Food of life

When I was growing up, foodies had yet to be invented. Food was stuff you ate. You weren’t expected to enjoy it, which was just as well. In my mother’s house, food was what you ate only if you had a death wish. If you were idiotic enough to ask what was for dinner, she’d say “poison”. She wasn’t kidding.

She had, in the 1970s, a brief where they go to the Melbourne Cup and chuck back copious quantities of Marque Spew. “Mum,” says Kim, when Kath staggers out of the Portaloo, “you’ve got a bit of carrot in your fascinator.”