A Working Man’s Tea

After a tea of sausages and tinned tomatoes he sat by the fire smoking a cigarette. (Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning) 

Most of the literary references to food that appear in this blog have been chosen because the food appeals to me. I come across a meal in a book and I want to make it – and eat it. I’ve just finished reading Robert Seethaler’s The Tobacconist (2016), set in late 1930s Vienna, and references to dishes like ‘vanilla pudding in a hot dark chocolate sauce, sprinkled with freshly roasted flaked almonds’, ‘potato strudel’ and ‘pancakes with chocolate sauce and a thick layer of icing sugar’ make me want to do nothing more than put on my apron and get cooking.

But that is not always the case. Sometimes the food in literature is less appetizing: not necessarily disgusting (though that can happen, such as the burnt porridge in Jane Eyre), but simply not that appealing: food that is providing the necessary fuel for the character, but not food that gets either the reader or character salivating.

That is certainly the case with the food in Alan Sillitoe’s 1958 novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Sometimes categorised as one of the ‘angry young men’, Sillitoe was one of a number of Northern working-class writers – along with John Braine, Keith Waterhouse and Stan Barstow – documenting in fiction the lives of the working classes in the post-war decades.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is set in Sillitoe’s home town of Nottingham, also the origin of Sillitoe’s literary predecessor D. H. Lawrence, whom I wrote about here. But whereas Lawrence’s protagonists  want to break out of their working class roots, Sillitoe’s Arthur Seaton (whose initials match those of the author), seems to have no ambition to be anything other than the factory worker he is.

Sillitoe pulls no punches in his depiction of the harsh reality and mundanity of factory life and the relief that is sought in alcohol and sex, often with married women. But despite the trouble 21-year old Arthur gets himself into, his roguish charm and acceptance of what the world throws at him allows him to find happiness. As he thinks in the book’s penultimate paragraph: ‘Well, it’s a good life and a good world, all said and done, if you don’t weaken, and if you know that the big wide world hasn’t heard from you yet, no, not by a long way, though it won’t be long now’.

The food that appears in the novel reflects the brutality of working class life. Meals are substantial but basic and the elements are reported in a matter-of-fact way, with no suggestion of any character finding delight in the food. There are ‘thick slices of bread’, ‘a cup of tea and a bun’, ‘fried bacon’, ‘three eggs’ and the least appetizing of all, in my opinion, the ‘sausages and tinned tomatoes’ quoted above. This is cheap food that is quick to eat and will fill up the hungry working man after his day at the factory.

However unappealing the food in the book sounds, my aim in this blog is to make food that brings cheer. So, inspired by a Jamie Oliver recipe, I’ve swapped the tinned tomatoes for fresh tomatoes and produced a dish which I hope both sustains and delights.

A WORKING MAN’S TEA
Ingredients (serves 2, or 1 very hungry working man):
400g cherry tomatoes
6 sausages
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed or chopped finely
1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
extra virgin olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190C / fan 170C / Gas mark 5.
Place the tomatoes in a single layer in a roasting tin. Add the sausages, thyme, oregano and garlic, drizzle well with the oil and vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Mix everything together well and, making sure the sausages are on the top, place in the oven for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, turn the sausages over and then return to the oven for another 15-30 minutes depending on how well-cooked you like your sausages.
Serve with mashed potatoes and a green salad.