Saturday was always my favourite day.

Not just for the sport of it

and the lack of schooling,

but the absence of choice.

Saturday was stew and dumplings;

the day I didn't eat my food

in alphabetical order.

 

You'll have heard of anorexia,

binge-eating and bulimia,

but you've not heard of eating food

in alphabetical order. Have you?

I've checked, and it isn't

a recognised condition:

like the back of the knees

it has no fancy title, and goes

unmentioned in medical manuals,

psychological journals

and culinary compendiums.

It's just me.

 

It began when I couldn't decide

where to begin: sitting in the kitchen,

the tower-block shadows obscuring

the motorway, staring at sausage,

egg, chips and beans. Frozen.

Was it a panic attack, stress or depression?

I must have had a lot

on my plate at the time.

Mentally rearranging

the meal alphabetically:

beans, chips, egg, sausage;

devouring them in combinations

like an accumulative wager

of doubles and trebles.

 

beans-chips, egg-sausage,

beans-egg, chips-sausage,

beans-sausage, egg-chips,

beans-chips-egg,

beans-chips-sausage,

beans-egg-sausage,

chips-egg-sausage,

then finally the big one:

beans-chips-egg-sausage,

all on one fork,

all in one mouthful.

 

It was as if I'd won a bet

or completed a crossword.

All was right with the world

and God in his heaven.

Exhilarating it was;

until it wasn't any more,

when the passion became all-consuming

and I lay sleepless at night poring

over sauces and stuffing and stuff.

Is apple sauce an A or an S?

Brussels sprouts or sprouts? B or S?

Garden peas? Spring onions? 

Taking hours to eat dinner,

losing weight from the worry.

 

As I grew older and more pretentious

I perceived myself a victim

of Western affluence and plenty,

a product of a consumer society -

tortured by too much choice.

 

Then I left home and had to cook

for myself; the question  what should I eat next?

assumed an existential twist,

became what should I eat ?

 

My solution was entirely predictable

Sunday               Andalucian Vegetable Salad - Apricot Sorbet

Monday               Black-eyed Bean Salsa - Blackcurrant Souffle

Tuesday             Cauliflower Cheese - Chocolate Cake

Wednesday        Danish Peasant Girl With Veil - Dates

Thursday             Egg and Mushroom Pasta - Eve's Pudding

Friday                  Fish - French Custard Ice-Cream

Saturday             Gloucester Pie - Grapes

 

And so on, ad nauseam.

On the seventeenth day I made

Quiche Lorraine and collapsed weeping

beneath twenty-three cookery books

for want of a sweet that began with Q.

I thought I'd reached rock bottom

and vowed to break the habit,

but the next day was Ravioli and Rock Cake.

It was less than a week to x, y and z - 

I had to do something fast. Or just fast.

 

Then I struck lucky with a lady

who made chilli con carne,

lasagne, spaghetti bolognaise and stew:

the kind of meals you don't have

to think about too much.

 

Dear Reader, I married her quickly.

I let her do all the cooking

while I check that the bookshelves

are in correct alphabetical order.

I scratch my head at the likes

of de Beauvoir and de Quincey,

those Chinese authors have got me flummoxed.

But I'm eating pretty good.