Friday, January 05, 2007

In case some of you hadn't already noticed, I currently reside in London. More specifically, in Hanwell, in the west of the city.
Hanwell is famous for a number of things; Dick Turpin got his horse, Bess, from the farm in Studland Road, Charlie Chaplin lived in the old Cuckoo Schools for a while, and Queen Victoria used to get her train to stop on the viaduct so she could admire the view.
Oh, and Hanwell's also made the dictionary, being defined as 'Lunatic Asylum' after John Conolly built the local St. Bernards Hospital.
Anyway, nowadays Hanwell is getting more and more cosmopolitan, and thanks to the Free Market, many shops selling products from far and exotic shores abound the streets.
Polish delicatessens offer an array of tasty dumplings and honey liqueurs, and the halal butchers ensure that you can purchase a chicken and tamarind paste on bank holidays and when all the other shops are closed.
But most exciting of all, is that I can now play a game, that previously I only ever had the chance to play whilst abroad on holidays, being the 'guess what the hell is in the tin' or 'Russian Roulette with ingredients'.
The game is played by going to the area of a shop where every item has every language other than English on it to tell you what the ingredients are, and hopefully a relevant picture of the contents. Fun indeed, if you like to take a gamble on what you're going to get for dinner.
I've been mostly lucky so far, and apart from the odd tin where even Pudsey couldn't guess what it was, I've discovered some very tasty new foodstuffs indeed*.
But the other day I found a tin that really has me guessing.
I presume the one with a picture of a chick on it contains chicken**, but if that is the case, then wtf is in the other?

Anybody want to hazard a guess?
And have you ever found anything strange in your local corner shops or abroad?

*Cock soup was rather dubious as to taste, but it had a picture of a chicken on it, so I hope it was chicken in it.
**Or possibly feathers.