The Hungry Poet: My Life in Food — A Pint of Guinness, and a Scotch Egg with Oxford Sauce, in Oxford, with The Beach Boys

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The Occasion

"I guess Oxford just wasn't made for these times" to misquote The Beach Boys. Recently I went for a pint with a mate in Oxford. I don’t live in Oxford. I live in a village about nine miles south, or 30 minutes by car on a clear run, which is never, because driving to Oxford, more often than not, is a nightmare. Oxford, an eighth century Anglo-Saxon fortified town at heart, was just not made for the high volume of traffic that runs through it; add to that Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) which prohibit people driving down certain streets for shortcuts and to bypass the main arterial traffic, plus a new congestion charge, and throw in a glug of scant parking places, and a smattering of major roadworks, and you’ll find yourself with a journey which takes irritatingly longer than it should. In short, Oxford is an annoyingly inaccessible place, but I suppose that’s in keeping with its fortress roots, in a way. And maybe that’s how people who live in Oxford want it. 

Recently The Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities has just been opened in Summertown, the most exclusive neighbourhood of Oxford, and while it looks impressive and cost an arm and a leg, I can’t help but ask: how are those who don’t already live in Oxford supposed to get to it? Do the well-heeled, already learned people of Summertown – I generalise, but not by much – really need a multimillion-pound library? Wouldn’t it have been better to build it in one of the poorer parts of town, of which there are more than the rich parts? It seems to me these questions aren’t being posed and we should just be grateful anyone is willing to invest in the humanities in our days of STEM, which is also hard to argue with.

At any rate, I digress. 

The View from the Top Deck

I hopped onto the bus and took a seat on the top deck. Isn’t one of life’s simple pleasures sitting on the top deck of a bus and watching the world go by? Or rather I should say, looking in on the world, as that’s really what such a vantage point allows. I happened to be listening to a podcast about The Poppy Day Bomb in Enniskillen and how a bomb planted by the IRA killed 11 people who were gathered to remember the fallen on Remembrance Sunday. It was tough to listen to at points, but made me think about humanity and how we treat each other. As I was listening to this, I was driving past rows of houses, and was able to get a glimpse into people’s lives, in all their banality, and mundanity, and that in itself was strangely moving. I saw an empty room with a solitary Happy Birthday balloon; kitchens with fairy lights; modern kitchens; grimy kitchens; people eating dinner off of their laps in front of the telly; people lying on the sofa absorbed in their phones; rooms lit with lamps; grand pianos; people eating at kitchen tables while on their laptops; people at the gym at dinnertime.

Did I feel heartened by what I saw? Well, it was just a snapshot, a kind of limited cross section, and only of this region, but it made me wonder about the different lives we all lead, in our own little units we call houses and how, to some degree, we are all at the centre of our own lives, but have to share. Such separate lives following the same rhythm of day into night. 

One image which sticks in my mind is of two people, silhouettes at a bay window on the first floor of a house, each on either side of a table sitting down to what I imagine was their dinner. Why has this image stayed with me? I suppose it was a timeless image, a small simple scene that in many ways represents so much about being human; these two people were doing something that humans have always done: sitting down together to eat.

It struck me as an image of great tenderness, humanity but also vulnerability – and necessity. We all need to eat, and sitting down together is a moment of shared vulnerability; we are each accepting that we are not superhuman, that we need to stop and restore ourselves, it’s a moment of humanity, yes, but also a moment of humility. And I think that’s what moved me so much about sitting on this bus and glimpsing all these people, just going about their lives, it was so ordinary but also somehow poignant in a way that I’m struggling to express here without seeming sentimental. Maybe it’s also to do with the fact that I’d just had a really busy period, and, what with two boys under six, don’t get out much these days…

The Occasion of Eating

What I’m trying to say, I suppose, is that it's the occasion of eating, as opposed to what we eat, we should re-evaluate. The occasion of sitting down together, breaking bread and clattering our knives and forks and spoons arrhythmically is more important than the veloutés or foams or gels that have been arranged with tweezers onto our plates by five chefs under a spotlight and the gaze of an executive chef. Yes, it’s important that we eat good, nutritious, hearty food, but I’m not as interested – to a point – about the technique of the chef, as the occasion in which the food is presented. Or perhaps I should say that the occasion is not more important but just as important as the technique and quality of food we offer each other. And sometimes the occasion for eating simply trumps whatever is being served, no matter how meticulously it has been served, i.e. no matter how much thought and labour has gone into it, the occasion, such as a birthday or big gathering of family is just more important than the food, and the food, then, is fighting a losing battle. 

