was bliss indeed! The other daughter, though, hair in a bun on top of her head, was her father’s own child. Exact weight and no more, and I avoided her when I could, and gazed intently at the coloured boxes on the shelves until the earphoned goddess was free.
For home-cooked gammon we went to the little cooked meats shop at the top of the hill. It was always a pleasure to watch the owner-cum-cook slice the perfectly boiled gammon with his thin, viciously sharp knife, and lay it reverently, slice by mouth-watering slice, on the fine grease-proof paper, and then transfer the savoury load to the marble scale. This was a splendid character, rosy-cheeked, with a mop of wiry, curly black hair, a man who obviously enjoyed his work. Sometimes, to my joy, he passed over a sliver of the gammon on his knife, to let me drool over its flavour while he cut the quarter I’d ordered. Not every time, for this would have been spoiling indeed, but often enough to make an errand to his shop have all the excitement of a lucky dip.
We knew every mannerism of each assistant to the last nose-twitch. We had plenty of time to observe them, warts and all, in those busy shops in pre-refrigerator days, when shopping had to be done every day. One of my favourites was the man behind the cheese counter in a big store, privately owned of course, in the centreof Glasgow. He clearly loved his work. He reigned over the cheeses like a captain over his ship. He stood, white-aproned, behind his counter, and surveyed us all calmly, a brooding responsibility keeping his face very serious. Behind him, a vast range of swelling rounds of cheeses were arrayed. On the marble ledge in front of him smaller cuts rested, with wire-cutters neatly to hand. Each transaction was a little ritual. No plastic-wrapped portions for this expert. A gentleman in a trilby, inquiring about the merits of a particular cheese, would have a tiny portion removed by the wire-cutters and handed to him to savour. The cheese salesman would stand back, mouth pursed, eyes watchful, as the customer slowly chewed the morsel, while the rest of us awaited the result with keenest interest. We weren’t impatient. This thoughtful consideration seemed absolutely right to us. At last the trilby-hatted gentleman would nod, ‘Mmmm. Yes. Excellent. I’ll take a pound, please.’ A sigh from the cheese-man and from us, the audience. ‘I thought you would like it, sir. A very mature cheese, and excellent with a drop of port.’ Port! This was high living with a vengeance, and the humble purchaser of two ounces of Cheddar felt for a moment exalted to undreamt-of realms of luxury.
This cheese salesman was a wizard with the wire-cutters, and could cut a huge virgin cheese with the speed and accuracy of a circular saw, and extract an exact two ounces or four ounces to a milligram. He would have been chagrined beyond words to have toadd the words: ‘An extra ha’penny, or a penny under or over.’ You asked for four ounces and you got four ounces. He was admired by all of us, for we knew an artist when we saw one.
Another exclusive grocer’s in town was an Aladdin’s cave to me. I loved going there with a chum who collected a weekly box of special biscuits for the minister. There was a little stone bowl at the door, filled with clean drinking water so that customers’ dogs might be refreshed. The mahogany and plate-glass doors had the weight and opulence of a bank entrance, and the well-polished counters were ranged with strange, exotic foods. Things I’d never heard of, much less eaten. Truffles. Foie gras. Peaches in brandy. Calves-foot jelly. This last particularly fascinated me, and I couldn’t for the life of me decide when this should be eaten. ‘It’s invalid food,’ somebody assured me when I whispered my puzzlement over this delicacy. But what was an invalid? I’d never heard this grand name used to describe somebody in poor health, and I continued to puzzle whether or not the invalid
For home-cooked gammon we went to the little cooked meats shop at the top of the hill. It was always a pleasure to watch the owner-cum-cook slice the perfectly boiled gammon with his thin, viciously sharp knife, and lay it reverently, slice by mouth-watering slice, on the fine grease-proof paper, and then transfer the savoury load to the marble scale. This was a splendid character, rosy-cheeked, with a mop of wiry, curly black hair, a man who obviously enjoyed his work. Sometimes, to my joy, he passed over a sliver of the gammon on his knife, to let me drool over its flavour while he cut the quarter I’d ordered. Not every time, for this would have been spoiling indeed, but often enough to make an errand to his shop have all the excitement of a lucky dip.
We knew every mannerism of each assistant to the last nose-twitch. We had plenty of time to observe them, warts and all, in those busy shops in pre-refrigerator days, when shopping had to be done every day. One of my favourites was the man behind the cheese counter in a big store, privately owned of course, in the centreof Glasgow. He clearly loved his work. He reigned over the cheeses like a captain over his ship. He stood, white-aproned, behind his counter, and surveyed us all calmly, a brooding responsibility keeping his face very serious. Behind him, a vast range of swelling rounds of cheeses were arrayed. On the marble ledge in front of him smaller cuts rested, with wire-cutters neatly to hand. Each transaction was a little ritual. No plastic-wrapped portions for this expert. A gentleman in a trilby, inquiring about the merits of a particular cheese, would have a tiny portion removed by the wire-cutters and handed to him to savour. The cheese salesman would stand back, mouth pursed, eyes watchful, as the customer slowly chewed the morsel, while the rest of us awaited the result with keenest interest. We weren’t impatient. This thoughtful consideration seemed absolutely right to us. At last the trilby-hatted gentleman would nod, ‘Mmmm. Yes. Excellent. I’ll take a pound, please.’ A sigh from the cheese-man and from us, the audience. ‘I thought you would like it, sir. A very mature cheese, and excellent with a drop of port.’ Port! This was high living with a vengeance, and the humble purchaser of two ounces of Cheddar felt for a moment exalted to undreamt-of realms of luxury.
This cheese salesman was a wizard with the wire-cutters, and could cut a huge virgin cheese with the speed and accuracy of a circular saw, and extract an exact two ounces or four ounces to a milligram. He would have been chagrined beyond words to have toadd the words: ‘An extra ha’penny, or a penny under or over.’ You asked for four ounces and you got four ounces. He was admired by all of us, for we knew an artist when we saw one.
Another exclusive grocer’s in town was an Aladdin’s cave to me. I loved going there with a chum who collected a weekly box of special biscuits for the minister. There was a little stone bowl at the door, filled with clean drinking water so that customers’ dogs might be refreshed. The mahogany and plate-glass doors had the weight and opulence of a bank entrance, and the well-polished counters were ranged with strange, exotic foods. Things I’d never heard of, much less eaten. Truffles. Foie gras. Peaches in brandy. Calves-foot jelly. This last particularly fascinated me, and I couldn’t for the life of me decide when this should be eaten. ‘It’s invalid food,’ somebody assured me when I whispered my puzzlement over this delicacy. But what was an invalid? I’d never heard this grand name used to describe somebody in poor health, and I continued to puzzle whether or not the invalid
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