grab that crab, Clarissa!
Eat that meat, Jennifer!
Why, doesn't that pheasant look pleasant?
Fasten your tastebuds for a gastronomic ride
Cause us two fat ladies are itchin'
to get into your kitchen."

They'd banter while they cooked and the food was transgressively rich and pretty damn wonderful. I've got them on Netflix now and I am salivating.

Salmon with oranges, nutmeg and red wine. Tomatoes stuffed with minced pork. Loin of pork stuffed with garlic and mushrooms. Homemade clam chowder with bacon. Drool.

*Somehow the decade between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers seems an idyll of simpler and more innocent times...