These home-made dishes are the prawn of Satan
IHAVE been cut adrift by the digital age. I cannot tweet, but can make a very humorous goat noise.
I distanced myself from Facebook after accidentally befriending a Russian woman called Olga from Vladivostok.
She wants love and a Nintendo Wii, not necessarily in that order.
Olga informed me last year’s wheat harvest failed. She would also “very much like” Weetabix.
It appears love-lorn Olga has made the request to a number of other middle-aged men within my postcode. One cryptic message on her site states: “Barry, I am hungry for you – and your Coco Pops.”
The tales that send the computersavvy public into a tizz are not the tales that send my own pulse racing.
This is illustrated by the story currently topping the hit parade on our own website: “Man’s Valentine’s Day meal for girlfriend goes viral after leaving people in disbelief.”
The individual concocted a strange dish for his sweetheart and, as is now the computer custom, posted an image of it online.
This is an alarmingly popular pastime. My wife’s Facebook account is crammed with images of her friends’ dinners.
She recently mistook a shot of tandoori chicken for road-kill and posted: “That’s terrible – was it a badger?”
Facebook feeds my wife with pictorial memories from past years. Today’s memory from 2016 is a bowl of spag bol.
Two close family members died that year and our son graduated from university.
The Valentine’s cook, who has become a brief internet star, served a bizarre culinary creation to his girlfriend.
Referred to only as Michael H, he mixed prawn and chips with meatballs and cheese.
The photograph is not for the faint-hearted.
During school biology classes, we handled dead things in jars. They were preserved in a vinegary substance.
Michael H’s meal reminded me of them.
He has risen to stardom courtesy of strange social media site Rate My Plate, a gallery of dinners. Judging by its staggering success, I may start my own for bald men: Rate My Pate.
Michael H’s dish has divided users, sparking adulation – a big emotion chronically downplayed on the internet – and repulsion in equal measure, gathering 200 responses, 300 retweets and 1,200 “likes”.
One critic wrote: “I’ve lost my appetite. Forever. Nauseated face.” Another typed: “It’s a Valentine’s meal that’s a sure way of you getting dumped.”
Another ranted: “Michael H should never be allowed anywhere near a kitchen again.
Or a plate. Or cheese. Or prawns. Or French fries, because those are not chips.” One posted the hurtful message : “Looks like a ruined sex life on a plate.”
The criticism is harsh, but Michael H is the author of his own destiny. Those who live by the homemade sorbet, die by the homemade sorbet.
Currently riding high on
Rate My Plate is “Devon
T’s” baked beans on Weetabix, which has spawned 15,000 comments. Devon T is clearly a cereal offender. His ground-breaking meal looks alarmingly like something our cat did on the carpet. I fear muesli and mash may be next on the menu – or potato wedges in porridge.
As David Thorneywork noted: “What in all things holy is that concoction? After that much fibre and beans, do you have the shred of a colon left?”
Peter Smith pulled no punches: “This is the food equivalent of self harm.”
Lisa H’s depiction of “egg combo” (egg with a lavish side-order of egg – boiled, fried and scrambled) will haunt me for some time. It at least answers the age-old question, what came first - the chicken or the egg? It’s the egg – up the oesophagus at lightning speed. There are a surprising number of full English breakfasts on Rate My Plate. This suggests a disturbingly large number of people have thought:
“That is a once-in-alifetime helping of bacon, bangers, beans and tomatoes. The world needs to see it.” The fry-up pictures are, understandably, a little samey. ‘Dinner photography’ is a very recent hobby. I recall an anorak I worked with some 40 years ago. He bored me with snaps of Torremolinos holidays.
If he’d shown pictorial evidence of memorable meals, I would’ve urged him to seek help.
Today, on social media, you can post such gushing praise as “amazing”, “brilliant” and “you’re a star”. You cannot post “get a grip” and “I don’t give a **** about your kippers”. Therefore, the horrible dinner pictures will continue at pace. Thankfully, I have prevented my wife from posting last night’s spaghetti carbonara. The Government may have thought we’re harbouring weapons of mass destruction – or Covid has taken a sinister new twist. Her aunt, in Sydney, has joined the herd and regularly updates the world on her culinary creations. Yesterday’s meringue received 200 likes. Funny that. In Australia, I thought they boo meringue.
GRANDAD never liked to talk about all the men he killed while serving during the war. But I know he wasn’t the regiment’s best cook MY wife rang and said: “Three of the girls in the office have received big bouquets for Valentine’s – they look beautiful.” “That’s why they got them, then,” I replied. MY mate says if he wins the lottery he’ll have an island named after him. Whatever, Barry JUST opened a Nazi-themed takeaway – Serves You Right SAID to the boss: “Unless you give me some semblance of office training, I’m leaving.” He said: “You know where the door is.” “No I don’t,” I replied.