Wilfrid

It will depend in part on whether the vendor is logging on to eGullet half the day using a handy laptop.

As a very broad generalization, I think inexpensive Latino restaurants are - most of the time - doing nothing more or less than home cooking. They are doing it to save their customers the trouble, and also, believe it or not, to offer some real savings based on quantity. Someone who can't afford a leg of pork may still be able to scratch together three or four bucks for a portion of the same with some rice and beans.

Didn't any of you, as kids, try blind taste tests with fruit juices and water. You lose the plot almost instantly. But I'm not sure that says anything about wine tasters (not that I've read the article yet either).

Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.

Damn right, Bux. Ditto. First copy that hasn't shown up promptly all year. Pah.

Bear in mind that what would be expensive for one peasant standing over there in one corner is cheap for another peasant standing over there in the other corner. The peasants who were making cassoulet were raising their own geese, and fattening the liver to sell at the market, and raising their own pigs. The meat bits of a cassoulet were practically offal, in the strict sense of leftover waste material, for these peasants. But of course no peasant is going to go out there and buy duck confit and Toulouse sausage if they don't have their own. And as for breaking the crust, what else was there to do all day? No DVDs, no eGullet, etc.

Warm crusty white bread, thinly spread with unsalted butter. Slices of roast pork fresh from the joint. One thin slice of sausagemeat stuffing, and a garnish of apple wedges caramelised in butter and brown sugar. Mustard on the side (not sure if it goes with the apples). A pint of Wadworth's 6X to wash it down. And a packet of crisps. Oh well, off to Pret a Manger, then.

I never dismiss out of hand the idea I could get a version of a dish which I'd really like. I am very open-minded about food.

We hardly ever ate pease at home either. I think it's day was pretty much over. But we did used to boil bacon for sandwiches. I miss that.

Elisabeth Luard's European Peasant Cookery would have some answers. From memory, I think bouillabaisse is in there, but she also has a lot of the simple, inexpensive dishes from which grander dishes "evolved". She most certainly includes cassoulet as an authentic peasant dish, but has simpler bean/pulse-based stews too. Hey, that Clifford Wright site is interesting too.

Pease pudding is a traditional accompaniment to boiled bacon in any form, and you can eat it with boiled beef too. Can't say I ever liked it.

We have an overhead junk cupboard, and what you can find depends on whether you can bother to stand on a chair or if you just rely on rummaging blindly with your hands.

Jin, I eat good sausages, usually with some confection of beans or lentils. I also eat mashers with all kinds of things. But together? I don't know how much UK culture we have in common, but this might give you a shiver down your spine: Saturday afternoon TV, Kent Walton announcing all-in wrestling, Dad with a plate of bangers, mash and fried onions balanced on a tray on his knees. May seem exotic to some, but it's something I cunningly escaped from years ago.

Oh dear. I went through a brief phase, a few years back, of re-creating school dinners out of nostalgia. Marrowfat* peas with fish fingers was typical. A very misguided period in my life. It occurs to me that they would go well with a moist Australian meat pie. *Isn't it marrowfat rather than marrowbone? But I know the ones you mean.

Repetition. More thin slices of beef, seared, but this time with an amrmagnac and cream pan sauce. Too busy, too hot... There was going to be guava sorbet from NYC ICY for dessert (or pudding - hah!), but the Beloved dmonstrated a new skill: sucking up an entire pint of sorbet in the course of an early evening phone call. End of the epoisses, instead.

Bangers is mash is just that: sausages and mashed potatoes. The most exotic presentation is Desperate Dan-style, where the potatoes are served in a dish with the sausages sticking up out of them like so many tree stumps. Gravy - which means brown, British beef-stock-based gravy - is a traditional accompaniment, but you can simply serve with brown sauce (HP, OK) if you prefer, or with ketchup. Fried onions are a possible side, or you can finish the onions in the gravy, thus producing, guess what, onion gravy? Peas, regular or mushy, are optional, as are baked beans. I am so glad I don't eat this stuff any more.

And of course, it's not just tax dollars. Most of the states are now pledged vast sums by the tobacco manufacturers going forwards as a result of the litigation settlement several years ago. This, of course, is an incentive for the states to ensure that the companies remain profitable, so I don't see the noses coming out of the troughs in the too near future.

Rail Paul, I'm not sure you're right about awards to air stewards. A class action brought in Florida a few years back established, in that state anyway, that ETS on aircraft could be a hazard to air cabin attendants. Individual members of cabin crew then needed to bring individual proceedings to establish their own entitlement to damages. I heard that one or two had won awards - which is not that many - but I didn't think the sums were so great. There have been relatively few successful law suits brought by workers claiming to have been made sick by tobacco smoke in the workplace. The main reason is probably that they need to demonstrate they have a condition caused (a) by tobacco smoke and (b) by tobacco smoke at work, not at home or someplace else. Which is not to say that people - even the relatively small number of non-smoking bartenders - shouldn't get protection unless they can bring a successful law suit. Even as a non smoker, I support good ventilation rather than a ban. I've been to San Francisco, and the spectacle of smokers hopping in and out of the bar door to take a drag was silly and annoying. If so many people really don't like smoking in bars, you'd think no-smoking bars would be numerous and popular. Why aren't they? Edit: I checked on the flight attendants. The first award wasmade in June this year - $5.5 million. Of course, who knows if there'll be more?

Harrumph! Two dishes I was introduced to in childhood for which I've never much cared: bangers and mash with onions, and Yorkshire pudding. Toad in the hole is a kind of collision of the two. Of course, I am stating my preference, I am not taking the position that it is an intrinsically bad dish.

My goodness. I wonder what other treats one might find at such a store?

I was sitting with my back to the room, which meant getting quite a sore neck while trying to peek at the other diners, some of whom were quite attractive. So I didn't follow what was going on in any detail. I didn't have the impression it was ever completely full.

Baby wipes. Like I said before, call them adult wipes and we'd be using them day and night. They're fantastic.

Tommy's right. A waiter presented a small plate with teeny bits of bread on it from my right, and I automatically tried to take the plate from him. He meant me to take one of the little pieces of seaweed toast. It wasn't clear. They should have doled them out with tongs. And I don't know why I got toast to accompany geoduck, not brandade. Not a big deal, though.

No, but it would never have occurred to me to chomp on the feet if you hadn't set an example. And I was going to overlook (if I may) the eyeballs...

Cabby, when you have time, please considering explaining why you say "taking in" instead of "eating".