Walking through Oxford, having disembarked from the bus near the Tesco on the corner opposite and just down the hill from Christ Church College, the rain started. I took the High Street, or The High as it’s called in Oxford – how very Oxford. I strolled past the Ratcliffe Camera and the original quad of the Bodleian Library, with the lights of the college libraries burning through the late October night. I got to The King’s Arms, where Parks Road meets Holywell Street, ordered a pint of Guinness and sat down waiting for my pal.

It was then that I saw it.

On the table near me, a long-bearded, donnish-looking gent sat down to a small plate with a golden-brown cricket ball, and proceeded to jab a load of sauce onto his plate. I was intrigued. 

Enter The Scotch Egg

It might surprise you to hear that of all the places the Scotch egg is said to derive from, Scotland is not one. Now, given its deep-fried credentials, this might raise an eyebrow, but it's true, and it certainly doesn't contain any whiskey. On first impression – a deep-fried globe of golden breadcrumb-coated hardboiled egg beneath a layer of sausage – it might seem to us the creation of someone who was either bonkers, in a hurry, or both. But, eaten with a chutney or relish, and washed down with a nice cold beer, who could refuse?

Scotch Egg Memories

Growing up in Northern Ireland, I remember the Scotch egg being this orange, unappetising lump at the deli counter of Wellworth's, the supermarket we’d go to as a child in Downpatrick. They were always cold, rubbery and while I was intrigued at first, after an initial taste was put off; I mean, a hard-boiled egg, covered in squished sausage meat covered in breadcrumbs on its own doesn’t really sound that appetising. Straight out of the deep fat fryer, with a running golden yolk at its hot core, and you might have persuaded me though. 

The history of the Scotch egg, like most histories, is a contentious one. Was it inspired by the Indian koftas (nargisi kofta)? Was it invented in 19th century Whitby, Yorkshire, with fish paste instead of sausage? Or can Fortnum and Mason lay claim to its genesis in 1738 as a handy meal for travellers? 

At any rate, fast forward to about 10.30pm and two pints of Guinness down, and suddenly the derivation and heritage of this golden-brown hockey ball matters less to me. Enter one Scotch egg, served cold, from a bread bin-like box behind the bar, onto a small plate, with a knife and fork wrapped in a napkin – I didn’t even ask the price, which, as anyone who knows me will tell you, doesn’t happen often. I brought this back to the table, cut it into four and shared it with my chum. 

Oxford Sauce

The only sauce on the table was a bottle with the name Oxford Sauce on it, so we thought we’d try it out. If you’ve never heard of Oxford Sauce, it’s a variant of Cumberland Sauce and was created by Baron Rouget to mark the millennium – year 2000, that is, not the other one. I wondered why it hasn’t made its way into a wider audience, but the more I had of it – and, boy, it was excellent with the Scotch egg and Guinness – the more I could see why maybe it might not be to everyone’s taste. The most prominent flavours for me were the bird’s eye chilli, tamarind and anchovy paste; it was quite poky, as they say, but in a good way. The balance of the salty pork, and the richness of the yolk of the Scotch egg, with the bitterness of the Guinness, and then the spicy, fruity, sweetness of the sauce was a totally unexpected triumph of well-balanced flavours. 

The Verdict

It was such a simple thing to eat in such a simple setting, off of a white side plate on the worn, sanded table of a pub on the corner of a street in Oxford. In short – definitely worth breaching the walls of an Anglo-Saxon fortified town for.

And even though the infrastructure of this famous university city may be stuck in the past, there is much to be said for the timeless triumvirate of a pint of Guinness, a Scotch egg and some Oxford Sauce, a harmony that would have been the envy of The Beach Boys, themselves.

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Andrew Jamison is a poet and teacher, and you can read more articles on his blog here or get a paid subscription and access all previous and future posts here. You can also browse his poetry collections and buy signed, first editions of each of them here.