Free from

Last Saturday afternoon found me – somewhat reluctantly – sharing the unlovely plaza that is the arrival hall of the prematurely senescent Terminal 4 at Heathrow with a heaving Babelian mass of humanity. Alternating increasingly irritable pacing with lounging louchely against a pillar I awaited the arrival from Paris of a brace of Canadian girls. In spite of the fact that the marginally more kickass of the pair is in proud possession of British Citizenship, they were still forced to negotiate – at considerable length – the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the UK Border Agency – along with the effusion of seven continents.

When the pair finally made it landside they were hungry. They demanded curry!

Now – my mother (bless her soul!) was a woman possessed of an extremely limited culinary repertoire. She maintained an even more restrictive diet herself, eating like a sparrow and having no truck with herbs, spices and other such fancy distillations. As a result I reached the age of majority equipped with what can only be described as a totally untutored palate.

This state of affairs was not to change until my early twenties – the point at which I got married and left home. My former wife sighed, tutted inwardly and took in hand my belated education in the cuisines of the world. Latterly – of course – the Kickass Canada Girl has generously taken up the baton with regard to this noble task (along with that of all of my other foibles and eccentricities) and has matured me into a dedicated epicurean. There really is now very little that I do not eat, appreciate and enjoy.

Or rather – there was…

In the middle of the night subsequent to our culinary expedition to the sub-continent I became what – for fear of distressing those of a sensitive disposition – can only be described as – unwell! Of itself this would mean little, except that something similar has now occurred on the last few occasions on which I have dined thus. It is difficult to avoid the implication that I am no longer able to stomach curry. Worse – this follows previous reluctant recognition that the consumption of duck eggs now also seems to leave me internally incapacitated.

What we are talking about here is – of course – an acknowledgement of the fact that I am getting old! My formerly robust constitution is beginning to creak a little – my once indomitable digestion is showing signs of becoming somewhat more finickity.

This is only to be expected, of course, but I certainly don’t intend to go quietly. Though I will at least try to be sensible, when it comes to the foods that I love… all bets may currently be off.

Needless to say – this does leave me somewhat apprehensive for the future…