Bangers and Mash

We opened a tin of country garden vegetable soup. Sheer laziness, I know, but it was fine. However, we were surprised to see that the contents included rice and pasta. I know they have to keep the price down, even though it was not a cheap brand, but country garden vegetable soup containing rice and pasta, well, you wonder which country’s garden vegetables they have in mind. 

I am not the first to say this, but before around 1970, at least in the north of England, rice was for puddings, and few knew what pasta was. “Foreign muck”, as my mother would have called it, was laughed at. 

From somewhere in my head, came this forgotten song about an Englishman who married an Italian, who, in the days when men never entered the kitchen, gave him only Italian food.   

https://youtu.be/aGFpVN2xwXU

Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren recorded the song as a follow-up to their hit, ‘Goodness Gracious Me’, which arose from their roles in the film, ‘The Millionairess’ (1960).

Sellers was at the height of his popularity. I never understood why. To me, he seemed a self-regarding show-off, and not a particularly likable person. I found much of his humour unfunny, and in retrospect it was often cruel, with every -ist and -phobia going. He was brilliant at inventing comic voices and characters, as you can hear in the song, but it was the kind of humour that laughed at odd accents and eccentricities. I side with the eccentrics. Underneath, I think he was an immensely talented but flawed, deeply unhappy soul. He seemed unable to be himself. He died of a heart attack in 1980, aged 54. There are conflicting views about the exact nature of his relationship with Sophia Loren. I suspect she had better sense.