Food Glorious Food II : BD IV

The fruits wrought from carcasses of swine are regarded here in much the same way as hardcore pornography back home. It's there if you want it and know how to find it, but kept out of sight from children and self-respecting members of the community.
Plenty of poor substitutes are available in the form of beef or chicken luncheon meat, chicken hotdogs and rashers of breakfast veal. Stocking my food cupboard has become considerably easier in recent months. Having discovered larger chain supermarkets outside Manama, vast quantities of ready-made meals and cooking sauces are now at my disposal. Cheese is ridiculously hard to get hold of. Coldstores only seem to stock 'Happy Cow" a Dairy Lea type of product and processed cheese slices that the locals can't get enough of. Jawads (the local name for the Tesco brand), has a nice little deli section with a good range of mouldy cheeses and it was while perusing these nuggets of creamery gold that I stumbled across a shrine.

Barely noticeable was a gap leading to a secret treasure of more pork produce than you could shake a pot of apple sauce at. Pate, hotdogs, sausages, bacon, chops, loin, ribs, even that pie with the egg in the middle. Filling my basket like Hong Kong Phooey would, I slowed when the display degenerated into a pork autopsy. I was at an exhibition of body parts more suitable for grinding down to fertilizer than human consumption. Knuckles, bags of tails and icepops of blood, rinds, tongues and testicles - you name it, it was there, pink and frozen. 
Already stilted I halted abruptly when presented to the 10.23kg, cling film wrapped head of the creature who's anatomy was commonly disguised as a desirable accompaniment to egg, beans, grilled tomato and tattie scones.

Must admit, it looked quite serene…

Food Glorious Food : BD II

Baked Beans, staple side-dish of the UK. So what's your favorite brand?

I've never liked Heinz myself - too sweet, always preferred Cross & Blackwell. Here Heinz is king, which makes me wonder just how many cans of beans are sold every day? A rather dull ponderance I admit, but what I'm trying to say is that undertravelled as I am, it's never struck me how huge the world is population wise, but how small it now seems related to consumer goods.

Shopping here has so far been a bit of a sod, supermarkets just ain't that super, selling the same limited range of canned goods - except for one which stocks Chicken Tonight - bless 'em. I guess the main problem is that convenience food hasn't quite made it here yet, the decline of the Traditional Nuclear Family and Stay At Home Mum in the West has truly left its mark. Sure, there's take-aways, McDonalds, KFC, Dairy Queen, Hardies and a whole list of other burger, pizza/kebab shops and stalls, but there's a severe lack of stuff like Dolmio, Uncle Bens, and Balchelors cooking sauces. I just like to come home, chop up a lump of dead animal flesh, fry it until golden brown, add sauce and simmer for 15 minutes, serve with rice and my preferred vegetable of choice.

The equivalent of finding something easy to make for tea out here is like hunting wildlife with a slingshot in the UK.

OK, slight exaggeration.

One night I went to do a bit of shopping. Collecting the coconut oil, herbs, spices and the other bits 'n' bobs needed to make a Korma presented little effort, I then went on a quest for chicken. Having found the butchery department I noticed some nice, plump, juicy looking chicken breasts.
Making a bee-line to the chill cabinet I thought to myself, hmmm, chicken breast shouldn't have lumps like that all over it… shouldn't have red veiny tracks running around those lumps either and now that I think of it, it most certainly shouldn't have long strands of what looks decidedly like spinal cord running from it whatsoever at all.

I settled for vegetables in my curry that night.

Sheep's Brain Korma was definitely not on the menu.