From Tabusintac to Tokyo | Page 7

immediately dubbed "Grandpa Munster". With the
tender sensitivity of males of our age, we didn't bother to hide this from
him and he took it in good humour. In point of fact, Locutus was a
great Don; firm when he needed to be and understanding and helpful as
appropriate. You crossed this guy at your peril, but he was generally
pretty tolerant.
Not that Bridges House was that hard to manage. The 100 or so inmates
of the building were known as being kind of wimpy. We had a large
number of serious engineers in the house. Engineering students don't
typically have the time to go too crazy, as just getting a passing grade
requires all of their efforts. To get a really good grade requires brains as
well. Fortunately, I was prepared to work hard.
In addition to the Don, we had the Resident Fellow. His name was
McFish, an enormous Scotsman Philosopher whose role was to provide
a certain amount of extracurricular education and edification to the

culture-starved denizens of Bridges. To give him his due, McFish
worked away at this task with fortitude and humour.
McFish wasn't only big by birth. He was a man who enjoyed his meat
and drink, either his or yours, should you decide to invite him over.
Consequently, his frame had filled out over the years to the point where
he was carrying a considerable amount of excess avoirdupois. The
residence system also had a couple of Resident Fellows At Large. We
had the Large Resident Fellow.
Previous to attending university, most of my experiences with food
revolved around family. My father was also someone who enjoyed his
food, but we weren't part of the class of people who experiment much
when it comes to vittles. We certainly never had wine, and conversation
was kept to a minimum unless you count the grunts of satisfaction
emitted by my brother and I as we shoveled down helpings of meat and
potatoes.
When I moved to residence, I ate in the dining hall. Institutional food
wasn't all that great then, and there was frequent recourse to late night
pizza runs to fill the yawning gulf in our bellies.
It was in the apartments of Locutus and McFish that I learned the
delights of eating well and drinking to excess. Not all of our meals
turned out as well as could be hoped.
It was McFish's habit, once he had got to know you well enough, to
invite you to his place for dinner. This was an honour not granted to
just any mortal. You had to pass certain criteria in order to be
considered worthy to share his table. To this day, I have no idea how I
made it into that rarefied company.
And so it was on a fine summer's evening, that Locutus, Bugs and I
made our way to McFish's apartment in gleeful anticipation of a surfeit
of food, booze and cigars. Bugs was a student like me and we were
very good friends although he forsook engineering to become a
physicist. You just never know about people.

This was not my first meal at the McFish table. I had partaken of some
excellent repasts so what was to happen that evening was a shock.
To start with, glasses of Bass and Scotch to tune up the taste buds.
Locutus smoked his obligatory four cigarettes and McFish toiled away
in his kitchen. What's for dinner? Why Steak and Kidney Pudding!
Looking at the recipe for SKP on the web, I note that it calls for
braising steak and ox kidney along with mushrooms and onion. The
entire conglomeration looks like one of those old style bee hives and
gives the impression of being hearty, tasty and, oh so comforting.
I am not, generally speaking a fan of organ meats, so I was somewhat
suspicious of this offering to begin with. McFish, although known for
the size of his portions, was not all that fussy about quality, being
concerned primarily about price. So it was that the steak in the pudding
could be described more accurately as gristle. The kidneys had never
seen the inside of an ox having been harvested from chickens. McFish
assured us that he had made two puddings so that there was more than
enough to go around. He tucked in with gusto.
The wine accompanying the meal was an obscure Yugoslavian vintage
that I'm convinced had originally been used as an emetic for livestock.
It was this we were relying on to wash down the SKP.
Bugs swears that the kidneys had not been properly cooked before
inclusion in the pudding. He said that every time he bit into one, he felt
a hot blast of urine wash through his mouth. I can't vouch for that as
there was