It's a bad idea to loiter in my good local supermarket. Though I've just gone in for those chocolate rolls my kids love (the ones that are sold – dangerously – in small buckets), I inevitably succumb to a treat for myself. There are unwritten rules for food writers. These days that means not having anything impure or inauthentic – potatoes must come with half a barrowful of soil, and it's good to know not just the name of the farmer who's produced your pork chop but those of his children, too. (Yes, I stand accused.) But there are great 'impure' food pleasures – a fish-finger sandwich (get out the Hellmann's!), a late-night bowl of Coco Pops (I know, but it can cheer a girl up) and a ready-made prawn cocktail (good quality, of course, and I do add more Tabasco). It tastes of the 1970s (and therefore my childhood). And while I'm flinging this in my basket, I remember what a quick supper a bag of prawns can make.
Prawns – big, fat Dublin Bay ones that I peeled with my mum every Friday night – were one of the treats of growing up in Northern Ireland. They totally spoiled me. When I came to live in England in the 1980s I couldn't believe that they weren't available – relatively cheaply – here, too. The price of Scottish langoustines was eye-watering and the affordable alternative was bagged supermarket prawns. In those days they were tiny, slightly rubbery and tasted more of their plastic bag than of the sea.
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