The latest Word in Your Ear banter between Hepworth and Ellen contains a theory with which I must take issue, and once it’s not one of David’s. As so often the podcast starts with a Stackwadyy game. The next paragraph will give away the answer so look away if you’re playing at home.
The challenge is to identify what piece of band merchandise, in the tradition of Joy Division oven gloves, from a given list is the ringer. The answer turns out to be Pet Shop Boys designer salt and pepper grinders.
Mark chastises himself for making the solution, which David failed to get, too obvious because the market wouldn’t exist as ‘no one uses salt and pepper any more’ (‘That’s true, that’s true’, David interjects). ‘You used to lay the table’, Mark goes on to explain as if revealing the wisdom of the ancients, ‘And put out the salt and pepper.’
Has seasoning food at the table really gone the way of the 8 track and Betamax?
Well it might be that way in their houses but not in ours. Salt and pepper is a must, especially salt.
First of all; I live alone, I cook for myself – if a dish needs salt and pepper I add it to the pot, not on the plate.
Second; on the very few occasions these days when I have company over for dinner, I don’t put salt and pepper on the table, because I’m an excellent cook and the dish is seasoned the way it should be seasoned. But I will, out of politeness, ask if anyone needs salt (I’d never ask if they wanted pepper – WTF? Eat your free food and be happy) – it’s never happened that anyone has said Yes please, so I’m right in assuming that it doesn’t need it.
Third; I collect nice looking salt and pepper shakers – not obsessively, but I probably own around twenty pairs at the moment.
I get mightily insulted when people start cranking on the salt & pepper before they have even tasted my lovingly-crafted and undeniably delicious plate of food.
If, however, they apply a modicum of either after the first mouthful then that’s fine with me.
We all have different tastes (I call Prog Rock to the stand) and even if these Philistines don’t know 5-spice roasted quail from a Fray Bentos pie , live and let live. (Never getting a dinner invite from me again)
Salt is nasty stuff and bad for the kiddleys. Having said, a little sprinkled over oven chips can be a fine thing, although garlic powder (or granules) is even better. Pepper, though, cars and black from a big old pepper mill? Bring it on!!!!
A seasoned witch is bad for the liver.
…and don’t get the salt Close to the Veg!
Same here. Sometimes grind a bit of black pepper on the top before serving but never have S&P on the table. Haven’t done for decades.
AFAIK, McDonald’s have never offered salt and pepper
It’s in little paper pouches I believe. You have to ask.
Surely I’m not the only one who can never resist picking up a couple of sachets, just in case they come in handy later?
Let’s talk about condiments
Hey you! The Rocksteady cruet
I could do more about salt & pepper but I don’t want to “push it” !!!
HMS Saltash Castle was the second ship commanded in The Cruet Sea.
It’s usually within reach, but I don’t use it unless neccessary. My wife uses it without first checking if it’s needed.
When out for a meal, I almost never need to use it. Professional cooks will make sure the meal is properly seasoned during cooking.
I almost always find that meals prepared by professional cooks have far too much salt in them. As someone that favours raw food at home, I have very very little salt as it’s simply not part of my meal preparation process. On a day to day basis, I get most of my salt from cheese.
When I lived on my own, the only salt in the house was in the little blue bags I’d taken out of packets of crisps unused
I used to wonder why pepper was there. Salt made sense as it brought out the flavour. Now, my BP is (was) high and my senses are dulled, so salt is a no-no and pepper is frequently ground over boiled eggs (once the top is removed of course) and other dishes.
I don’t understand why waiters in (Italian) restaurants come round with dollops of parmesan and a 6 ft pepper grinder and ask if you want some (do you, do you want some?) before you get the chance to try the dish.
When I complain that they put on ‘too much, much too young’, they reply – well, you did ask for The Specials…
👏🏻
I season food when cooking and often grind pepper over certain dishes but salt is reserved for the odd occasions I have chips. I too have high blood pressure (much reduced by switching to 0% beer) but I’ve never added salt to food much, especially before tasting.
Snap! You am I, apart from the 0% beer, of course.
