Canteen day, all of the groceries I ordered have been delivered. This week I ordered £8 credit for my prison phone account (about 12 minutes of conversation with my mate in Dublin) toothpaste, coffee, tinned tuna, porridge oats, lentils, chick peas and salt while many of my peers wander back with vapes or tobacco and bags filled with chocolate, biscuits and fizzy pop.
Purely as an aside, salt is an odd one. Not in and of itself you understand, salt is pretty standard stuff*, more it’s the purchasing of another 750g tub of table salt that is significant. If things go to plan I will watch my last Olympics in prison this year, see my last European championships. Next year should be my last world cup and I have already watched my last Rugby World Cup. As I am in open conditions and inching incrementally towards my parole date it is not unfeasible that this is the last drum of salt that I will purchase in prison.
Anyway, canteen day is always fun. It’s when debts and boats get sorted. Debts are straightforward enough – people borrow or trade and offer up payment via items on the canteen. Food boats are co-operatives where groups of lads pool their resources to buy food to cook collectively for a week. For the people watchers like me, canteen day is brilliant and new boats are the best.
Four lads buy a heap of ingredients and then meet up to discuss what they are going to cook. It’s like Ready Steady Cook without the chef or a cohesive plan. It’s often at this stage that the ‘allergies’ come out, as do the preferences for spice level, protein type and the “Nah, cheese doesn’t work for me.”
Grudges can last for years among life sentenced prisoners. People may not remember the cause (or may only remember their own version). Food boats have led to big fallings out – I’ve seen full on fights because somebody felt they hadn’t had a fair share of the chicken meat in a curry.
I’ve learned my lesson first-hand, on two consecutive occasions. I’ve been in a few shady boats over the years although none ended in any great acrimony, rather there was a consensual parting of the ways. My first food boat ended up in a childish mismatch of slop that involved rice, tinned hot dogs, mango pulp and way too much chilli.
After that I just started cooking for myself. I batch cooked currys, Biryanis, pasta dishes and humus, all divided up into portioned tubs for the eating of over a few days. This led to boat number two, when two lads I got on OK with asked if I would cook for them too. They would buy the ingredients and eat the food the way I cooked it – no grumbles. Our canteen day was Friday, so I cooked meals for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and in the beginning it was fine. Saturday morning’s became full English as we supplemented the sausage and hash brown from the servery with mushrooms, tomatoes and eggs. After a few blissful weeks I added a lemon cheesecake to the Saturday menu (which was meant to last us two days but invariably led to a food coma having been binged on Saturday evening). But that boat too hit choppy waters. Cooking just became a chore when I had to do it to a schedule. So one Sunday (after I handed the lads their cheesy tuna pasta bake) I told them I was taking a break from cooking. I must give them credit, they took it pretty well, although they did make a point of zombie-walking past my cell repeatedly while carrying empty plates.
Since then I’ve sailed solo. I’ve shown a few lads how I cook and given them ingredient lists but I’ve stuck to my guns, despite the tempting inducements and been better off for it. Ironically I think I learned from a culinary anecdote I read from a Zen Buddhist chap. He advised that when asked to do something, if you are going to say ‘no’ you must do it quickly – as if you have been given the wrong meal in a restaurant. If you don’t say ‘no’ quickly enough you will pay for the meal, whether or not you eat it.
MMM. Tinned hot dog, mango pulp & chili flakes with rice. Master Chef Fusion it ain’t.
* About the salt, if you’re buying pink Himalayan salt and feeling all healthy fair play to you. But consider this. Salt is primarily Sodium and Chlorine, regardless of where it comes from or what colour it is. Space salt will taste no different to Earth salt – so just get over it. Furthermore, while posh salt is extolled because it contains zinc, magnesium and iodine, you would have to consume it by the kilo in order to achieve your RDA of these minerals. If you need more minerals in your diet it would be a healthier option to lick a rock.
There is a tendency to use greater quantities of salt flakes than ground or powdered salt as whole flakes are swallowed before they can dissolve and tingle the appropriate taste buds. So stick to a combined ≤ 6 grams of salt per day, sack off the posh salt and think about the planet people. Why fly salt from the Himalayas when the UK is an island surrounded by the stuff?
I would finish with a keyboard drop after that mini-rant if I didn’t run the risk of a nicking for damaging prison property.
