The Hungry Poet: My Life in Food — A Ginsters BLT, a packet of Flame Grilled Steak McCoy’s and a Can of Coke

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This was, and in many respects still is, my go-to takeaway lunch. Queen Mary was quite unique in relation to many other London universities in that it had its own halls of residence on its campus, and the year I moved in the accommodation had just been renovated. Clad in sheets of zinc, with big windows, by the Mile End Canal it was very striking and appealing to an 18 year old, and when you add in how our kitchen on the fourth floor had a view of Canary Wharf it was pretty cool – not that I spent too long cooking in the kitchen. On campus there was a small convenience shop which sold newspapers and ridiculously overpriced food items for those of us who couldn’t be arsed to make a slightly longer walk to the Budgens on the other side of canal. By the way, as someone who grew up with Mace, and Spar shops in my village, Budgens was certainly new to me; I would describe as a slightly posher version of Mace, in that it sold croissants and alcohol (convenience shops on Northern Ireland weren’t allowed to sell alcohol in the 90s – though some do now). Anyway, trudging back from a lecture or a bout of reading in the library I would often treat myself to a meal deal which would consist of a BLT, a packet of McCoy’s (usually Flame Grilled Steak but I would be open minded to Salt and Vinegar, as these ones had a particular tang to them) and would head back to my room, read my copy of The Independent (there was a special student discount on this) and eat my meal deal as I looked out onto the Mile End Canal, many miles from home. This food does not particularly represent anything apart from that strange phenomenon of eating by oneself, which I think is quite a modern phenomenon, driven by busy lives. As a writer, and in my days as a classroom teacher, a sandwich and bag of crisps by the laptop represents the modern phenomenon of multi-tasking – eating some salty, carby food with a sugary carbonated drink while attending to some vaguely important and vaguely pressing matter. It also speaks to the solitary nature I was discovering in my own identity, which I suppose has led to me sitting her writing this now, thinking back to eating salty food in my single-bed student room, and stinking it out with the smell of smoky bacon and beefy flavoured flame grilled potato crisps.