I like beer and wine and have always worked in a boozy culture but my blood pressure stayed stubbornly at the high end of acceptable. My wife suggested I go alcohol free for a month to see what happened and it has had a positive effect. As there are now pretty decent 0% options, it’s been ok. Years ago, alcohol free beer was nasty and I really don’t like fizzy soft drinks but now I can have a “grown up” drink. I’ve missed the wine with food a bit but a cold 0% beer still hits the spot.
Books, DVDs, magazines, and newspapers are out, too. Old people’s things now, apparently.
…along with measured conversation, a demand for corroboration of opinion and supporting evidence, a withering disregard for populist rabble rousing and a strong sense of public duty.
Well before dinner I watched the Joni Shadows and Light DVD and then added salt and pepper to my dinner.
As to it being adequately salted during cooking that’s a preference thing. Isn’t it better to let people salt to their own preference when served ??
This. Agreed. The concept of ‘properly seasoned’ as an excuse not to offer a choice of additional condiment is merely a pompous deceit that prevents the consumer from seasoning to their own preference. The first time that I eat fish & chips from an establishment that fails to provide salt, vinegar, tomato and brown sauce on the table without being asked is usually the last time I patronise them.
I use a pepper mill regularly. Whilst agreeing with the prevailing view that I will have seasoned the food properly during cooking, freshly ground pepper on some things is ace (most pasta dishes, smoked salmon, steaks).
I have a similar attitude to salt but it needs to be flakey sea salt and it’s for texture and little bursts of saltiness rather than an overall level of salt (that is taken care of in the cooking). Think chips here.
So, in summary, Mr Ellen was half right (I have a pot with sea salt in so only have a pepper mill). But they do not go to the table.
Very much this…⬆️
I think this is closest to what I was thinking. Maybe what Messrs Ellen and Hepworth were talking about was shakers. I haven’t used those for decades, and wouldn’t bother if offered. But mills for both is very much where I’m at. I cook with so little salt that I am not surprised if guests want to add a little; that’s fine. But personally, when I’m eating out and I’m not in England, it will never cross my mind to add seasoning.
Top analysis. Seasoning is a personal thing. However, not putting the condiments on the table is akin to being kow-towed by the snobbish claimers of the ‘properly seasoned’ argument. Let the eater decide.
I detect a little metropolitan snobbery in any dismissal of the use of ‘shakers’, if that was what it was, given that pretty much anybody serving condiments these days puts out grinders – mostly bought form the supermarket I suspect, as that’s what is readily available. And that’s what the merch item supposedly was – a pair of grinders. So they were talking bollocks again. No surprise there.
There is no need to add salt to food, either cooking or at the table. Most has its own. And when it is deployed, you shouldn’t be able to taste it, it should only enhance the flavours of the meal. I have been privileged enough to eat at posh restaurants and they put way too much in their eye-wateringly expensive food. Ban it, I say, except in chip shops when it is a necessity.
I’m given to understand that the secret to luxurious restaurant food is way more salt and butter than you would use at home.
The butter thing is definitely true – mashed potato and scrambled eggs being absolutely improved by doubling the amount you would normally use (this is a once only doubling – doing it every time would be wrong).
I’m a home baker and always add a bit of salt to a loaf.
Possibly they mean people don’t sit at the table as families these days so there’s no laying the table. If we have people round we do sit at the table though but we have no salt and pepper. I think a pepper mill is a UK thing. Mediterranean countries usually have oil and vinegar to help yourself to. A trend is to have a small dish of sea salt on the table, hopefully with a spoon to minimise any faecal content. When I lived at home with the parents, a salt and pepper mill was the norm.
We all have a sergeant pepper mill, don’t we?
I am assuming Duco01 and jazzjet (among others) have Art Pepper mills.
Whereas I sincerely hope Hubert Rawlinson has a Titus Salt shaker.
Don’t you mean a sieve to minimise any….. Oh.
Shh!! Don’t reveal the ritual tools!
That would, of course* be for fishing the communion wafers out of the holy wine after one of the secret Blog clique ‘meat-ups’ or mingles as they are known in the parlance.
Yes, it’s the AfterWord Mass Sieve!
*preaching to the converted, I know.
