The Sauce of It

His Lordship and I had a wonderful time in Budapest, and while we were sad to leave, his Lordship finds a certain piquancy in returning to meals laced with his favourite sauce.

I'm afraid that for me, tomato sauce only has its place on Fish and Chips and I take great exception to having a bottle of it on the table or any of it garnishing a dish.

There is a certain snob attitude to this; to me, having the container on the table alongside salt and pepper is redolent of cheap sea side guest houses, and besides, what delicate flavours does it obliterate with its overpowering taste?

This sauce and its brother of the HP variety, is the very stuff of many an altercation in this house, when his Lordship insists on liberally dosing a great number of dishes with them and then tries to make matters worse by saying that it's essential in that it kills the taste of my cooking.

I've tried hiding the bottle, but the undignified sulk that that precipitates is not worth the effort. So now we have come to some sort of compromise wherein he administers the sauce unseen my me before the plate arrives at the table.

In Budapest the meals were of sufficiently high calibre that no sauce was wanted nor, I suspect, would it have been available anyway.

This is a typically British manifestation, and I believe there is also a country divide in the preference for Tomato Sauce over Brown Sauce- the latter being the preferred choice in the North and the former in the home counties.

His Lordship is obviously bucking the trend, coming from Dundee and preferring the red variety.

For anyone who can be bothered, I've put some of my Budapest photos on
Flickr