Letter of the week
A clever hack
MENTION of Tom Parker Bowles’s ‘crowning glory of the Clubland table’ (‘Strong flavours to savour’, November 23) reminds me of my time as a Food member of the 11th Hussars’ mess committee in the 1960s. Running the account into debt called for action—without one’s brother officers realising that standards had slipped or that austerity had arrived. When it came to the savoury, one speciality devised was the following culinary delight. A small piece of fried bread, on which was placed a warmed tinned sardine (preferably in olive oil). Take a soup spoon of gin, heat over a candle, light and pour the flaming spirit over the humble fish; transformation.
