Two fat
ladies
Look, before you write to the Ed complaining, "Is this a motorcycle magazine
or a bleedin' recipe book?" I promise not to write about food again for
months. Maybe years.
It's just that sometimes, as a scribbler, you get a rush of things on one subject.
And I hate to waste a good opportunity.
Last issue I was waffling on about who you would invite to the ultimate motorcycle
dinner and, as expected, I've managed to offend everyone I know who didn't make
it to the incomplete list. That means there's about 8000 people who will no
longer talk to me – well, at least things will be quieter...
One offendee was John Chadwick, a motorcycle dealer on the Gold Coast, and all
round nice bloke, who thought he was omitted because of his table manners. Hah!
He's never seen the Lemmings MC eating at close range. Picture a herd of swine
on speed and you'd be close. Send me a pair of those Wallace and Grommet socks,
Chadwick, and I'll reconsider.
Which brings me to the topic of what food the travelling rider should aim for.
One of my all time favourite rallying recipes is from Amazin' Iain, a former
columnist for this fine organ.
Fed up with the tripe served at most rallies, he worked out a way of enjoying
a good serve of spaghetti on his first night away. The faithful XJ900 would
be loaded up with a device called a Trangia – basically a miniature cooking
set, fired by meths. Look for it at you local camping store. Essentially it's
a burner, with cooking pots that stack on top of each other, which is windproof
and surprisingly efficient.
The Iain sauce involved liberal use of herbs, garlic and the like, and was frozen
the night before the trip. Nicely defrosted by arrival time, it would be loaded
into the upper pot for reheating, while the lower was used for boiling the spag.
Twenty minutes later, our hero would be tucking into a decent meal, with a crowd
of hopeful onlookers hinting that they wouldn't mind wrapping themselves around
the leftovers.
But the most extraordinary manifestation of the galloping gourmet theme, with
a biking bent, has to be the ABC series called Two Fat Ladies. A couple of poms
called Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright have grabbed a Thunderbird
with Watsonian sidecar, a film crew (as one does), and have basically eaten
their way from one end of England to the other.
Despite the 'plummy' voices and, in one case, the double banger surname the
ladies prove to be the sort of ratbags that any rider would be pleased to meet
on their travels. The series is very funny, and the recipes they offer are excellent.
I've tried a couple of the latter and can recommend the results.
Naturally the ABC has produced a video of the series, which is almost over by
the time this issue hits the streets, a recipe book and, for all I know, a T-shirt.
Evidently filming for the series pilot wasn't without its traumas. Producer
Patricia Llewellyn takes up the story: "After a number of perfect 'takes',
we had one final shot to achieve. Jennifer was to drive herself and Clarissa
towards the camera and deliver a few lines. As the cameraman and I stood behind
the camera watching our ladies speeding towards us, our sound operator, who
could hear things we could not, began waving his arms frantically. Jennifer
had got the brakes and gears mixed up (quite understandably, of course, as they
were the other way around on her own bike).
"We all lived to tell the tale to anyone who would listen. The motorbike
and sidecar mowed down the camera tripod and disappeared into the distance.
It is debatable whether we would still have had two presenters for the series
if it had not been for an obliging flagpole."
Even more bizarre, though, was the competition at the recent New Triumph Rally,
where owners were asked to bake a cake to celebrate the marque's 95th birthday.
People went to an extraordinary amount of trouble, somehow transporting some
pretty spectacular examples of the baker's art.
The really weird part was watching a long line of somewhat burly men (and women)
waiting their turn to step up to the microphone at the Saturday evening dinner,
to explain the idea behind their cake and how they made it. Motorcyclists baking
cakes? What the hell is the world coming to? Still, I wasn't about to take the
mickey, as some of them looked bigger than me. (Which, as the Ed will attest,
is no small statement.)
My favourite was one of the less visually spectacular entries, the brilliantly
named Speed Trifle...
Speaking of rallies, the inaugural Kawasaki national effort was on last weekend,
and I trust it was an outrageous success. I wonder what Kawasaki riders cook.
Sushi? Vulcan vol au vents, perhaps?
Guy "Guido" Allen
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