About a year and a half ago, a good friend of mine introduced me to the wonderful website Cakewrecks. Cakewrecks is the kind of eccentric gem that only the blogosphere can throw up and whenever I'm feeling a bit down, I click on the site. It never fails to leave me in fits of laughter. Now we have an NHS equivalent. Step forward, Traction Man (well, metaphorically at least, cos you're in traction) of the wonderful 'Notes from a Hospital Bed'. Traction Man is - well, in traction in a hospital somewhere. He is taking pictures of his hospital food, posting them on a blog and inviting people to guess what it is. The most puzzling one so far has been the vegetable moussaka above; noone was able to guess what it was.
What I found hilariously funny about this site is that it illustrates perfectly the old unwritten British rules about cuisine. It harks back to a time when spaghetti bolognaise was completely off limits and you could only buy one kind of lettuce at the Co-op. Rules like;
1. Colour. Safe foods are yellow, green or off white in colour. Custard, peas, greasy chips are all acceptable; bolognaise and chicken chasseur are not.
2. Vegetables should either be carrots or peas. Other vegetables should not be present on a plate unless they are covered in a cheese sauce or mashed.
3. Meat should be either brown or white in colour. It should not be pink in the middle; it's not decent.
4. The only sauce that should be put on meat is gravy. Meat should be able to stand on its own two feet. If it needs a sauce, it's probably off.
5.Meat and vegetables should not be allowed to mix. They should stand politely to next other on a plate. Cooking meat and vegetables together in the continental practice of casseroles is to be frowned on and not encouraged. Potatoes can be placed on top of meat, but again not mixed through.
6. Mushrooms are permitted if they are cooked until grey. Mushrooms that are still white are not permitted.
7. Processed peas are good; garden peas are suspiciously middle class; haricot verts
is what you get when a bunch of lazy French can't be bothered shelling the peas.
8. Foods ending in 'i' or 'a' should be avoided.
9. Macaroni cheese is an exception to '8'; its yellow and gloopy status classifies it as a British dish and fulfills equality, diversity and ethnicity regulations re food.
10. Potatoes should always be present on a dish. In the unfortunate event of a dish being a pasta dish (see '8') mashed potato should be added to neutralise it.
Do have a look at this blog. And support this guy; laughs apart, he might just get something done about nutrition in the NHS. If they don't get him first..
