Hamming it up.

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Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
Ham.


They say that smell is the most evocative sense. They say that it's one of the last to go as you die. It can transport you cascading through the years to an exact moment in time. Tonight wasn't a tale of smell, though it did play a part.


I went into the city today. Not something I do a lot. Into a big supermarket. I wanted to buy some goods from there; trying to eek out the bawbees, this month as cash is tight.


The super market has a Polish section. I like Polish food. It's akin to Scottish and British food in general, in that it had to be honest and cheap. Growing up in the 60/70's my folks didn't have much. Sundays saw me peeling tatties for the week... to be kept in a pail of water and cooked up for pretty much every meal. A pot of broth would be restarted on that day too. Following the time honoured strata of additions 'till the softened pinwheels of leeks, pearl barley the kale floated to the top and it was time to sup, as we would for the next seven days from the same dutchy.


One of the treats was going to my grandparents and there we would get the odd tidbit as they'd worked and saved all their days. One of the tastes was I remembered it cried “Bavarian Ham”.


Why the Polish family that had flown to Scotland to escape the Germans (and been incarcerated for their flight) would be stocking something called “Bavarian Ham” I don't know. They stocked the most overly sweet home-made fudge and I remember having my first crush on the eldest daughter who worked the till. But they also stocked “Bavarian Ham”.


For a treat on a Saturday my Grandparents would “do” sandwiches on that most Scottish of bread with only crust on the top and bottom. It's the sort of bread that's been hurled down to Jock Thompson’s bairns from windows since time immemorial in their waxed paper wrapper. Immortalised in the “Jammy Piece” song. These pieces would contain “Bavarian Ham”. It's a smoked ham with a hard dark rind. A taste that I haven't felt imbue my mouth in a generation.


But here in the Polish section was something cried “Szynka Babuni”. Now I hope the Polish members can set me straight but I think it translated to “Grandmothers Ham”? Here was a packet from a company called Sokolowskie that contained a 140g's of a ham that had a fine marbled and dark rimmed appearance of what I could make out as smoked loveliness.


On getting home I decided to watch an old movie from the period to set the scene. “The Extraordinary Seaman” staring David Niven. No bread, I opened some oatcakes, slivered off some old and tart cheddar, topping each one with a “Marcelled” wave of dark rimmed dusky pink ham. The smell as I'd opened the packet shot me back “Quantum Leap” like through the years, and as my mouth closed around the cold yielding ham, teeth cleaving through the crumbly cheese and splintering the friable rough oatcakes, I was back in my Grand-folks living-room, “Monty” the goldfish was picking up gravel, “Rowan and Martins Laugh In” was back on the telly we didn't have at home and I was a little kid again. The better read amongst you may talk of “Proust” and his “Madallenes”, but in that moment I surpassed NASA and all the research institutes, was thrown back four decades to Ivor Cutlers “Life In A Scotch Living Room” where the taste of a preserved European meat product was a little taste of life without borders and a step closer to heaven.


I should have probably stopped there. It sounded good. On the second bite it wasn't quite “there”, my time machine had a flaw. I've a good palate and I had an inclination that something had changed. On reading the rear of the packet I saw that there was a “soy” part to the ingredients, I don't know if this was the rogue element in my periodic table of time travel but the taste was off a tadge. Still for £1.60 a packet I'm sure that NASA would agree that travelling four decades/£1.60 is a darn good deal.
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
Oats toasting :) I don't mind if it's for oatcakes or cranachan or skirlie, but that smell takes me back to being a tiny child sitting a sunbeam in my Granny's house watching the dust motes. The windows had polished brass rails for lifting them and in the sun they shone like gold. The back door is open, I can almost smell the warm weather, my Mum's ben the room blethering to my Grandpa, and my Granny picks me up and feeds me something so good :D

Funnily enough last Autumn Son2 came home from work and I'd been baking, and he just suddenly looked totally at peace with the world as he sniffed the air. He said, "Toasted oats, I love that smell :D".

I like chewy pinhead meal in veggie haggis too, and in veggie white pudding. That and pearl barley. Good food :)

I've eaten well today, i've not long finished my dinner and now I'm hungry :rolleyes: :eek:

Glad you enjoyed your piece Colin :) even if it wasn't 'quite' spot on. Lidl's often have ham in flat packs that sounds like the stuff you describe. They're a German company, might be worth a looksee ? £1.60 for a four decades jaunt down memory lane's a bargain though :D

atb,
M
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
You are a poet sir. I love your lyrical posts :).

