It’s early days, but I am vaguely planning a trip back to the UK in January or February for maybe three weeks. This will be my longest visit in twenty years. The last time I went was over eight years ago and that was a three day visit for my son's wedding. Once he went on honeymoon, I headed home. I’ve lived abroad for thirty years in total with only very occasional trips back.
I will spend some time in Scotland visiting my 87 year old mother (for what we both know will probably be the last time – traumatic or what?) and the rest of the time in London, my spiritual home, with my daughter. A side trip to my son on the south coast of England facing France, my other spiritual home. Then back to China, my home home.
I’ve been thinking about this for months and being me, food comes into the equation. I’m looking forward to eating things I can’t get here. I’m not looking for wonderful Michelin restaurants or fine dining or even average restaurant dining. I’m looking forward to ingredients. Nor am I looking for childhood stuff I wouldn’t eat now even if I had never left.
My short list so far is short indeed but includes Stornoway black pudding, Arbroath smokies, dirt cheap lobsters bought from the boat as we did as kids, mussels and crabs which we never paid for – foraging before it had a name. I’ll think of many more. You will have noticed a preponderance of seafood, and why not?
But then I didn’t mention cheese. About 17 years ago, I made another short trip back and an old dear friend (ex-girlfriend) invited me for dinner. We arranged that I meet her outside a certain supermarket after she finished work. She had to pick up a few things, then we would head back to her place where she would cook. Everything went to plan – nearly. As we approached the checkouts, she said to me
“Oh s**t, I forgot … (some cleaning products, I recall). You go pick a bottle of wine and I’ll be back in a minute."
She returned equipped to clean and found me standing in front of the wine selection like a rabbit in the headlamps of a car.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
I could only mumble “but they have more than one kind of wine!”
Now, let’s be clear, I make most of my living by writing about wine. I don’t consider myself an expert. I have LOTS to learn, but I’m not totally ignorant. But years in Chinese supermarkets and a bad case of reverse culture shock had left me stunned.
Then we crossed the road to the specialist cheese shop. I swear, I walked in and burst into tears before I even looked at the cheese. Just the aromas set me off – and I’m not usually an over-emotional person.
The woman running the shop asked my friend what was wrong with me and was informed that I had just returned from years in cheese-free China. Fortunately, she had visited China (in a tour group) and had some idea of my suffering. She then gave us many tasting samples; we bought far too much cheese and went back to my friend's place and ate the lot. Plus the dinner she had prepared (a dish I had taught her years before). Next morning, the cheese vendor arrived to open up her shop and found me standing there waiting for a refill.
These memories led me to wonder. I know there are a few people here who no longer live where they grew up. Some revisit. Some never will. Some never can.
Over the next few months, I will think of more things I crave from the dim and distant past. But what would be yours?