When our lives were lubricated by lard...
“YOU DON’T know what’s good for you!” Granddad said as he prised off another slice of raw Spanish onion with his penknife. He popped it into his mouth and chomped it, with not so much as a grimace, let alone a tear.
Nothing better, he said, as we – fickle nippers – looked on and marvelled, just as we did when he devoured other foods we considered inedible.
“That’s the stuff to give the troops!” he would say, the hanky coming out to dab the forehead as he polished off another heavily seasoned unmentionable.
In retrospect, my grandparents’ lives seem to have been lubricated by lard. They would not recognise half of what goes on to our table today.
Home-cured bacon, so fatty it looked like marble, was