Perhaps somewhere in deepest Timperley, there is a prototype ‘Chris’ Sieve,
from the abandoned Frank Sidebottom Homeware project.
you know there is, there really is.
Thank you!
@salwarpe I never leave home without it.
My son took me to a curry place in Manchester this year, it’s been there for years. Because I don’t use much salt in cooking it tasting very salty. I was at a food festival in Huddersfield at an Asian cookery demonstration and the woman presenting seemed to shovel copious amounts of salt in the meal. At the QandA someone asked why they put so much salt in I think the reply was to enhance the flavour.
Having seen the amount she added I’d probably need to drink a whole jug of mango lassi.
Back in the seventies a friend’s dad would come home from the pub with fish and chips. He’d lay the fish down turn the salt pot upside down and run the salt down one side of the fish and back up the other, then turn the fish over and repeat the process, then salt the chips.Still makes me shudder.
Nope, but I do have I Am The Eggman and I Am The Walrus eggcups.
I was in York on Sunday and walked past a shop which many years ago was a bric-a-brac antiques shop. They had these in the window. Alas they were shut so I never got to buy them but I feel these would grace the finest dining table.
That second one – is it from the personal collection of Sarah Miles?
Does the wicker hamper that Gatz has just won feature a leather strapped set of these two beauties, I wonder?
PEP not PEE.
Thank goodness.
Surely these would be a given for the discerning Afterword member to be a talking point on their table.
This handsome Grateful Dead salt and pepper set makes an ideal birthday present for the Deadhead in your life. Order now to avoid disappointment.
https://themusicboxcompany.com/product/grateful-dead-sculpted-salt-pepper-set/
Those can’t be official merchandise? Would Cliff ever sell something that might allude to the colour of his hair?
@salwarpe I saw them on a charity shop sh1t page.
You could try these instead.
@salwarpe how about these? Fit to grace any high class table.
I left the China shop some time ago, HR.
Had this ready to post yesterday but…
For your delectation.
I do. It was from Lakeland (link to the discontinued product below). I bought one as a Christmas present for my sister and spoke so highly of it that The light bought one for me too. It’s very handy, as it grinds fine while the one from my set grinds coarse and is better for cooking. Of course that means the ones on the table don’t match but I’m starting to realise that the very presence of salt and pepper on the table is already regarded as eccentric by many.
https://www.lakeland.co.uk/43028/the-sergeant-pepper-mill
I do. Present from the in-laws about ten years ago. Works really well, and has a pleasing Liverpudlian voice (when no-one else is about):
https://www.lakeland.co.uk/43028/the-sergeant-pepper-mill
Salt is as essential to ritual magick as a cock. Pepper not so much.
Odd that. Whenever I see a really impressive grinder, it’s always for pepper not salt.
Where is that confounded Moose??
Not taking the bait.
Sapristi Nabolas! Owww…
I understand really big grinders … Moose… clutched by waiters was introduced because smaller ones as part of the table setting kept getting nicked.
It’s the extravagant flourish, the waiter’s showmanship. He needs to brandish a big one to get everyone’s attention and respect. A little one just gets laughed at. That’s what Tigger told me at least.
The waiter is typically an exotic Mediterranean, who has to display his guns when he deploys his oversized grinder. I’ve seen grown women faint. And some men.
Still available in Dai Towers, but I should also reduce my salt intake.
The only, *only* time I add salt is when eating fish’n’chips. It adds just enough kick to the batter, especially with a sprinkling of lemon. Chefs might argue or be offended, but I like what I like.
Pepper is, of course, the work of the devil and must be avoided at all costs. See also: cheese, which is the food they serve in hell.
Other opinions are available – although they are wrong!!!
And also serving the sulphurous deposits from a hen’s cloaca, vile things. Though I do like cheese.
Lemon juice on chips, lovely.
A fellow cheese-dodger. Thank God. I was at a lunch this afternoon where I had the usual conversation when this comes up
“What, all cheese? Even [insert name of some obscure variant of the rancid stuff]?”
“Yes that too”
“You’re mad. I love cheese”
Me too. I’ve never mentioned it before because I get the impression there are a lot of cheese fiends. I can tolerate the occasional Mrs Kirkhams but I’d rather not.
