I’ve always had a very ambivalent attitude towards food on the beach.
Perhaps if I recount the experiences I have had over the (many) years, you’ll understand where I am going with this. I think the common denominator is - it’s never quite successful.
First - let’s get Ice Cream out of the way first. OK on the prom. Watch out for seagulls which can turn a beautiful sunny day into a horror movie within seconds. Also .. and I think this was a common problem in North Wales … when the wind picks up, so does the sand. And Sand + Ice Cream is a no no.
A picnic basket - creates an appointment to eat. So any fun you might have been having making sand castles, paddling or making moats had to end, to allow the corporate family mastication to take place. Whereas now, baskets can be cornucopias of fine foods, ours consisted of sodden spam and tomato or soggy salmon sandwiches on white bread, wrapped in clingfilm to ensure maximum disintegration. Not good.
In the seventies, my mother discovered Tupperware by post. I recall we had a set of stackable trays, which could be prefilled with … cold roast chicken pieces and salad (which in those days was tomato, cucumber, egg, onion and lettuce. Perhaps a dab of salad cream if you were lucky.) OK in principle, but they became a spectacle to passers by. So what should have been a relaxed eating event, became a performance or worse, a comedy show.
Later came barbecues. Sand problem again unless you erect a wind break. But also the danger of smoking out the other beach revellers. You could make yourself very unpopular indeed.
More recently, I’ve favoured a more rustic arrangement with some doorstep bread, selection of cheeses and meats, crisps… and perhaps a cheeky glass of wine or beer. Then a nap.
And then there’s CAKE.
OK so … a very pleasant amble to Castle Beach in Falmouth to soak up the Autumnal bonus sunshine. I stopped for a coffee… and was faced with a very tempting array of cakes.
I’m just note sure Cakes and Beaches go together. But i can’t put my finger on why not. These days I eat cakes in every dwindling amounts. Not because I don’t like them, but more because a ‘couldn’t eat a whole one’ regulator kicks in. I did buy a piece of Polenta Cake… but I took it home and am eating it in stages. If I had eaten it there and then, I fear I would have just found a place to bask, on the rocks, and would have felt full, fallen asleep and woken to find my shoes floating off into the Atlantic.
That’s not the feeling I want on the beach these days. I want to feel enlivened inhaling copious amounts of ozone, feeling the sand between my toes, and generally feeling all is well with the world.
Discuss.
R.
