Metropol

I had a cheap ready meal curry from tesco once and my wee smelled of it for two days. I didn't buy it again.

I feel this topic's title is wrong. The question seems rather big to me.

I'll wait until the penny drops...

Nini wrote:I'll wait until the penny drops...

I doubt that'll grant your wish.

I do too but the fun is in the waiting.

The worst offender, though, must surely be asparagus: a horrid, horrid stench within hours of eating it.

Whilst we're on these strange effects, here's something similar.

Many years ago I used to drink in a little wine bar which served garlic bread to soak up some of the alcohol.

Now, this garlic bread wasn't particularly strong and you could put away two or three portions over a whole evening's drinking without the taste becoming that obvious.

At the time, we had a coal fired Aga at home, which we used to run on Phurnacite knobs. The last job before retiring each night was to stoke it up, give it a good riddle and empty the ash box.

I've never understood why, the moment I started riddling the Aga and some of the Phurnacite ash must have got into the surrounding atmosphere, the taste of the garlic would come back about ten times as strong as it ever had been in the first place.

Obviously some weird chemical reaction, but something I've always wondered about.

Any chemists out there want to put forward any theories?

Nick Harvey wrote:Any chemists out there want to put forward any theories?

I'll leave that to the great and the good - but as a side issue, aren't Agas wonderful?

Mum has one, and its how I learned to cook. No other cooker comes close.

Agh! Tell that to my parents, who've just exchanged theirs for some 'snazzy' electric thing.

Bet you can't cook the Christmas turkey for 48 hours in the bottom oven of a snazzy electric thing.

Electric cookers are just dreadful. We had an awful one in halls last year where the hobs were so hideously unresponsive, we had to use all four set at slightly different temperatures to alternate between boiling/simmering etc. and chips inexplicably took an hour and a half to cook in the oven. Oh and our attempt at a nice turkey christmas dinner was not edible until 1am. Poor poor poor.

My house now though has some gas relic from the 70s which I absolutely adore. And it's probably cheaper to run. Maybe.