Tabasco sauce is basically the greatest hits of condiments- salt, pepper, vinegar and chilli (I think, anyway..?)
A few drops in a soup works a charm
I think it’s a perfect product, from the recipe, taste, simplicity and the design of the bottles. It cannot be bettered.
The habanero and jalapeño variations are good, too.
The chipotle variant is nice, too – but not essential. It adds a nice smokey flavour to things, good for cooking, etc.
I recall a radio programme years ago where the American tour guide sais something like “Tabasco is made from three ingredients, chillies, vinegar and salt.”. It always stayed with me as the tour guide had a very pronounced accent and way of speaking, my girlfriend of the time and myself would quote it to each other so it stuck.
I remember reading an REM interview back in the day when Peter Buck was asked what was his one touring essential. Bottle of Tabasco.
I seem to recall that I bought a green version of tabasco sauce once. I didn’t rate it. I ended up throwing it away after it had sat in the fridge for about 5 years.
“5 years” is a good rule. If I haven’t worn something or consumed something for at least 5 years, it gets absolutely no reprieve when a clear out day comes around.
Was that a lime version? I find it quite good for a Bloody Mary, and I’ve fixed a few of those in my time.
A lime version?
I don’t think so.
I think it was just a milder version of the red sauce.
https://gcc.luluhypermarket.com/en-ae/tabasco-mild-green-pepper-sauce-60-ml/p/21937/
It’s the jalapeño version. Mild and fruity.
I’ve a bottle of tabasco that’ll outlive me,
I recently bought a new LG OLED telly to replace my 10-year-old Panasonic plasma. Not because it was broken, but because the modern TV dramas Mrs F likes to watch (e.g. Grace, currently) frequently show text messages on phones as a dramatic device, and she couldn’t read them. And last year’s model was cheap at John Lewis.
Anyhow, the new set comes with 4 HDMI ports, but nowhere to plug in the SCART lead from my S-VHS deck. And the Input menu only allows to select between Blu-ray player or Set Top Box – what about my Freeview+ HDD recorder?
Does it have indentations on the top to add your salt and pepper pots? Next to the exploding penguin.
You know, for your TV dinners.
I’m surprised it doesn’t give you the option to choose between HDMI inputs, one of them being the HDD. Being much more techie than me I dare say it surprised you too, yet here with both are. Chip?
Should’ve bought a Fiio. 😉
A quick google confirms what I thought, that Freeview HDD recorders can have HDCP issues with newer sets. I’ve got round similar problems with a cheap HDMI splitter that strips HDCP from the signal.
Why are you still using a set top box? Doesn’t it have Freely or something similar?
Finally, I’ve got a device that will upscale composite or YUV really well, currently the world’s most expensive doorstop, having cost about £5k when new but now obsolete because who needs a predominately VGA switcher.
I eveidently didn’t explain the above very well.
I can assign ‘type’ labels to the 4 HDMI inputs of the TV. But I can only select between “Blu-ray”, “Set Top Box” or blank.
Selecting “Blu-ray” then gave me a list of manufacturers, I selected Panasonic, and now I can use the LG remote control to operate the Panasonic disc player.
Selecting “Set Top Box” then asks for Satellite/Cable/Freeview (why would anyone connect a Freeview STB to a TV with Freeview built in?), then the list of manufacturers. So I left that.
But there’s no “HDD recorder” option (it’s a Panasonic, btw), let alone “VHS deck”, and there’s no facility to manually label the inputs. When did HDD recorders become so old?
The TV has four HDMI inputs. The outgoing plasma set only had two, and I had to use an external 4-input HDMI switch to connect BD, HDD and Firecube. Of course, the LG telly has built-in apps, so I can ditch the cube, and the HDMI switch box, and have only two of the four inputs occupied.
Does that make more sense?
It sounds like the label option is a shortcut to enable you to use one remote for various devices. As far as I understand, a HDMI socket is a HDMI socket is a HDMI socket – you can plug any HDMI-outputting device into any HDMI socket (I may well be wrong). Currently all my devices run into my Yamaha receiver so that I can have surround sound for everything, and the Yam goes into my TV. But if didn’t have a receiver my Blu-Ray would go into the TV’s HDMI socket 1 (IIRC, HDMI 1 carries a stronger signal/better picture or something), my Sky box into 2, XBox into 3, etc., or, importantly, I could arrange them in any other order whatsoever.
