Yesterday I purchased a Cornish Pasty for seven pound. Over seven pound infact, call it seven pound sixty five for the sake of argument. I thought that was excessive for a pasty. A meal designed for tin miners to take down in to the depths of the bowels of the Earth, with basic ingredients, on a poverty wage stretched to its limit.
It reminded me of a conversation I had at work after suggesting Italian as a lunch option.
“Italian? Thats student grub, poverty food!”
“What do you mean?”
“Its all flour and cheese. Ten pence worth of flour, fifty pence worth of cheese and cream and a slither of meat.”
I hadn’t really thought of it that way before, but he was right. Pasta isn’t expensive, neither is bread, neither is cheese, and cheese is often used sparingly.
So I thought back to the last time I had Italian. It was just me, Billy No Mates away for work. I had gone to a cosy homely looking restaurant near King’s Cross and after inspecting the menu for some time I made my choice.
Rigatoni All’Amatriciana – a spicy rustic yellow datterino compote, pancetta and grated pecorino cheese. £19.50.
I don’t know what most of those words mean, but £19.50.
£19.50 won’t buy you a steak near King’s Cross, but £26.00 will, and it will come with chunky chips, fried in dripping if you’re lucky, and a fried mushroom, and onions rings, and a side salad. And you’ll feel satisfied and full.
The Rigatone All’Amatriciana comes in a very large bowl, and that only serves to highlight how little of it there is. Almost sod all infact.
Don’t get me wrong, it was tasty. I can’t complain about the price because I saw it on the menu before I ordered, but the portion size. I was reminded of when we were weaning the little ones on solid food and they had started to eat pasta. I gave a one year old a bigger portion than what I was presented with at this restaurant.
One of my signature dishes, that I have been cooking since I left home uses an entire bag of pasta, two packets of bacon, two onions, a punnet of mushrooms, four cans of tomatos, three cloves of garlic, a table spoon of smoked paprika, a handful of fresh basil, and a grating of mozzarella or cheddar, and a garlic baguette. It serves four, it costs less than £2.50 per serving, and the plates are stacked high, and licked clean.
After leaving this unnamed restaurant not far from King’s Cross, I found myself at Sainsburys picking up a hoisin duck wrap and a bottle of chilled white wine to enjoy in my hotel room.
To my knowledge, I have not been to an Italian restaurant since. Not even for happy hour pizza.
Duggan's Dig 
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