Back in the day, my mother volunteered for meals-on-wheels for the elderly. When I helped her, during the school holidays, I glimpsed another world: mysterious slabs of tripe, dollops of grey Lancashire hotpot, ready-served on institutional thick white plates. The smell of cabbage water. Aluminium discs for stacking meals for transportation. The primitive automatic peeler in the council kitchen, which left the eyes in the potatoes. In houses we visited, I saw the hungry inhabitants waiting in anticipation, clasping trays on their knees, altars of smeary Formica.
Most of all I remember old faces, upturned in gratitude, making me wonder why they were disproportionately grateful for meals that made school dinners look appetising.
I understand now. It’s only taken 50 years. Now, if I look at my life dispassionately, I see how important that gift of food can become. Visitors bearing meals are special visitors. My husband and I are pathetically grateful when we can eat without making an effort. We too eat off our laps, from often grubby trays. If something involves no prep, other than placing in a microwave or an oven, we are overjoyed.
Him, because he’s never been a cook, and because doing all the chores and looking after me is enough for him. Me, because without height to see, strength to chop, and only one hand with grip enough to stir, cooking becomes, if not a battleground, then plain hard work. When it takes three hours to prepare something dead simple, and leaves you drooping and weary, then a lifetime of critical standards go out of the window.
Your attitude to food changes dramatically. When you can no longer rustle up meals with ease, or pop out to a restaurant, because that takes more energy than cooking, you stop being discerning. Frankly, you don’t care what you eat as long as it’s easy, within reaching distance, and doesn’t come wrapped in cardboard and plastic.
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We are not yet at the stage of tripe. At least I’m not.
The real problem is that he and I want to eat different things. We regard each other’s taste as heathen. Routine happiness for me is a huge bowl of tuna salad, with leftover potato and anything remotely green chucked in, kept within reach on a low shelf in the fridge. This will allow me to graze for three or four days. Whereas happiness for West of Scotland man is home-made vegetable broth stuffed with overboiled barley (urgh … like sheep’s eyes) and a large pot of beef mince. These provide fuel for a week.
He regards mechanically reclaimed meat as the fount of life. Even worse, he cooks it in a most depraved way, boiling it instead of browning it. I have tried many things, including buying him cookery books entitled Fifty Things to Do with Mince, but it has made no difference. The most I have managed is to get him to add some tomato purée. He is a purist: mince must be eaten with peeled, boiled potatoes – never baked, and never substituted by pasta – and must contain chopped carrot.
Sometimes, because I love him, I make the effort and cook a vat of the stuff for him. Usually in the form of chilli con carne, or spag bol, because these he will tolerate and I can too. But occasionally, when I’m guilt-struck by how tired he gets, constantly attending to my needs, I do it his way.
“Would you like me to make you some mince?” I say.
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“You mean mince mince?” he says suspiciously. “Proper mince?”
“Yes.”
“No aubergines. No mushrooms. No potatoes with roots growing out of them.”
“No.”
“Not burnt [he means browned], and the onions cut up small.”
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“Yes.”
I made a pot last week. On the second night, after adding more Bisto and half a pint of sriracha sauce, he conceded it was good. I glow like Mary Berry. Later this month, I have bought him a day at a local cookery school, making steak and a pudding. Bloke’s food. With any luck, he may cook sirloin instead of mince for a while.
Hold on the tripe just now.
Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after breaking her neck and back in a riding accident in April 2010