Based on what you’ve said, my suggestion would be to label every HDMI as ‘blank’, and forget about the one-remote-control shortcut.
Well, yes, quite. But when did the HDD-based-video-recorder/PVR/Freeview+/call-it-what-you-like become too old to mention?
Shortly before they made your TV.
My telly is old but you can change the labels on the inputs. Maybe it’s buried in a submenu? RTFM?
I have some old Sharp 60” and you can on those. They’re about 15 years old and still going strong although they don’t go out as much now, everyone wants 80”. Ouch, my back!
VHS? Blimey
S-VHS. A bit less fuzzy than regular VHS. I think the S was for Super and there were
S-VHS tapes.
Yes I am aware. But haven’t really considered any type of VHS tapes and SCART connectors in decades
I use subscription based Channels DVR for off air recordings, also can work with streams with a little ingenuity I like it
I have a high-spec JVC S-VHS deck and a few tapes which I intend to transfer to digital at some point. A retirement project, if the deck/tapes last another five years.
I used to work in broadcast video equipment. Channel 4 did their archive recordings on JVC S-VHS decks.
“SCART”
Well, it’s certainly easier to remember and say than the full term for which SCART stands, namely “Syndicat des Constructeurs d’Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs”.
I once made (from two connectors and some cable) my own SCART lead as work needed a non-standard length. Soldering it together was a nightmare.
I have no idea how they manufacture HDMI leads (Pixies with tiny soldering irons?) but I won’t be soldering one up myself.
Fents post is like Facebook groups. You are chatting away on say the Vintage Hi Fi group and up pops an ad for someone selling their beer fridge.
Fentonsteve, I haven’t been in your particular SCART boat, but in similar old-tech-meets-new-sockets situations, I’ve scoured Amazon or similar for adapters. There are a surprising number of connectors that can sit between a plug and socket that wouldn’t otherwise join.
Re the Input problem (if I understand it correctly), you could try a HDMI switcher, a small box that allows you to plug, say, your set-top box (STB) and Freeview into it. You then plug the switcher into one of your TV’s HDMI sockets. You have to manually switch the box’s output from STB to Freeview box depending on what you’re watching at the time, but it might help if there’s nothing else.
Also (and apologies if I’m teaching you something you already know), but I would have expected a new TV to allow you to activate/deactivate inputs – if you have 4 HDMI sockets but only two choices (BluRay or STB), maybe the other two sockets have to be turned on via the setting(s) menu. Manufacturers sometimes suppose that people don’t want to keep pressing the Input button repeatedly to skip past unused/empty HDMI sockets, so they turn off those sockets – or something like that.
Good luck!
Anyhow, back to salt and pepper…my dad was a mighty condimentalist. He had a dish permanently in front of him at the table containing salt, pepper grinder, Worcester sauce, paprika, other odds and sods I no longer remember. Didn’t matter what he was served, everything went on. It was something to do with adding a bit of taste to NAAFI food during the war. When she first encountered this phenomenon the late Mrs thep was OUTRAGED on my mother’s behalf, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Which is probably why I still like a fair bit of salt. And just because a chef has used an amount of salt that s/he deems correct, that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree.
Exactly.
Exactly squared
I make the world’s best scrambled eggs – fact. Seasoned perfectly (no salt, that’s in the butter, and a gentle sprinkling of pepper). Tomato fried in a pool of olive oil, toast a slice of homemade bread (45% spelt, 45% wholegrain, 10% 00 Italian). Breakfast perfection .
Oh, and a restrained dollop of HP sauce on the side. Sue me, I don’t care.
I’m sure that’s very good but…
I make the world’s best scrambled eggs. Take 3 eggs. Take a large piece of unsalted butter and melt in a pan – medium heat. Gently whisk the eggs with a fork and good pinch of salt and a couple of grinds of pepper. Pour into pan and let sit for 20 seconds. Gently stir the eggs – don’t overdo it or it becomes like porridge. Just before all of the liquid has solidified, remove for the heat and put it on two bits of good toast.
