Humus: take 2
I’m a great fan of hummus and I was writing the story of how I first met it, how I found my all-time favourite and my feeble attempts to make it myself. All was going well, and I was just adding some links when BAM!! the WordPress goblin stole my words and I was left with a couple of links and a blank page. I will not be intimidated by a shirty little sprite, so here is take 2, on how I first met hummus.
I would have been about seventeen or eighteen when I first met hummus. Back in the olden days, when I was young, it wasn’t something I had ever come across, but I went down to London to met my junior school best friend, Anna whose family had moved away from Cambridge to Brighton when we were about eleven. We had written to each other all those years, letters backwards and forwards, keeping up with each other’s lives. She moved to London and we arranged for me to come down and see her. Obviously it’s a long time ago, but some scenes of our time together are so vivid still. She was living (or maybe her boyfriend was) in an attic apartment in a tall red brick building. I slept in a sleeping bag on a bare wooden floor – I think she/they had some sort of couch. In case you think she should have given up the couch to me, no doubt she offered and I said I preferred sleeping on the floor – which I really did! The next day we went to a small cafe, with little tables, green paint on the walls, and a staircase going up at the side. We sat opposite each other next to the staircase and she ordered food which she was sure I would enjoy – which I very much did. We had falafels, something I didn’t even now existed, and hummus which I absolutely loved from the first mouthful – and ever since.
Fast forward to two years ago and husband and I were in Cornwall for a shanty fest. We were in a lovely self-catering accommodation which was very near a Co-Op, so I wandered down to pick up some supplies. I came across a big tub of hummus with the name Ramona on the side. That went into the basket as well as crusty bred and other things we needed. Back at the accommodation, we had lunch and I tried the hummus – wow!! It was fabulous, so full of flavour, so light, so creamy, really satisfying and absolutely delicious! Since then, it has been my go-to and although not everywhere sells it, I found places that did – and before long it became widely available everywhere. Not long after that, I was listening to the radio and there was an item on the radio, interviewing Ramona herself!
Here is a link to her: https://ramonaskitchen.com/
and here is a link to the programme:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001vbqs
Lois Elsden 