Advent #3

As we head towards Christmas and the chance to finally do something with the duck that’s been taking up valuable real-estate in our freezer since before the clocks changed, I’m faced with the usual dilemma: when it comes to Christmas dinner, and with only four rings on the hob, which vegetable(s) do we sacrifice?

The philosophers among you (when not busy not listening for trees falling over) may have taken part in the sort of light-hearted debate where you imagine yourself on a balloon ride needing to lighten the load. The point of the debate being, what value we place on different people and roles in society – so, for example, you’d have one person arguing as a lawyer, one a farmer, one an actor, etc. (Incidentally, my uncle once told us he had debated as ‘Balloon Pilot’!)

In similar vein, my wife and I recently had a provisional discussion on the vegetable issue – and I must say I was rocked to my core when she nominated boiled potatoes, rather than carrots, as the most likely to be discarded.

Vegetables are a bit of a sore point with us anyway, afflicted as I am by Cornish Vegetable Blindness. The turnip/swede debate was one of the early features of our married life; and it subsequently emerged that what I’d always called broccoli was wrong too, and was actually (and even now I have to check) cauliflower. (I’m not sure I could pick cabbage out of a lettuce line-up either, while we’re on the subject.) Not that any of the ludicrously over-populated brassica mob is getting a look in while I’m in charge of the cooking (well, except sprouts). Frankly, never mind throwing them out – that dull and duller pairing, broccoli and cauliflower, aren’t even getting ON the balloon.