Taste the Mystery of the Orient...

A few weeks ago- purely in the interests of nostalgic experimentation, you understand- I made myself a Vesta curry. Those of you of a certain age should know all about this: the Vesta range offered a tantalising choice, which included "indian" curry, chow mein, and I think, "Spanish" paella. Inside the brightly coloured boxes, which conjured up images of sophisticated exotica, were sachets of dried noodles, dehydrayted bits of this and that, and- oh joy to behold- soy sauce, or some sort of mango chutney, thrown in as an extra goodie.

Now, the amazing thing, is that Vesta are still in business; and their product still, more or less, looks like it did thirty years ago. And it tastes the same, too. I followed the instructions down to the letter; adding the powder to a saucepan, topping it up with cold water, and then simmering it gently for- I think- fifteen minutes, twenty six and a half seconds. The result was, as Her Majesty might have said, "surprising": a watery, saline mess, studded with dried-up, bullet-like peas suffering from an identity crisis; the sheer horror of it all (almost as bad as being a participant in an Hieronymus Bosch tableau vivant) still lingering in my befuddled and confused brain to this day.

Have tastes changed that much over the years? I suppose that back in the 1970's, clever admen could evoke the sophistication of places like Spain and India, which, in those far off halycon days, were beyond the reach of ordinary people, more used to taking a boat out on the Broads for their summer holidays.

They used the same technique to sell the Mastermind board game (Game of the Year 1972), which had pictured on its box a suave, mysterious, and bearded Man of Taste; his dead-sexy Hong Konganese side-kick (young enough to have been his grand-daughter) standing alluringly behind the smoked glass coffee table. Most disappointingly to my ten year old mind (reared on a television diet of The New Avengers, Hadleigh, and The Persuaders), the game turned out to be just a small, grey plastic board, with a collection of brightly coloured plastic pegs which soon got gobbled up by my mother's frantic hoovering.

I'm glad to say the advertising agencies are still at it today: just remember, that charming little jar of Mrs Bridge's Home-Cooked Farmhouse Surprise, was probably manufactured- and manufactured is the right word here- in some Kafkaesque unit in the Slough Trading Estate. On a similar tack, I've often wondered if 'Free Range Eggs' really do mean free range. That could be a good idea for a future post. So, until then my amigos, adios...