I had some supper and undercooked the green beans. As usual, they made me think of horses.It started at some point between 1978 and 1982, when we lived in Paris. I was a child (I don't know if I was sweet or not; my parents don't talk about it much, so I would guess I was Strange), who liked ponies a lot even though we lived in a flat in a city. I would spend entire afternoons with my friend Sara doing pretend gymkhanas with Britain's horses. If you had the black stallion you were in with a chance: he was unpredictable, but brilliant. But your best chance was the little grey mare, who was very reliable and had a lovely temperament.
We read Pony magazine and went on a riding holiday, where our night out was a trip to Perth to see Clash of the Titans, starring Harry Hamblin out of LA Law in a loincloth and a rubbish animatronic Cerberus. It was good. I went to Scotland a lot and cycled 8 miles uphill every day for two months to spend an hour catching a very fat Highland pony called Ewan, who I rode for twenty minutes before I had to freewheel home to my Granny. Then I had two accidents, one of which involved a badly bruised coccyx, and the other a bird, a rearing horse, concussion, and a night in hospital, from which I was woken by Monkeymother bearing strawberries. I didn't ride much after that, but I still liked horses. (I still do. I'd like one one day: a big bay with a kind face and soft muzzle who likes Polo mints and carrots, called Kind Horsey. That would be good.)
Anyway, I digress. In Paris there were meat shops that had big gold model horse's heads stuck outside them. I was very sad when I found out they sold horse meat; I couldn't understand how anyone could eat a bit of a horse, because horses were nice to people and let them ride them, even if they were a bit naughty sometimes. And then one night we went out to dinner and a friend of my father's ate raw mince with an egg on, and told me it was horse. He was fibbing, but I was horrified.
I've never really recovered. I shy away from inappropriately raw things. I despise raw celery and green peppers, but that's not the point: I'm talking about things that should be cooked more than they are, served up as if there's nothing amiss. (I don't like me red meat well done, mind you. And yes, I know it's hypocritical to not eat horses but eat cows, pigs and sheep.) Phlegmy boiled eggs. Seared tuna, which makes me gag. I should really love sushi, what with being an ex-media twat from London, but I don't. Weirdness of clammy cold rice and raw tuna. No. No. And pasta: nothing more disgusting than overcooked pasta apart from, perhaps, undercooked wholemeal spaghetti, the combination of twig and facepack.
Vegetables are slightly more complicated. British people who fancy themselves as 'foodies' (trans: twat with a cookbook), bang on and on about how ghastly overcooked vegetables are. But it is these people who, in their desperation not to look like pikeys at their rubbish dinner parties in Fulham, serve crunchy potatoes, broccoli of wood, and beans that squeak when you bite them. I cook green beans properly most of the time, unless my new neighbour comes down and gives me wine.
The thing is, I can't properly explain why I think about horses when I eat undercooked green beans. I've tried, and I get it, but I'm not sure I can explain it. There's some sort of connection there, somewhere, but it is as it is. Whenever I see a jersey, I think about the way someone once showed me how to put on a duvet cover. Vogel's bread makes me think of the Beatles. The Telegraph is Edinburgh in 1985; red lipstick, thick black headbands; all cats are Chiswick, and fax machines are Irish squirrels. But most importantly, and most regularly, squeaky beans are horses.
