Toast by Nigel Slater

Author:Nigel Slater
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Tinned Beans and Sausage

My father never made it home to lunch on Wednesdays. It was also Mrs P.’s day off. My lunch was always left in the oven; a clear glass dish beaded with condensation, the contents invariably bean and sausage casserole.

This was not a rustic earthware pot of haricot beans and garlic-laced saucisse, but an upturned tin of baked beans with chipolata sausages in them, left to warm up and then congeal in the slow oven of the Aga. It was a sad sight to come home to. Three thin skinless bangers in a mess of brown beans, a thin skin lying over the top like a shroud. Made with love it could have looked like a Robert Freson photograph, a warming peasant lunch in a much loved and battered casserole handed down through the family. Instead, it looked like an unflushed lavatory.

Yet there was something I looked forward to about this meal. Opening the leaden door of the Aga, the scary blast from the hot oven, lifting out the dish by the tiny glass handles you could barely feel through thick oven gloves. It was as near as I had got to cooking since the haddock episode.

One day I came home to an empty oven. My father had forgotten. The dog, who hated being left alone, had peed on the kitchen floor. I found an opened packet of Ritz crackers, sat and ate them, salty tears streaming down my face. It wasn’t that I even liked the tinned beans and sausages. I just liked the idea that someone had remembered to leave me something to eat.

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