I love Bloater Paste. I didn’t realise how much I loved it until they stopped selling it in Morrisons. Then I discovered they had also stopped selling it in Sainsbury’s and Tescos!I told a friend how much I love fish paste and he thought it was really funny! Apparently fish paste is very Working Class; I can’t disagree. It was the stuff of birthday party sandwiches before we were all switched on to ‘tuna ‘n’ mayo’. Along with jelly and ice cream , chocolate fingers and twiglets. And those wonderful silver foil covered grapefruit creations, ‘hedgehogs’ of cheese and pineapple, with the occasional cocktail onion or midget gerkin for ‘colour’. I remember thinking that the height of sophistication was rolls of bacon with pineapple on sticks; Louise Judges always had the best party food at her birthday parties. Nevertheless, she always seemed to find a reason to cry because there was something she wanted she couldn’t have. I remember, quite vividly, her crying because she wanted chocolate ice cream at her own birthday party, and she had to have vanilla. Whenever I see ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ I am reminded of Louise Judges………I wonder where she is now??
My cat Dibby* used to love fish paste. He was very canny, and licked the paste off the bread, even if I cut it in to the smallest squares. But it was a treat and I’m sure he only ate it because he liked the taste, not because he was really hungry. My Dad still tells me that during the War, their cat was fed on fish paste sandwiches, and how Tiddles** was blown through the window by a bomb.
So, if anybody knows where I can find Shippams Bloater Paste, please let me know! Toast will never be the same without it!
Kx
*Dibby was really called General Branch which was a type of Insurance Policy. It was Dad’s turn to pick the cat’s name, and he worked for the Prudential at the time, so our poor cat ended up being called G.B. It wasn’t long before it became Dibby, still a bit ridiculous, but much easier to shout out of the back door when you wanted the cat to come in.
**It may not have been Tiddles.
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