One of my office mates led us in a discussion about Greggs.  They were named ‘Company of the Year’ at the North East Business Awards, do you know?  I have always found their food plain and effective and, observing my children’s responses, there are no offending additives present.  My office mate is leaving – his postdoc contract is coming to an end – and he has suggested that we have a bite at Greggs.  He wants us to try Ham and Pease Pudding Stotties.

His memories of the stotties are rolled into a bundle with days out with his grandfather, feeding the ducks and then eating ham and pease pudding stotties.  His face goes all glowing when he remembers it.

I am rather put off, repulsed really, because: I have never eaten pease pudding, it looks neither green nor grey but something in-between, and there is that skipping rhyme –

pease pudding hot

pease pudding cold

pease pudding in the pot nine days old.

Anything that stands in the pot for nine days in a warm climate, like South Africa, goes fizzing and sour and that rhyme has always made me taste the sourness.  In my mind the pease pudding brand is fatally wounded.