Wednesday, February 25, 2009

La mallard imaginaire

Ruaraidh Hobson has been sharing his experiences of vegetarian mock duck.

This reminds me of a party I attended at the home of a Liberal friend down in Walthamstow many years ago. It was one of those sensible events that start in early afternoon so that families with young children can attend, and continue into the evening so that the adults can drink. (The rule is that any children present after 6 p.m. go on the barbecue.)

I set off with the attention of having some time in central London and going on to the party afterwards. But the day was so grey and miserable, and I was so uninspired, that I ended up going to the party quite early and promptly tucked into the red wine.

During the afternoon someone arrived with some of that same vegetarian mock duck for the barbecue. "Ah," I said, "la mallard imaginaire". Which, I hope you will agree, was quite witty.

The trouble is that I had drunk so much wine that it seemed the funniest joke ever and I spent the rest of the evening repeating it. It think it had paled with some hearers by the 23rd repetition.

1 comment:

Manfarang said...

The Chinese made mock duck meat has a better taste.You can find it at your local chinese grocery shop.
It comes in can with a blue label,
packed for Good Mark Products Taiwan.
The Chinese have a very long history of making this kind of product.Of course Chinese vegetarians don't drink wine.