My local deli makes excellent sandwiches to go with their superb coffee. A few weeks back, I was ordering up an elegantly simple ham salad on a granary roll, and hence enquiring about their mustards. "Oooh, we're a bit low on mustard at the moment. We've got English, but that's about it."
A brainwave struck, and I mooted the concept of piccalilli (Wikipedia: 'this condiment-related article is a stub'). The jolly staff duly scoured their shelves, unearthed a jar, cracked it open, and presented me with both a delicious sandwich and a diverting discussion on undervalued and oft-overlooked pickles. It turned out, you see, that nobody else in the shop could recall eating piccalilli anywhere other than at their gran's, when they were about six. They all thought it revolting stuff, but conceded that this may have been lack of recent familiarity.
A few weeks later and I returned, once again fancying a spot of ham sandwich to follow my daily constitutional. "Do you still have, behind the counter," I ventured, "a jar of piccalilli?"
"Yes. Nobody else has had any since you."
I'm appalled. Genuinely appalled. At least, I will be, once I've enjoyed devouring this excellent sandwich.
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