Beware the puff that goes with the pastry

Pie in the sky: blarney on the packet had me fooled

What could be tastier than a traditional Irish pie? To be sure, it's a treat that has been celebrated over countless generations from Adare to Youghal. So when I saw in Sainsbury's that it had been revived by a brand called 'Six Hungry Sons', I naturally licked my lips. Pieces of chicken in a rich gravy with a shortcrust pastry base and a puff pastry lid and no punctuation.

This is nothing less than Michael's Chicken and Gravy Pie. I'm not sure who exactly Michael is, but I wonder if I'm looking at his picture in the aged sepia vignettes which have been lovingly dropped into the packaging? This is clearly a pie from the old school.

As an enchanting story begins to unfold, I get the sense that Michael might not actually be one of the little lads pictured. He sounds more like a roving gastronomical expert, travelling to the corners of the earth to uncover age-old recipes and revive them for countless others to enjoy. (Mainly people in the suburbs of London like me, who will gladly pay that little bit extra for olde worlde packaging and a slice of culinary life from the old country.)

The tale is a heart-warming one. An Irish lady called Kathleen sets a fine table and as the author puts down his fork and spoon after a satisfying supper, he can't help but ask the secret of her pie-making prowess. We learn that it's been passed down three generations over the course of more than a century. Which is just as well, as Kathleen has - wait for it - six hungry sons to feed.

As a sentimental tear rolls down my cheek, it falls just below the main body copy, where a disclaimer is printed in smaller type.

Made in the UK using Thai Chicken. By W A Turner of Tunbridge Wells.

Michael, my world is falling in around me. There I am thinking your man is selling me an old-school pie and it turns out to be more of an old-school Thai.

Meanwhile, in a supermarket on the outskirts of Limerick, there's probably someone picking up a green curry made to a traditional recipe passed on by a lady called Pen-Chan.

Copywriters, eh? My mum always warned me about them.

Becoming a Twister board

I spent yesterday evening in an old factory building off Brick Lane playing kids' games with an organisation called Fun Fed. The idea is that a bunch of adults get together and act like children for a couple of hours. We played tag and stuck big coloured discs on ourselves so that we could become human Twister mats. There was an awful lot of running around and I was thinking that I ought to get to aikido a bit more often. Being a child is very hard work.

When one name isn't enough

You may have heard the news reports about the turmoil in Kingston, Jamaica, resulting from the government's attempts to pin down a notorious drug lord on behalf of the US. I was struck by the number of self-styled monikers this guy has given himself. He is, depending on the channel you listen to, known on the street as 'Dudas', 'The Big Man' and 'The President' - worshipped by many impoverished Kingston residents as a benefactor to slum dwellers. It's his real name that seems most appropriate, however. If you were a drug baron called Christopher Coke, wouldn't you leave it at that? It's certainly not a name to be sniffed at.

Captain Birdseye and other people of rank

Regular readers may recall that I once doubted the existence of Yeo Valley. I'd never heard of the Yeo mountain range and I therefore rated the likelihood of there being a valley at somewhere between 0 and 5%. Of course, I had yoghurt all over my face when I discovered that the place really does exist. Somewhere in Somerset, I seem to recall. Today, having read an article in the latest edition of The Marketer magazine, I'm astonished to discover that there really was a Captain Birdseye. Well, I need to qualify that just a little. There was a Mister Clarence Birdseye who invented the fish finger back in 1955. The avuncular, uniformed figure who dominated our TV screens for about thirty years may have been an invention of over-eager advertising creatives, but he didn't blow in on a trawler during a squall. There was actually some connection to a real human being. These revelations about fish and yoghurt are causing me considerable disquiet, because I'm wondering h...

WASHED AND READY TO EAT

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