Little Me. Matt Lucas
most restaurants I’ve eaten in – have clearly come from the freezer. And there is not much to them bar the glory of the carb itself. They have little taste, barely any aroma save for the stale fat they’ve been drenched in, and nothing much really to commend them. Without ketchup (and I always eat mine without ketchup – see above re tomatoes) they are dry. And when I say dry, imagine I said the word slowly, in a Jamaican accent, for added emphasis. Drrrrrrry. Well, hang on, actually maybe don’t imagine I did the accent – because that might get me into all sorts of trouble these days – but imagine a Jamaican person lazily saying the word ‘dry’. That’s how dry a bad chip can be.
Not quite sure that was worth the effort, if I’m being honest.
Anyway, chips can be glorious. There’s a place in Manhattan called La Masseria, in the theatre district, and their chips are long, thin and soggy. There’s not a crunch to be found, but they’re amazing.
My mate Alfie has a restaurant in Bray that does these triple-cooked chips. He’ll tell you a long story about how they take days to prepare. Whatever, it’s worth it.
And sometimes – usually in America – the chips have a light seasoning on them, and then it all comes together.
Chip-shop chips are frequently phenomenal, though I much don’t like it when you leave the chippy and your clothes stink of cooking oil. Not only is it not an especially pleasant fragrance, but you can’t then tell people, ‘Oh, we went to Whole Foods and grabbed a pomegranate salad’, because everyone knows you don’t leave Whole Foods reeking of saveloy.
But overall, as much as I love ’em, you can’t trust a chip. They’re too unpredictable. That is why they’re not in the chart. Sorry.
Oh, you see now I’m conflicted. Tell you what, I’ll cut you a deal. At number 6, then, it’s Vegetables feat. Chips.
At number 5, why wait till Sunday? Yes, it’s the roast dinner.
Now, when it comes to a roast, most people have a tendency to focus on the meat. I understand that. I have to say that personally I tend to find myself preoccupied by the other components of the roast. That said, I like my beef medium to well done, thinly sliced and as fat-free as possible. This will leave some of you aghast, as you gnaw through big, thick chunks of red meat, blood dripping down your chin. You caveman, you! I bet you then nod off afterwards in your chair, farting in front of the hieroglyphics.
Actually, this does point to one of my big food-related issues, which is that I do eat meat but I struggle with it. It’s mainly just unease at the reality of eating a dead animal. It’s clearly both morally wrong and also a bit yucky. I can deal with chicken, but then what are those black elastic bits of string in the breast? Veins? Arteries? Eek.
The happy medium, I have found, is – wherever possible – to eat processed meat that looks like it has had nothing to do with any living creature ever. All hail the dipper! Vive la goujon! M&S Chicken Teddies, anyone?
Look at me. Like everyone else, I’ve become preoccupied by the meat, when everyone knows the glory of the roast dinner is that it is a compendium of many different foods. Bored of the carrot? Here’s a sprout. Not a sprout man? Have some cauliflower. The possibilities are endless.
I’m not sure if I care all that much for the heavily buttered vegetable, which is something I’ve noticed has been creeping into the roast in recent years. Yes, a small knob on a steaming pile of peas is quite nice, but these carrots that slide all over the plate are unwelcome. Ditto these purple carrots. Let’s not get carried away.
Parsnips sometimes make an appearance in a Sunday roast, I’ve noticed. Now I would normally reserve the parsnip exclusively for the Christmas roast, but others are keener and serve them regularly. I’d say they are fine as long as you accept them for what they are – a sweet diversion – but on occasion, early on in a roast, I might in good faith bite into some parsnip under the impression that it’s going to be a roast potato. Then there are problems, because nothing compares to a roast potato, especially a crunchy one smothered in gravy. However, if you approach a parsnip with the knowledge that it is a merely a parsnip, then it can provide a nice sabbatical from some of the more senior elements of the plate.
To elaborate on my earlier point, roast potatoes in gravy are godly. They really are of God. Thinking about it, maybe that’s why we have them on a Sunday. And I don’t say that lightly. I’ve no desire to offend anyone on religious grounds, but I’m going to stick my neck out on this one because, let’s face it, life is essentially pretty arduous, all things considered, so anything that brightens the day should be celebrated. And crispy, fluffy, garlicky, slightly oniony roast potatoes are definitely up there with the very best that life has to offer. Sex is nice too, but you know what I mean.
I’ve no idea quite why roast potatoes are so good. There’s something fun about mashed potato. Fried potatoes we’ve covered, though we haven’t mentioned the glorious sautéed potato, but then you don’t come across them very often, do you? No one ever says, ‘But, Joan, we’ve already had sautéed potatoes twice this week’.
Jacket potatoes are another cause for celebration, if served with lashings of melting butter – so much butter, in fact, that the potato in question is now sky-high in fat and calories and you might as well have ordered the chips.
As for boiled potatoes, what a waste! You must promise me we will never ever speak of boiled potatoes again.
BTW, the Americans do not have a clue how to make roast potatoes. It might be to do with the types of potato that grow there. Or they might just be too busy eating French fries and hash browns and mashed potato. They love mashed potato there. I get that. Like I say, there’s something fun about mashed potato. I think it’s because you can sculpt with it.
And of course we haven’t even got to Yorkshire pudding yet.
The Yorkshire pud is not only the finest thing to have come out of Yorkshire (with apologies to Michael Parkinson), it is also clearly the most delicious (apologies again to Michael Parkinson). Beating stuffing hands down, this edible spongy cushion of blandness – if done right – is the highlight of any roast.
‘If I ruled the world,’ sang Harry Secombe, ‘every day would be the first day of spring.’ Well, if I, Matt Lucas, ruled the world, before I even unpacked I would give Yorkshire pudding a knighthood.
‘Arise, Sir Pudding of Yorkshire.’
You’d see photos in the newspaper of a giant Yorkshire pudding posing happily outside the palace with his wife and kids, and then you’d see the photos again two years later, when – disgraced and stripped of its title – it gets sent to prison for tax evasion.
In short, I could eat Yorkshire pudding every day. In fact, lose the word ‘could’ from that sentence and you have a pretty accurate impression of how I live my life.
At number 4 – we’re hotting up now – it’s spaghetti Bolognese.
No veal ragout or none of that poncey nonsense, though. Minced beef, onions, mushrooms, maybe carrots. Proper English Bolognese.
And tons of spaghetti. Way more, in fact, than you would ever dare to put in any other pasta dish.