The smell of blackboards and chalk does it to me.
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
Himself and me have just had a conversation …..I couldn't mind the word :eek:
I asked, "Did you Mum ever make you boiled milk with a wee drop sugar and white bread soaked in it ?, what was that called ?", and Himself duly thought for a breath and said, "Saps!", and we laughed. Simple childhood food, but tasty and filling.
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/sap_n2_v2

Blast from the past tonight right enough :)

M
 

weekender

Full Member
Feb 26, 2006
1,814
19
54
Cambridge
What a great thread😊 it brings me to mind of Sunday mornings as a child of the 70's in the parents house, my dad was a railwayman and I very rarely saw him during the week as he left for work just as I was getting up for school and I would be going to bed when he came home. The weekends he would be working nights but I would wake early Sunday mornings and sit and have a small cooked/fried breakfast with him at the table in the kitchen 1 egg, a rasher of bacon and half a slice of fried bread finished with a glass of milk, I was only little, he would go off back to work and I would most likely fall asleep on the sofa as mum tidied up.
When I get chance I try to recreate those moments and the smell of bacon and eggs takes me right back every time.😊
What's really nice is I take my son over to see his grandparents and I see it all over again with my dad sitting with his grandson having a small fry up on a Sunday morning.

Sent from somewhere?
 
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bigbear

Full Member
May 1, 2008
1,061
210
Yorkshire
Great post.
For me, cummin seeds scorching take me back to India fifteen years ago, a hot electric mixer takes me back to Mum baking when I was a child, and Ambre solaire puts me back on the beach as a kid.
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
Cheers folks, thought you may think I was daft going off on a lyrical daunder about a packet of ham but those tastes and smells are really evocative. Really enjoyed reading what you all posted.

I did another one a while back about the simple joy and scent filled heaven of sitting polishing up some leather a while back. That was another job on a Sunday (though we did it in smaller amounts every day of the week). But on a Sunday night after peeling the spuds and before bath time every shoe in the house would be polished. The wooden trug would come out and I'd spend an hour or so burnishing boots and shoes 'till they looked like conkers. The smell of good shoe polish as it warmed with your rubbing sends me off still into a hypnotic state. If I'd been good I'd be allowed to then move on to polishing any silver or brass in the house too while listening to the radio. (Yes my Dad had conned me into thinking it was a treat to polish the silverware for him - canny man). Then fingers suitably blackened it was off to the bath.

Wonder how many bairns would find that a satisfying way to spend a Sunday night now?

Just re-read all your posts and could feel myself easing down like a spring and the heart rate slacken off to a pace that usually only happens sitting in front of a fire stroking my old dogs ears.
 

Macaroon

A bemused & bewildered
Jan 5, 2013
7,209
362
73
SE Wales
Your "lyrical daunders" always make good reading, and a great leavener on the forum which is usually full of Why to? What to? When to?..........Keep 'em coming!!!
 

mrcharly

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jan 25, 2011
3,257
44
North Yorkshire, UK
Crisp fried bacon, mushrooms and a fried egg, everyone reeking of horse and damp clothes.

Weekend breakfast, horses fed, exercised and put out. Time for a well earned breakfast. crimminy was that really getting on for 40 years ago?
 

Tengu

Full Member
Jan 10, 2006
12,780
1,517
51
Wiltshire
Bavarian ham...oh I feel faint!

The Polish store in town does a lot of preserved meats, and cheeses, plus lots else besides.

I always love to go there and come out with a bulging carrier, -seldom spend over £5 but it goes a long way.

Childhood memories? Batchelors supernoodles, colemans mustard (made up with the powder from the square tin) on real roast beef on sundays, and Corona soft drinks. (my favorite was the limeade)
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
Tengu I hear you on most of it bar the mustard. I've sometimes followed my grandfathers asdvice of some mustard powder in the bath, but those French, German & English putrid pastes of evil are just plain nasty. I do like a wholegrain mustard in a cheese sauce, particularly in mac & cheese as our American chums would say but Satans paste has no place on my table.

Sent via smokesignal from a woodland in Scotland.
 

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