Bradford Lad: When Cabbage Was King
Mike Coatesworth recalls the delights of his Aunt's cooking - cabbage water and all.
While my wife Betty was a away for a couple of weeks, visiting family, my daughter Lesley suggested that we should have Sunday lunch at a local pub. Now Lesley is a good cook, but I thought it would be nice to go out for a change.
Off we set, chatting away, and after a while I asked Lesley how many houses we had passed. She gave me a puzzled look. "I don't know,'' she replied. "I wasn't counting. A hundred? Maybe more.''
I asked if she had noticed anything odd as we passed by the houses.
She shook her head.
"No cooking smells,'' I said. "Apparently no-one is preparing a traditional Sunday dinner.''
I thought back to the time when I was a lad. On Sundays there was the smell of cooking coming from almost every house. Of vegetables on the hob. The delicious smell of roast meat, just as it was being taken from the oven.
Even though my Aunt Chrissie was both deaf and blind she still insisted on cooking a big Sunday dinner. Sunday was the only day of the week on which my brother and I got a full cooked meal. I recall the splendid aroma of boiled cabbage. Yes, that smell really made my mouth water.
When Aunt Chrissie realised that my brother and I were at her side she gave each one of us a cup of cabbage water. I enjoyed drinking it. My brother didn't! My Aunt said it was good for us. Sometimes I asked for a second cupful.
In my youth I never suffered from spots and pimples, and I was rarely ill, not so much as a cold. Years later, when I finally left home, I started to catch colds. I guess my Aunt's claims for the benefits of cabbage water were justified.
Even when Lesley and I entered the pub there was still no inviting cooking smell. Just the smell of stale beer, and that doesn't set one to salivating in anticipation.
I ordered a traditional Sunday lunch, meat and two veg. Quite nice really, but it didn't have the full-bodied home-cooked taste of the meals which my wife prepares. Betty prepares meals which are just as appetitisng as those which my Aunt cooked all those years ago. Not surprising really. Aunt Chrissie gave her cooking tips.
Give my Aunt good ingredients, and she could rustle up a royal banquet - cabbages included.
