Daily Telegraph columnist Jim White got exactly what he deserved at a Manchester United match:
Recently, I was in the half-time queue for a pie at Old Trafford football ground in Manchester. When I was handed over the steaming parcel of cholesterol, I asked the cheery man behind the counter if I might have a fork.
“You want a fork?” he asked, incredulous. “Southerner, are you?”
White’s piece is about the arrival of Northern supermarket Morrison’s in the south and the fears it prompted among image conscious jessies.
Despite having an instinctive solidarity towards Morrison’s – the cafe at their branch in Nelson serves as an unofficial OAP lunch club which fed my grandad for years and they were one of the first chains to have a proper Indian section, I’m afraid my line on supermarkets is to avoid them whenever possible.
Food is one of the few things I do actually enjoy shopping for. But when I want to buy cheese I go to the cheese stall on the market, I buy my meat from a family butchers and fish from the fishmonger. That’s what my parents did and I am glad I picked up the habit from them.
And if Jim White thinks, like dear old Tory nanny Edwina Currie, that Northern pies are steaming parcels of cholesterol he should skip the mass produced rubbish served at football grounds and pop into a decent bakery. Its like the difference between eating at Pizza Hut and at the Antica Pizzeria Brandi in Naples.
In fact I strongly recommend that any southerners who are in the North West take a trip to Bury market – full of good quality food and traditional Northern items. In particular you will find black puddings of the highest quality at the Chadwick’s stall.
And for two pence extra you can even get a fork.
