TUNA NICOISE

I’m eating a Tuna Nicoise salad with a soup spoon. I reckon they’d kick me out of Nice for this. “Monsieur Anglais! Buffon!” they’d cry as they threw me just the wrong side of the ‘Bienvenue’ sign with a shrug and a wipe of the hands.

It’s not my fault. I’m at Waitrose, where they seem to have run out of everything except patience, and even that’s a matter of time. Forks there were none. The knife basket is empty and the teaspoons are flung far afield. So short of stuffing the leaves and egg and tuna chunks into my mouth like some sort of pescatarian squirrel, I’m left with chasing olives around a plate of drizzled rocket with a scoop.

This is interesting: a woman opposite has just been given a plate of scrambled egg on toast. I’m not sure what might be about to happen.

I guess there’s much to be said for using the right tools for the right job. While this is probably a little less frustrating than trying to eat a French onion soup with a cake-knife, the task doesn’t really give me the usual satisfaction of eating something tasty. I guess it’s a bit like if I tried playing a lovely bit of Schubert’s piano sonata with celery sticks strapped to my fingers.

Though, some might argue what difference the celery makes in that example.

Anyway, this is an interesting thought: what if there are things that I’m doing where I struggle, because I’m not the right tool for the job? It might be the case! I can do a satisfactory job of chopping up bits of potato, I can gather leaves together and balance olives, but I’m still a soup spoon. I might belong somewhere else.

Worse still, what if a brand new fork comes along and sees me handle deep in the Tuna Nicoise? What if they think that that’s just the way it is, that spoons are for salad forevermore-and-a-day-so-shall-it-be and maybe I should have a go at ‘stabbing some bread into slices’, or stirring some gravy or something.

I think that would be terrible. I wonder how you figure out what you’re designed for, and how to get on with it? I wonder how you help others to do the same without making them feel that because you like doing something, it would be terribly disrespectful of them to ask you to shove over so they can have a go.

The lady opposite has sliced up her scrambled egg with a spoon and a pencil that was previously applied to the Mail-on-Sunday crossword. She doesn’t seem too bothered. We’re all improvising well with the cutlery shortage; pulling together with that same British resilience that got us through the War.

Funny how no-one’s complained, actually. Perhaps no-one feels as though it’s their place to; or maybe we all feel distinctly ill-equipped and too reserved to moan to the frazzled staff in the kitchen who are desperately trying to wash everything up.

The irony isn’t lost on me.