35 Signs You Read Enid Blyton As A Child...

[Katharine]

I like Quorn, but then I don't like meat very much. I wouldn't suggest that it's a substitute for meat though, rather an alternative if that makes sense.

[Daisy]

Yes Katharine, that sounds a better description.

[Katharine]

I could certainly understand someone expecting a pie full of rabbit to be rather disappointed to discover it had been replaced by a 'meat substitute'.

[Moonraker]

It's a substitute, make no mistake. Otherwise, why would products be labeled "Quorn Chicken" or "Quorn Sausages"? To me, to call a product chicken when it just contains dried fungus is a fraudulent claim.

[Katharine]

I'm surprised they are allowed to put that. I can understand Quorn mince, as you can get different types of mince anyway, but I would have thought they should be Chicken flavoured Quorn.

But then there are so many strange consumer laws. I was shocked to hear on TV the other night that children's fancy dress costumes aren't tested in the same way as night clothes for fire risk. Apparently they are classed as a toy, even though they are worn. I remember the campaign many years ago to get nightwear made safer, and assumed that fancy dress clothes would have passed the same controls.

[MJE]

A meat substitute favoured by vegetarians who want to have something akin to meat without eating an actual animal. I'm not keen on it.... only tried it once.

     Oh - I get what you mean, Daisy; but it is not called that here. Nut-meat or mock-chicken, or something like that. In the 1980s I was the organist at one of those less conventional, New-Agey types of independent church, and most of the people there were vegetarian, and at lunch after a service, people would often eat things that had nut-meat or mock-chicken in them. I ate them too, although I am not vegetarian. Not exactly objectionable, but not exactly enjoyable either.
     But it didn't stop me sometimes ducking over to the corner store just across the road and buying a couple of ham sandwiches. But I didn't eat them in the same room with the others, since that would seem insensitive; I would typically walk back slowly, just observing things, looking at the clouds or the sky or something, while I ate my sandwiches.

Regards, Michael.

[Katharine]

Quorn is a brand name. I believe it was developed for Rosemary Conley and her slimming empire.

[MJE]

Quorn is a brand name. I believe it was developed for Rosemary Conley and her slimming empire.

     I presume in post-Blyton times. Certainly there's no hint of such a thing in her books, either by that name or just by description.

Regards, Michael.

[Daisy]

There certainly wasn't any such hint - it was good old ham sandwiches every time!

[Katharine]

Yes, she published a book called The Hip and Thigh Diet in the late 1980s, and became a very successful lady, with numerous diet plans, a regular magazine, low fat recipe books and exercise tapes/DVDs sold over the next couple of decades. She also had loads of franchises throughout the country running slimming clubs. I'm not quite sure what the connection with Quorn is, all I know is that her business address was 'Quorn House' in Leicestershire. I'm not 100% that she was involved with the development of Quorn, but I have a feeling that she was.

Her business folded a year or two back, and she just runs it as an on-line concern now.

I don't know if diet clubs as such existed in Enid's time.

[MJE]

There certainly wasn't any such hint - it was good old ham sandwiches every time!

     Or Spam, sometimes. It seemed the Five almost salivated over the delicious Spam they were going to eat, but I have heard that many people dislike it, and that's something you buy only if you are so poor you can't afford ham (I've never had it, to my knowledge, so I can't give a personal view about it).
     But if anyone wants to be truly turned off Spam, I recommend that they Google "Spamku" or "Spam haiku", and read some of the pages they will find: huge collections of haiku verses about Spam - who would think that people *could* write hundreds of haiku about Spam? But they have done so, often with great wit and vivid description (unfortunately, usually in a very poor light). Some of the verses make it sound quite revolting!

Regards, Michael.

[pete9012S]

A meat substitute favoured by vegetarians who want to have something akin to meat without eating an actual animal. I'm not keen on it.... only tried it once.

Reminds me of Fawlty Towers and the Veal:

I couldn't help noticing you had some veal over here Veal? Yes, it's Dutch.
It's not Dutch, actually.
It's Norwegian.
- Norwegian? - Yes.
Not the absolute apex, quite honestly.
Terry, the veal is Dutch, isn't it? Norwegian, Mrs.
Fawlty.
I've been in this business 20 years, I've never heard of Norwegian veal.
They've only just branched into it.
I don't think it's a winner, frankly, more of a veal substitute.
It's got a lot of air pockets in it, that sort of thing.
- The lamb is Dutch.
- Dutch? English, I mean.
We call it Dutch 'cause it's as good as the veal.
Better, honestly.
- I prefer the veal.
- How about lobster? Would you prefer lobster? A couple of lobsters? It's frightfully good at the moment.
It's not expensive this week.
We've got so much, we're having a sale to try and shift it all.
Can't say fairer than that.
Just the veal.
If you like the veal perhaps you'd prefer the chicken? Basil, he wants the veal.

He's just been given veal! Uh, no, no.
That's veal substitute.
- Veal substitute? - It's not very good.
It got rather held up on the boat.
On the way over from - Japan.
- Norway.
It's a sort of a Japo-Scandinavian imitation veal substitute, and I'm afraid that's the last slice, anyway.

[Courtenay]

Wasn't that when they had put out a piece of veal with rat poison on it and then it got put back with the rest of the veal? And then they find the cat nibbling a slice of it and not getting sick, so that's the veal they try to give to the customer... while Manuel's "Filigree Siberian Hhhhamster" gets away unharmed and resurfaces most hilariously at the end??

[Paul Austin]

since Basil must have gone through his entire life being mocked for his surname, why did he not only keep the name but also name the hotel after it? And why did Sybil let him?

Within the universe of the show, that's never made any sense to me.

[Julie2owlsdene]

Because it wouldn't work any other way and be funny!! That's all part of the British humour of the series.