Disgusting. Foul. Vile. That's three words about sprouts already. I haven't checked to make sure if I can use 'egregious' in a brassica-type context yet, but if I can then that's four and I haven't even started yet.
They're revolting. I have mentioned this before now and people will insist on telling me how lovely they are, possibly shredded with liver and stir-fried with marmalade, or perhaps curried with a little turnip pesto - and they are not lovely, they are repellent. I have yet to see a recipe involving sprouts that has done anything other than make me reach for the telephone directory to see if I can't hunt the author down like a dog and save the rest of society from future supper ideas called frightening things like Gerald's Eggy Sprouty Bake.
It may all stem from childhood Decembers, when "Oh go on, it's Christmas!" didn't refer to my helping myself hugely to the contents of a bottle of with VSOP on it, but being served far too many sprouts, i.e.e any at all. My younger brother, for reasons I have never been entirely able to fathom, was able to get away with A Duty Sprout and my older brother, even more unfairly, was able to get away without touching the evil little bastards at all. I suppose I was down for getting The Children's Share, so I won't have another meltingly tender slice of Bronze Breasted, thank you, because there isn't room on my sodding plate, do you see?
I think I must have been well into my thirties before it ever dawned on me that I could serve a Christmas Lunch without Brussels sprouts, such a tradition was it. The tradition was that everyone at the table would murmur "Oh, um, I don't think I have any room for....oh perhaps just one or two of the chestnuts, then..." and at the end of lunch, when we had feasted royally on every other comestible known to man, I would throw a tureen of sprouts into next door's bin. Well I wouldn't chuck them away in mine, would I?
For a couple of years I would buy a net of sprouts in December, pay for them at the check-out and then ask the assistant to throw them away for me, to save me the bother of taking them home – why should I show them a good time?
Then a few years ago my husband hit on the brilliantly practical idea of having Open House for Christmas, which would involve a cold table (unusually stacked with piping hot ribs of beef and a turkey, along with a smallish salad for verisimilitude) – but of course there could be no possible place for sprouts on a buffet table
and so I wouldn't have to buy any at all, not even for the purposes of throwing away at the point of sale. No wonder I love him.
Sadly, word got around all too quickly about my pathological hatred of these deplorable vegetables. I now have a house containing sprout ear-rings, hand-made, if you don't mind, by an alleged 'friend', along with a fine jigsaw puzzle measuring about three miles by six which motif is exclusively sprout-based and that I
haven't yet felt strong enough even to open.
I have also been sent many lovely recipes. Luckily, a life-time in cooking means that I am able to read through a list of ingredients and have a pretty good idea of what the end result will taste like and so I have been spared the trouble and expense of making any of them. In fact, I have a rule set up that ignores all e-mail that contains the B word, so any vegan fundamentalists who think they can convert me can think again.
I even, in the interests of research, looked them up in Larousse Gastronomique. Apart from the gripping intelligence that they can be served cold in a salad, which idea could only be improved by garnishing with raw ox heart and strips of poached tripe, I am reliably informed that sprouts are essential for bruxelloise and brabançonne garnishes.
I should cocoa, cully.
