Food lies.

This pack contains four servings.
No, this pack contains enough to last me just till the end of the car chase in the film and then I’ll have to go to the cupboard and fetch another.  Look!  I’ve finished it while I was talking to you.

Best before 2006.
It’s okay.  I think it’s okay.  It’s not green or anything.  It tastes a bit funny.  No it’s okay.  Well I’ve eaten it now.  I’d better have something else to take the taste away.

Decant and serve at room temperature.
Well that all depends what temperature you keep your room at, doesn’t it?  The bottle is a bit cold now, obviously.  It was, after all, in the garage.  But once we’ve all had a glass and chatted, it will warm up or we will, one or the other.  Would you like some more?  Oh, it’s empty.  I’ll get another from the garage, won’t be a mo.

Microwave for three minutes, stand for one minute, microwave for two minutes.
Or, as it’s usually pronounced: do it till you’ve filled the teapot, then attack the pack with a knife and scald yourself opening the corner.  Ouch.  Let it stand while you rinse your finger under the tap, then while you stir the crispy edge into the solid cold middle, watch as another family member hogs the microwave for three separate packs, give up and tip the whole glutinous mess onto the inadequate portion of rice.  Why do they give you so little rice?  Rice is cheap.  There’s never enough to blot up the sauce.  I think they designed the packaging first and worked backwards.

Family pack.
No, get your own.

Keep refrigerated.
Or, in the car boot where it fell out of the shopping bag until you find it again next supermarket trip.

Serving suggestion.
Who knew that in the 1970s there was a photo lab dedicated to taking pictures of food on unlikely plates to put on boxes for the next fifty years?  It’s bizarre.  All the pictures are orange and green and slightly out of focus. And I ask you, whoever really, no I mean really, served a cracker biscuit with one anchovy balanced on it?  Well, actually I tell a lie, I had a neighbour once, very nice person, don’t get me wrong, lovely, just hopeless in the kitchen.  We were invited round for tinned tomatoes on toast.  Done as finger food over a brand new carpet we’d been invited to admire.  It was an absolute nightmare and shows you exactly what you get for following the pictures of serving suggestions on the packet.    Perhaps the serving suggestions photo lab also have a carpet cleaning franchise.  Either that or the manufacturers put all their money into making the product and suddenly realised at the last minute that they have to put something on the packet.  So they get Brian, from Deliveries, to do it in his kitchen because he mentioned at the Christmas party that he was getting a new camera.  I don’t know.  Anyway, it’s only a suggestion.  Don’t do that at all would be my suggestion.  Unless you are really stupid, or very fond of anchovies.  (Small dead fish, anyone?  I think not.)

Serves two.
Sorry, this one is mine.

Be Treatwise, Know Your Calories.
I knew we’d get round to this.  I just knew it.  I’d like to point out that during the war it was rude to leave something on your plate and no one was fat.  The Nanny State would keep better order in the nursery if it recognised the basically recalcitrant nature of the average eater. ‘Here is some food do not eat it’ is not an instruction, it’s a challenge.

Nuts: Warning, may contain nuts.
I think this is where we came in.

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JaneLaverick.com – scrumptious on Friday.