I’d rather have Greggs, thanks

Do you remember the old sketch by comedian Peter Kay about garlic bread? “Garlic? Bread? GARLIC BREAD?” A better visual and aural example of sheer disbelief as Kay’s dad’s reaction to “foreign food” would be hard to find, in my opinion.

I had a moment rather like that on Sunday when strolling around the grounds of The Open golf at Carnoustie. Rather expensive food and drink was certainly widely available and being widely consumed – captive audiences are great things for trade, you know – but not being the sort of person who ever voluntarily goes shopping, let alone being the sort of person who is prepared to queue to get into a shop, a lot of it passed me by. I was, however, much taken with a sign that proclaimed: “Gourmet sausage rolls.”

Gourmet? Sausage rolls? GOURMET SAUSAGE ROLLS? I ask you. What can you possibly do to a proper sausage roll to make it worthy of the attentions of a so-called gourmet? The whole point of a sausage roll as it should be is that it contains what could generally be described as minced sausage meat (one need not enquire too closely as to which bit of the pig it comes from), a bit of salt, some pepper, a smidge of onion and flaky pastry. It really doesn’t – and shouldn’t – need anything else.

One might argue that the meaty content should be closer to pink than grey but true aficionados of the style might even argue with that. Not me, however. That far I am prepared to go along with what might be termed the “new, improved” version of this great national dish of ours. Good sausage meat, I grant you, than which there is little better in this world when you’re in the mood for it, should be a foregone conclusion. But does that make it gourmet? No. It just makes it edible, popular and probably a great deal cheaper than anything with the specious “gourmet” label attached to it. Just ask Greggs.

Add paprika, chorizo, foie gras or caramelised apple if you will but please, do not call it a gourmet sausage roll. That smacks some kind of pansy pastry which, though I have no doubt it tastes perfectly good by its own lights, should not be dignified by the old and respected terminology granted to one of our great culinary institutions. So there.

Recipes should not, of course, be set in stone, or aspic or whatever. But there is a point beyond which culinary imagination ought to be firmly checked. I give you, as a variation on this particular theme, the concept (and I for one think it should stay firmly as a concept in the mind of a chef with too much time on his hands) of the Lorne sausage ice cream roll.

You heard me. Square sausage ice cream. “SQUARE SAUSAGE? ICE CREAM?” I hear you bellow. Land sakes! It’s obviously aimed squarely, if you will pardon the expression, at the Scottish market, with its predilection for geometry in foodstuffs.

This concoction has been invented in the kitchens of the Apex Hotel chain by a chef rejoicing in the unlikely name of Vladimir Kruus, which sounds rather like something you might end up doing if you ever actually consumed any of this stuff. The project includes the participation of dairy firm Glen Urr which has also been known, apparently, to perpetrate haggis and neep sorbet.

I can’t even begin to imagine what consuming that might be like, let alone this latest substance, set atop a brioche bun with toffee drizzle purporting to be some kind of ersatz version of broon sass.

Although perhaps we had better get used to such challenges to the tastebuds now that good old Dr Liam Fox, a man with a medical degree but otherwise no other obvious qualifications for dictating what the great British public gets down its neck, has apparently done a deal with American producers to allow the importation of chlorinated chicken.

Mind you, perhaps he is only doing it for our own good as maybe the chlorine makes it keep for longer and thus, as we follow the suggestion of his august leader and many a captain of industry looking forward to a no-deal Brexit, it will be much easier to stockpile.

My mother remembers the war and food limitations stretching well into the 1950s. I remember the three-day week and Margaret Thatcher parading her “prudent” hoarding of bags of Silver Spoon during the Great Sugar Shortage of 1974. I do not ever recall in the intervening years being told by a government that does not know its parsley from its Melbas that its members are so inept, incapable and ill-advised that the best they can offer us, as we march inexorably into the brave new world of international trading success they have promised us, is a leaflet on panic-buying Spam and long-life milk. No doubt while they themselves are tucking into a gourmet sausage roll or six.

Trust me. This lot will have us all issued with ration books before you can say “dried egg.”

Picture: Getty Images. Traditional sausage rolls as they should be.