The butter should be unsalted because the salt added to the eggs helps the whites break down and mix better with the yolks. Or so I have been told.
I’m a firm believer in Ian Fleming’s maxim that one should never ever eat scrambled eggs one has not prepared and cooked oneself
So according to Flemings maxim, we all make the worlds best scrambled eggs. I can live with that accolade.
I don’t.
I do.
I believe that makes you exceptional.
I can live with that accolade.
No salt in the making of the omelette whatsoever. (Americas Test Kitchen conclusively proved salt does nothing re the whites breaking down). Same whisk that scrambled the eggs used to move eggs gently around in the pan. Salted butter on toast. When scrambled eggs are on plate, a gentle sprinkling of pepper.
And, of course, a restrained and genteel dollop of HP on the side.
But salted butter Lodes…..
Salted butter on the toast, unsalted for the scramblies. .
Lard is a perfect substitute for either.
I, for one, am truly reassured by this.
I was always told that the eggs should not be seasoned before cooking scrambled eggs, only afterwards once its on the toast – I actually only add pepper (and lots of it) as I don’t like over;lying salty food.
I was also taught that the eggs and butter should be placed in a cold pan and gently stirred as it comes up to heat.
Taste good to me.
I do them in the microwave. 4 eggs, whisk, 1 minute on full, stir, another minute. Add knob of butter & stir, onto hot toast. Less than 5 minutes and delicious. Optionally I add chives from the garden.
I never add salt or pepper at the table, only during cooking and that is sparingly – I’ve never really used much salt and my wife is particularly sensitive to it, often complaining that its too salty when it tastes fine to the rest of us.
Also applies to soy sauce, fish sauce etc
Thanks for the hamper (you can never predict which threads will bring one). I trust I shall find a pair of those thumbnail sized salt and pepper sets tucked away in the webbing trim in the lid? Jolly good. Now let’s break out the Pimms.
And mine languishes with just six to go win a hamper.
Though the SCART HDD interlude has taken this thread in a different direction, it all counts. Not that I’m bitter.
Could be worse…my most recent thread has a mere 97 to go…
I don’t know which is worse being so far off or being so near but yet so far.
Mine is the Harry Brook of threads – now on 90, but may scrape to 99 before dying
I’ve just used AI to identify a piece of the drive shaft assembly that has fallen off a complete stranger’s BMW over on that there BlueSky. This will earn me zero hamper points but I feel this is a Thursday that will live long in my memory.
My pepper grinder was recommended (by a Which survey I think) as being the bestest one. It’s by Oxo, it holds a metric shit ton of pepper and you can set it to five – that’s right, FIVE – levels of grind granularity. What a time to be alive.
Mine goes up to six.
That’s one better!
Freshly ground black pepper on a single fresh strawberry. You’re welcome.
Such beauty! (a single tear runs down my cheek…)
A pause for contemplation in a hectic world.
This shall be my constant companion today.
I’ve just read today in connection with the M&S strawberry sandwich that trying HP sauce on a strawberry is a life changer.
Anyone up for it?
All these replies and no one’s mentioned celery salt. It’s quite nice.
Another essential ingredient to a Bloody Mary. Always have some in stock.
As is Worcester Sauce – which must be Lea & Perrins. Supermarket own brands don’t cut it (falling back to more like Soy Sauce) and the closest cousin – Henderson’s Relish – just doesn’t have the “zing”
‘Hendersons, but with a dash of Balsamic and malt vinegar, too. Monster, monster…’ In cooking, dunno about a cocktail.
Damn right. A family member once bought Henderson’s thinking it was a suitable alternative. No, no and thrice no.
Henderson’s alternatives can be be found in the ‘Geo. Watkins’ range. Their mushroom ketchup is very good, especially in a stew. Probably, again, not in Bloody Mary…
Worcester has the sauce, Droitwich has the salt, and in between the two is Salwarpe – yeah! I guess salt is in my blood and in my name.
Talking of own brand condiments, get into Morrison’s version of Marmite. It’s a league above the original 🤤
Recommendation noted. I’m using Aldi’s now, unsurprisingly it tastes like Marmite.